Thy Will Be Done

                                                                Written by Becky Smith

The small prayer group that my husband and I belong to, that meets daily on the steps of Midland County Courthouse, has been blessed by God in so many ways. The greatest blessing is being able to spend an hour in His presence, and knowing that He is in our presence, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).

As I said, our prayer group is small, but we have become closer to each other than many families are. We represent different churches, different areas of our community, different generations, different life experiences, but we all share the same passion for the Lord and the need for His presence in our lives. We also share the belief that what is written in the Bible, from the first word in Genesis to the last word in Revelation, is true… God’s Truth revealed to man through the Holy Scriptures. “I, the Lord, speak the truth.” (Isaiah 45:19). This we can stake our very lives on.

And we share the same concern for our nation. In Ezekiel 22:30 our Lord says “I looked for a man among them who would … stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” That was then… this is now. God has called those in our prayer group to do just this… to stand in the gap for this nation, to intercede for our country and people, to seek His forgiveness for the collective sins of our nation and citizens. When the Lord looks today, He will find several willing to stand in the gap.

We in our prayer group are ordinary people, we were born into sin, and we each have times when we slip and fall. But through God’s grace and mercy He draws us back to Him. Through His love and in His strength, He enables us to continue to stand in the gap. But over the course of these two years, we have also come to understand that regardless of what the future holds, whether our nation survives or not, that all will play out according to His Story as written and prophesied, and in His perfect timing. We finally reached the point of submission to His Sovereignty, a crucial step in our faith walk with Him, a step that He had been tenderly and patiently leading us toward.

The step of submission, of relinquishing our cares and concerns to Him is not always easy for us human beings, but Jesus did teach us to pray “Thy will be done.” Sometimes when we pray those words we do it offhandedly. But when we truly mean those words, Thy will be done, a great peace awaits us. When we trust in the Lord in the face of adversity we can rejoice in Him, knowing “that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

David, in Psalm 37:7,20 says “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. [For] the wicked will perish: The Lord’s enemies will be like the beauty of the fields, they will vanish – vanish like smoke.” Those who know the Lord, those in whom dwells the Holy Spirit, need not fear what men may do, even if that means the loss of one’s life here on this earth. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

We must put our faith and trust in the Lord. Thy will be done.