Thy Will be Done

To write an essay is to push a rope. To bring someone else along on the ride is another tier entire. But the pushing the rope can be easy enough. You say something – anything – and you see what else comes to mind.

Musing on such a matter brings to mind the question of ideas, specifically, “Where do they come from?” Or perhaps proper grammar will better serve the query: “From whence do ideas come?”

One of my best friends once challenged me with a similar question about desire. “Where do we get our desires?” he asked. I did not know how to answer. He suggested if God is Sovereign then all our desires come from God. He directs every detail of our lives and does so, in part, by moving us into His will by way of our desires. I did not, nor do I now, have a very good answer, for this is in the very heart of free will vs. Sovereignty.

Perhaps an example will help – help me at least. Of a sudden I am tired of writing. Why don't I quit? Because I would like to finish though no one says I must. Why do I want to quit? Because I lack inspiration, because I am writing with little point, because I feel weary and there are easier things that beckon. Our motivations are all over the map but they are usually self-serving. Does God really cause all we do down to the very nitty gritty?​ I have never thought so because I imagined I had free will, that I could choose to disobey or obey and such choosing gave my actions true agency and thus true accountability.

So surely this same applies to ideas, for they are very close to desires, free will, and the will of God. As is my wont I will side-step this a bit and go to a truth I have found helpful. I have learned to pray “Thy will be done” and to believe He is working it out in spite of me and, yes, sometimes by way of me. This answers the problem in measure because I am asking for God's will, I am leaning on Him, and I believe He in turn is giving me the ideas and desires that will accomplish His will. And His will is always good. Nothing better!

This keeps personal agency and real personal choice intact while bringing the 'agency' of God into the picture in a real, tangible, relational way. He doesn't force but he persuades and uses a compendium of circumstances at His disposal to bring about the Good.

As Solzhenitsyn said, “He will see that all the ways of Goodness are not stopped.”

Where do ideas and desires come from? From within, from our innate self-serving bent, from our training, from a variety of motivations we can scarcely anticipate, understand, or control. And from God.

But especially from God when we pray as Jesus taught us: “May Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I'm learning to pray this all the time, and I commend it to you as well.