• How is the human will described?
• How does this prayer help us to examine the desires of our hearts?
• Who is ultimately behind every challenging circumstance? How might this reflect what we know about God’s sovereignty in Romans 8:28-30?
• Why are impatience and discouragement so dangerous?
• Who or what is the greatest threat we face?
• Where should we go in times of trial?

The Third Petition: Thy will be done equally in heaven and earth

What this means:

Compared with your will, ours is never good but always evil. Your will is at all times the best, to be cherished and desired above everything else. Therefore have mercy upon us, O dear Father, and let nothing happen just because it is our own will. Grant and teach us a deeply based patience in times when our will is prevented from happening or comes to nothing or when someone contradicts our will by what he says or does not say, does or leaves undone. Help us not to become angry or vexed, not to curse, complain, protest, condemn, disparage, or contradict [when what we will is not done]. Help us to yield humbly to our adversaries and those who obstruct our will, surrendering our own will. Help us to speak well of such adversaries, to bless them, and to do good to them as persons who are carrying out your best and godly purposes in contradiction to our own.

Grant us grace to bear willingly all sorts of sickness, poverty, disgrace, suffering, and adversity and to recognize that in this your divine will is crucifying our will. Help us also to endure injustice gladly and preserve us from taking revenge. Let us not repay evil with evil [Matthew 5:39; Romans 12:19-21] nor meet violence with violence, but rather let us rejoice that these things happen to us according to your will and so let us praise and give thanks to you [Matthew 5:11]. Let us not ascribe to the devil or to evil persons anything that happens contrary to our will, but solely ascribe this to your divine will which orders everything that may hinder our will in order to increase the blessedness of your kingdom. Help us to die willingly and gladly and readily accept death as your will so that we do not become disobedient to you through impatience or discouragement on our part.

Grant that we do not give our bodily members—eyes, tongue, heart, hands, and feet—free rein for what they desire or purpose, but make them captive to your will, bring them to a stop, and subdue them. Protect us from any kind of evil will— stubborn, stiff-necked, or obstinate. Grant us true obedience, a perfect, calm, single-minded composure in all things—spiritual, earthly, temporal, and eternal. Protect us from the horrible vice of character assassination, slander, backbiting, frivolously judging or condemning others, and misrepresenting what others have said. O hold far from us the plague and tragedy which such speech can cause; rather, whenever we see or hear anything in others that seems wrong or displeasing to us, teach us to keep quiet, not to publicize it, and to pour out our complaints to you alone and to commit all to your will. And let us sincerely forgive all who wrong us and be sympathetic toward them.

Teach us to recognize that no one can harm us without first harming himself a thousand times more in your eyes, so that we might thus be moved more to pity rather than to anger toward such a person, to commiserate with him rather than count up his wrongs. Whenever those who did not do our will or did us harm in their conduct or otherwise displeased us are struck with adversity, help us to refrain from rejoicing. Also help us not to be saddened by their good fortune.

To this petition belongs every psalm, verse, or prayer which petitions for help against sin and our foes.

Martin Luther, PERSONAL PRAYER BOOK 1522. Luther’s Works, Vol. 43 : Devotional Writings II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1968). 43:III-34.

1. It Will Humble You.
2. It Will Give You Opportunities to Witness.
3. It Will Give You Opportunities to be Ridiculed / Persecuted. Christ himself
4. It Will Change the Way You Think.
5. It Will Reveal Idols.
6. It Will Force You to Think in Ethical Categories.
7. Silence Can be Sin.

Here is an interesting reflection on healing from Sam Storms entitled Why God Doesn’t Always Heal based on 2 Corinthians 12:8-10:  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  (9)  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  (10)  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

You can read the entire post by clicking HERE. Storms makes several good points but I found the following quote particularly helpful:

(6) We must also consider the mystery of divine providence. There are undoubtedly times and seasons in the purposes of God during which his healing power is withdrawn or at least largely diminished. God may have any number of reasons for this to which we are not privy, whether to discipline a wayward and rebellious church or to create a greater desperation for his power or to wean us off excessive dependence on physical comfort and convenience or any number of other possibilities. If this leaves you confused, that’s why it’s called a mystery!

But what must we say when the problem isn’t the absence of faith or the presence of a demon or the refusal to repent or the failure to pray or a lack of desire? How then do we account for on-going physical affliction, as in Paul’s case? I strongly urge you to carefully read the next point.

(7) Often times there are dimensions of spiritual growth and moral development and increase in the knowledge of God in us that he desires MORE than our physical health, experiences that in his wisdom God has determined can only be attained by means or in the midst of or in response to less than perfect physical health. In other words, healing the sick is a good thing (and we should never cease to pray for it), but often there is a better thing that can only be attained by means of physical weakness.

