Mark 14:36, “…not what I will, but what you will.”
Edited thoughts from this morning’s journal entry:
This prayer exposes us to the heart of what it means to be a human being in right relation to God. Yes, Jesus is fully God, but so too is He fully man. Just as we see in Him who our God is, we also see in Him who we will one day be and who we ought to strive to imitate even now. So, in this moment, we see the heart of faith….the heart of what it means to be a son of the Father, a creature of the Creator, a lamb of the Shepherd—“not what I will, but what you will.”
Not what I will, but what you will…..this is a crucifixion of the will even before the crucifixion of the body….this is an offering up of our will on the altar of YHWH’s Name, in the fires of His own perfect will…not in some tortured, sacrificial, embittered way, but in a sweet and trusting way, a way that actually says, “more than my will, I will your will” (consider John 7:17).
So, even as our will is sacrificed, it is our own deeper, stronger, firmer, more hopeful will that binds the cords and raises the knife. To say, “not my will, but yours be done” is to say that our greatest will is HIS will. It is to conform our will to His own, to conform our desires to His own….This is taking up our cross and following our crucified Lord through suffering into glory, this is dying with Him so that we might live with Him.
