“Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

A seminarian, when asked where he’d like to serve his first parish, answered: Anywhere the Lord leads me – in Texas.” Sometimes we fail to understand the nature of God’s will.

Jesus expressed the will of God as the sovereign justice, goodness, and wisdom by which He governs all things. Some people have reduced the will of God to cold, cruel fate or even to “luck.” Many speak of the will of God only in connection with tragedy. Actually God’s good and gracious will is active in every event of our lives, if only we will seek to become aware of it.

Too often we try to impose our own will on the will of God, and that isn’t good. Isaiah says: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way [will]; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Praise God! Sinless Himself, Jesus has paid for the sins of our stubborn will. We stand forgiven before God.

So we pray that God’s divine will may become the regulator of our attitudes and ambitions, as well as the divine blueprint for all our actions. Even as the angels in heaven know and joyfully do God’s will, so may we come to understand it and do it gladly.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, You have set the perfect example for doing the Father’s will. Lead us in the way we should go. Amen.

(Taken from “Words of Promise” (out of print), copyright 1996, Concordia Publishing House. For information on other devotional materials, call 1-800-325-3040.)

Today's Bible Readings: Psalms 136, 146    1 Corinthians 3

To Download Devotion MP3 to your computer, right click here and select "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" or "Download Linked File As"