More important to God than our physical health is our spiritual holiness. This isn’t to say the body isn’t important. God isn’t a Gnostic! He values and has redeemed our bodies and now dwells within them as his eternal temple. But while we live in this corrupt and decaying world, inner and spiritual conformity to the image of Christ often comes only at the expense of or at least simultaneous with physical deterioration and suffering (see 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Let me personalize this principle. If I believe Romans 8:28, that God sovereignly orchestrates all events in my life for my ultimate spiritual good (and preeminently for his ultimate glory), I can only conclude that, all things being equal, if I’m not healed it is because God values something in me greater than my physical comfort and health that he, in his infinite wisdom and kindness, knows can only be attained by means of my physical affliction and the lessons of submission, dependency, and trust in God that I learn from it.

Genesis 37:31-33

Accordingly, God humbles those who are His to exalt them; He kills them to make them alive; He confounds them to glorify them; He makes them subject to raise them up. This is the art of arts and science of sciences which is not usually learned or discovered except with great toil and by a few; but it is nevertheless sure and certain, as this example testifies, for what is stated in Psalm 105:21 is true: “The Lord appointed Joseph king of Egypt and lord and savior of many.” How? By having him sold, cast off, killed. These are works of God which are not understood unless they are fulfilled and completed. In the meantime, however, while they are being carried out, they cannot be grasped except by faith alone. For it is necessary simply to hold fast to this: “I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, Maker of heaven and earth, etc.”

In the same manner, when I am about to depart from this life, I support myself with this consolation that I believe in God’s Son. And yet I am buried; I am eaten by worms; I am consumed by the most foul rottenness, as Job says (Job 17:14): “I said to the rottenness, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worms, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister.’ ” Here I do not discern God’s plan, that although I die and rot away, I must at some time be revived. But God has promised and said (John 14:19): “You will live, for I live, and you will live. I am the Lord your God!” How? In eternal life and with a more beautiful and brighter body than the body of the sun. At present I do not see or feel this, but I believe it and suffer this very short delay. For this life has already been prepared, and in the meantime the crown of the kingdom and glory is being prepared “which the Lord will give me on that Day, the righteous Judge,” as Paul says (2 Timothy 4:8), “and not only to me, but also to those who love His coming.”

But all these things are done in a hidden manner, and so the wonderful concealment of God must be borne and endured. Jacob and Joseph do not see the crown of the kingdom, nor do the brothers adore him on bended knees, as will happen later in Egypt, but by this selling future events are being prepared, and before God they are regarded as past and over. With our God this is as if it had already taken place. It certainly comes to pass!

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 6 : Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 31-37, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1970). 6:401.

See also Psalm 139, Romans 8:28,  Romans 5:1-5, Job 1:20-22, Philippians 4:11-13

If you have been following along in the sermon series on 1st Peter you know that the Apostle worked diligently to keep disciples of Jesus Christ attuned to how God was at work in the midst of their struggles.  I know that for most Christians it’s relatively straightforward to acknowledge, at least at a theoretical level, that God is conforming us to the image of Christ through difficulties (Romans 8:28-29). For most of us the discouragement comes when we cannot see tangible signs of how our hardships fit into the “big picture” of God’s plan to redeem the universe (Ephesians 3:7-13) . John Piper has written a recent blog post that is relevant to this issue which reads in part….

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God cannot make plain all he is doing, because there are millions and millions and millions and millions of effects of every event in your life, the good and the bad. God guides them all. They all have micro purposes and macro purposes. He cannot tell you all of them because your brain can’t hold all of them.

Trust does not demand more than God has told us. And he has given us immeasurably precious promises that he is in control of all things and only does good to his children. And he has given us a very thick book where we can read story after story after story about how he rules for the good of his people.

Let’s trust him and not ask for what our brains cannot contain.

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Read the whole thing and see an illustration of this point by clicking HERE

In C.S. Lewis’s book The Screwtape Letters, senior demon Screwtape gives  his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood advice on leading his human into damnation:

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the present…He would…have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

“Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present… It is far better to make them live in the Future…thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. …Nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

See also Matthew 6:19-34 & Philippians 4:4-7

Though we often do not see it, our rebellion against God incorporates numbers. We take comfort in them instead of receiving comfort from our Creator. This is especially true for the soldier at war. We count the days—days passed and days to go. We think if we can outlast the number of days a deployment requires of us—451 at the beginning of this deployment—then we will be just fine. In our own minds the battle is not with our sinful nature, the world, and the devil. Rather it is with the calendar. I too am guilty of this. I play number games in my own head instead of giving thanks to the Creator of the day.

We take comfort in time that has passed rather than giving thanks for what has been. Many of us at war are ever grateful each night as we lay down our heads to rest that one more day has come to its completion. Our heart is not on gratitude for the blessings of the day. Often we do give thanks for our daily bread and the fact that we are still alive and well—things that deal with our own personal welfare. This is good and right, but incomplete. Rarely do we end the day thanking God for the blessings of good friends and all the other things for which we ought to give thanks. I often find myself telling soldiers that they should not wish away any day of their lives. I too need to live by this.

To read more of the chaplain’s reflection go HERE