Thy will be done

The one part of the Lord's prayer that intrigued me today was: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done".

An average human being wants everything his way. We are happy when things go right; when our children behave the way we want them to; or when our spouse behaves exactly the way we expect them to. We are happy when strangers follow all the rules of courtesy when we are present. We are happy when service providers render good service to us. However, as soon as things run contrary to our expectations, we become a different animal. A prayerful Christian might start to pray for OTHERS to change and become "good". We seldom think that it is we ourselves who need to change.

If we truly pray for God's will to be done, I think it is useful to look inwards. People around us will always fall short of perfection. If we are able to accept them for who and what they are, then we will begin to understand what we are praying for, and we will no longer be a sweet Christian when things go well, and an ugly sinner when the going gets ugly.