This is exactly what Jesus demonstrated when He was on earth. “Not my will, but thine, be done” was not just a prayer Jesus prayed one time before His crucifixion. This was the unvarying posture of His heart. He was always living and walking in perfect submission to the will of God. Everywhere Jesus went, He taught about the kingdom, but He didn’t just talk about it, He demonstrated it!

First, the kingdom was inside of Him because He was perfectly submitted to His Father’s will. And consequently the kingdom was manifest wherever He went: the sick were healed, the dead were raised, and demons fled. “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” was not Jesus’s hopeful musing for an imaginary utopia. Jesus fulfilled His own prayer and showed us how it will be answered. Through Jesus God’s will was being done on earth as it is in heaven, and this is what God desires to do through our lives as well. But it all begins when we come to a place where our will is submitted to God’s—“Not my will, but Yours, be done.” It is in this place of submission that we will discover and fulfil God’s will for our lives.

The Greek term seek is an action word. It is ongoing and continuous. This is important to understand because discovering God’s will for our lives is not simply a destination to be reached; it is a posture of the heart! It is not simply a matter of choosing the right career path or marrying the right spouse. It is an ongoing stance of submission to God’s will above our own. It is a lifelong prayer, “Not my will, but thine, be done.” As long as we live, we must continue to follow and obey. Discovering God’s will for our lives happens daily as we constantly and faithfully seek to know and to do His will.

As we travel on the journey of discovering God’s will, the narrow road cuts through a dark valley where God tests our hearts and breaks us. The breaking process is uncomfortable but very important to endure if we want to see God’s will done in our lives. The valley of brokenness is where we learn to say, “Not my will, but Yours, be done.” This brokenness, while painful, releases amazing power and makes us useful to God. When a cowboy wants to harness the potential of a beautiful and powerful stallion, he sits on the horse’s back. This is very uncomfortable to the animal. It has always been its own master. It has always done what it wanted to do. And when the cowboy begins to exert his will over the horse’s, a desperate struggle ensues. The horse begins to kick and thrash and buck in an attempt to throw the cowboy off its back. But the trainer will keep getting back on the horse and keep riding it until it stops kicking and bucking. The cowboy knows that until the horse’s will is broken, it is of little use. So it is with God’s people. Until we are broken, we are of little use to God’s kingdom.

When God told Gideon he would become a mighty deliverer of Israel—and Gideon finally believed Him—the once fearful warrior may have pictured himself riding on a noble steed, commanding a legion of soldiers in glorious battle array. But God had something very different in mind. Gideon would not have a legion of warriors at his command, only a ragtag gang of three hundred roughnecks. There were no archers, no cavalry, and no infantry. They were not outfitted with the latest battle equipment: no swords, shields, or spears. Instead they carried curious trumpets and jars of clay. Finally the moment came for Gideon and his men to face the innumerable hordes of the Midianite army. In obedience to God’s command they broke their jars of clay, in which were hidden fiery torches. They blew their trumpets and began to shout. The Bible says the Midianites were thrown into confusion, and Israel won an
unlikely victory. (See Judges 7.)

Paul, speaking about the power of God, says in 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all- surpassing power is from God and not from us” (niv). Before the great power that is inside us can be unleashed, we must be broken like Gideon’s clay jars.