Not my will, but yours alone!
May 10, 2022
In a former job, one day, the head of the Health & Safety team, who also worked in the Nashville office, walked into my office. He proceeded to tell me that he was in need of someone to go to Connecticut to provide a health and safety training for a company. There was only one problem . . . I knew nothing about health and safety. To prove my point: my favorite two foods are pasta and sugar and I regularly stand on the top rung of a step ladder. I made no bones about it. I told him such. His response was that he needed a warm body to go to the company, read through some slides on a presentation so that the workers could officially be certified having gone through the course.
At this point, I offered that again I KNEW NOTHING about health and safety training. To which, he responded again, “I NEED A WARM BODY TO GO!!” He reiterated what he had just said. Finally, I agreed to go. Upon getting to the facility in Connecticut, I began working with the individuals who served as my contacts for the facility. We established a schedule, and I began reading to . . . uh . . . training the employees, so that they could receive their needed certification.
I know this example seems silly. Still the point is the same. I went to an unfamiliar location to do the will of someone else, following the instructions of that individual. Jesus, the God/Man came to earth to bear the weight of our sin so that we could wear His righteousness before the Sovereign King of Creation. Jesus came not to do His own will, but to submit to the will of His Father in Heaven. He was willing to do that which Adam and Eve and ALL of their descendants were unwilling and unable to do – give up their own right to follow the will of God.
Finally, Jesus called disciples and one of His last acts was to commission those disciples to make more disciples. If a disciple is a learner, one who learns the ways of another, then ultimately, we are to learn the ways of Jesus. So, if that is indeed the case, and you consider yourself a Christian, meaning follower/disciple/brother or sister of Jesus, how are you doing in giving up your own will to follow the will of the Father? Are you manipulating what God’s word says for your own benefit, and thereby following the god of comfort/pleasure? Or, are you willing to listen to the hard directives of God, thereby saying, not my will but Yours alone?
