How may we refrain from expressing human will, or aggressive mental suggestion? If we wish to express the opposite of this false will, should we be passive? When we pray, "Thy will be done," are we announcing a desire to wait for God to do our work for us? What does it mean for God's will to be done? These questions come to Christian Scientists who are striving to reflect the divine government in dealings with others, in daily living, and in church affairs.
Christ Jesus said when he was faced with the most severe trial of his life (Luke 22:42), "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy says of the Master's humble prayer (p. 33), "When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Teacher said: 'Not my will, but Thine, be done!'—that is, Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me." The true student of Christian Science strives to lift consciousness to Spirit's demand—to let Spirit be represented in his daily life. When he understandingly prays, "Thy will be done," he is not praying for God to do his work for him; nor is he praying to be meekly subject to what is sometimes known as fate. He is rather praying to have grace to identify himself with the certitude of divine activity. He knows that doing God's will is obeying divine impulsion in might as well as in meekness. He knows that God's will is actually the only will there is and that it is all-powerful.
Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 323): "Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause,—wait on God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory." We listen for God's voice that we may know how to "push onward." We find that there is no loitering by the way if we are to accomplish what God wills; there is no whining over sense pictures, or complaining because others do not work. Human activity, when in harmony with God's purpose, is alive and vigorous as well as unlabored. The obedient learn progressively to express the vital activity of divine Mind in their human experience, thereby blessing all mankind. To learn to express the opposite of human will is to learn to manifest the swift vitality of Spirit itself in acknowledged submission to divine law. Obeying God's will leads toward the demonstration of man's perfection as revealed in Science.
