Scriptural Prayers - Not My Will but Yours Be Done 1
David W Palmer
(Luke 22:41–42 NKJV) And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, … “not My will, but Yours, be done.”
“Not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus’s prayer to his Father highlights the heart attitude that we should all have—one of surrendering to God’s plan, instructions, and assignment for our lives.
From the outset of living fully for Jesus, I prayed about doing God’s will. Initially—because we were used to living from our minds—we automatically thought the perfect prayer for this was: “Just show me what you want me to do and I will do it.” But history reveals that those who have prayed this way simply couldn’t do what they were promising:
(Deuteronomy 5:27 NKJV) “You go near and hear all that the LORD our God may say, and tell us all that the LORD our God says to you, and we will hear and do it.”
The people Moses led thought it was just a simple matter of intellectually knowing what God wanted them to do, and then they would easily choose to do it by their own will-power and strength. However, even though this may have worked in certain areas, in the big and challenging issues of life, they didn’t simply hear and obey. For example, they struggled to obey God’s instructions about manna, and they certainly failed to do what he wanted when it came to entering the Promised Land (See: Exo. 16:20, Num. 14:1–4).
So the simple prayer for God to show you what he wants you to do, and then you’ll just do it is flawed; it relies on human strength and will power. Even the apostle Paul discovered the cold, hard reality of this flaw:
(Romans 7:15, 19 NLT) “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. ... {19} I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”
When I prayed for God to show me his will and I will do it, I didn’t realise that the “I will” in this prayer was the problem. The heart attitude of wanting to do God’s will is right, but we need some supernatural enlightenment from God about how to succeed at it—even when we know exactly what it is. Without doubt, God wants us to do his will. After all, Jesus is both Lord and Shepherd, and these titles imply that he is in control and that we follow his lead, instructions, and guidance. But he wants us to learn how to both want it and then be able to do it.
Throughout my walk with Jesus, I have seen three different aspects to this:
We will look at these over the next three days. Today …
1. The Knowledge of God’s will
(Colossians 1:9–12 NKJV) For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; {10} that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; {11} strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; {12} giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
