When My Way is Not His Way

Here is a sentence I’d like you to think about today.  “I won’t be disappointed when God has His way.”  Most of us like “our way”.  When we are little children we are pretty interested in our own way.  We get pretty upset when things don’t go our way.  But it can’t be that way as a follower of Jesus Christ.  The end of how Jesus teaches us to pray in Matthew 6:13 ends with these words, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and glory forever. Amen.”  This prayer, called the Lord’s prayer, is full of requests that we are told to make.  But whenever we make a request, we have to acknowledge that the way God answers that request might be different than the way we envisioned.

The struggle for us as children of God is to fully believe that we won’t be disappointed when God has His way.   We need to trust God that the way He orchestrates our life is the absolute best for us.  We need to believe that His will is best and that as followers of Jesus, our purpose in this life is not to get our way but to live out “His way” in each of our lives.  That is just about impossible unless you have decided that His way is the best way.  Until you settle that, whenever your way is different than His way, you will be frustrated, or worse, rebel against His way.

The “model prayer”, often referred to as the “Lord’s prayer” begins and ends with an acknowledgement that our lives are not primarily about us, but about God.  Our lives are not to be lived for our glory but for His glory.  Our lives are not centered on our will but on God’s will.

When my way is not His way, I must trust that His way is better than my way.  Praying the way that Jesus teaches us here reminds us of this and reinforces this truth as we face each and every day.