Devotion for today: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Cataract surgery was a success. Now let us continue our meditation on The Lord’s Prayer.

John 6:38-40: "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent  Me. "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing,  but raise it up on the last day.  "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds 

the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

What is God’s will? I think, from all the reading I have done on this, that I can summarize God’s will in a few points.

God’s will which is to be done on earth is found in the 10 Commandments and the Beatitudes. It is found throughout the New Testament in the words of Jesus Christ and those of the New Testament writers. It is the blueprint for the way life needs to be led. God created the world, and His will for the world is made very clear in these two “direction manuals.” It boils down to loving God enough to follow His commands,  to loving our neighbor and loving ourselves enough to want to spend eternity with God. He tells us specifically how to do this, but if we constantly change God’s ways into our ways we can truthfully say we have written our own manual. No matter what the world tells you, it won’t work.

 God’s will is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s will. If you want to know God’s will, study Jesus. Jesus was love, compassion, obedience, service, sacrifice, and faithfulness. Jesus was firm in His statements, kind in His mercy, goal-oriented in His life. Jesus died so that the will of His Father would be done. Can we expect to do any less than to die to self in order to have God and His will reign in our lives? Jesus is our model: study Jesus and we will be studying God’s will.

God’s will is love. Heaven is the perfect existence of love. God is love; those in His presence are filled with love of God, those who die filled with love of God and His will die filled with God. Hence they have done God’s will on earth and will now be doing it in heaven. The old expression is true: You die the way you lived. If you die filled with the little demons of loving secular life too much, and loving your own will too much, you cannot enter into pure love. You have too much pride in your own beliefs, and as a result, you have chosen to do your will instead of God’s. As C. S. Lewis so brilliantly states: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in hell choose it. Without that self-choice, there could be no hell.” Doing God’s will is simply choosing God in every thought, word and deed of your life.

God’s will for you is the dream He had for you when He placed you in your mother’s womb. Every talent, every ability, every physical feature, where and when you were born, were all part of His plan for you. He embedded in your heart the desire to become what He needs in the world at this time in history. He blessed you with faith and hope and love in order to get yourself and everyone He placed in your life back to Him. Ralph Martin tells us in his book “The Fulfillment of all Desire” that “God’s will for us is our total perfection, our total conformity to love of God and neighbor.” Examine your life, study your gifts and compare your life to that of Jesus’. How are you doing so far?

God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven” can also be interpreted as God’s will for your body (earth) as well as for your spirit (heaven). Many people believe that if they do enough holy things and read enough holy books they will get a “Go to Heaven free pass”. Not so. God needs His will done in your body as well as in your soul. He wants you to be perfect as He is perfect. That can only occur when you give up your earthly addictions to pleasure, power, personal righteousness and prestige, and give that earthly will to God to do as He pleases. Your heavenly will is the same. Some people become addicted to always searching for God. They love the search more that they love the physical works of mercy they must also do to become like Jesus.  What they are not doing is spending much time in God’s presence, in prayer, in quiet solitude, letting God into their souls. What they are not doing is being God’s servant to those who need Him in their lives. God must be in our body, which came from the earth, and our spirits, which came from heaven in order to be the Lord of our lives. When we say “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” let us  not bemoan the state of affairs in the world, but instead, let us bemoan the state of affairs in ourselves, discover and repent of our physical and spiritual weaknesses, and begin again to “seek first the things of the kingdom, the will of God.” God in His infinite mercy awaits us. St. Cyprian tells us:

We also say in addition: 'Thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth,' not that God may do what He wishes, but that we may be able to do what God wishes. For who stands in the way of God's doing what He wishes? But since the devil stands in the way of our mind and action obeying God in all things, we pray and petition that God's will be done in us. That it may be done in us, there is need of God's will, that is, of His help and protection, because no one is strong in his own strength, but is safe by the indulgence and mercy of God. Finally also the Lord, showing the infirmity of man which He was bearing, says: 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,' and giving forth to His disciples an example not to do their own will but God's, He added: 'Yet not as I will, but as thou wills.' And in another place He says: 'For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.' But if the Son obeyed to do His Father's will, how much more should the servant obey to do his Lord's will, just as John also in his epistle urges and instructs us to do the will of God, saying: 'Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him, because all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life which is not from the Father, but from the lust of the world. And the world with its lust will pass away, but he who does the will of God abides forever, as God also abides forever.' We who wish to abide forever should do the will of God who is eternal.

Tomorrow we will look at Biblical quotes, the Catechism and great saints and writers to see what they say about my summary. I think they would like it!