Plans, Purposes, & Pursuits Week 1
Day 3
“…your kingdom come, your will be done…” - Matthew 6:10
We say we want God’s will, but if we’re honest, we still want control.
We want His plan… as long as it aligns with our timeline.
We want His direction… as long as it makes sense to us.
We want His blessing… without surrendering our preferences.
That’s the tension we don’t like to admit.
Because when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your will be done,” He is inviting us into something far deeper than guidance, He’s calling us into surrender.
And surrender is where we struggle.
Not because we don’t love God.
Not because we don’t want what’s right.
But because surrender feels like loss.
It feels like giving something up.
It feels like stepping into uncertainty.
It feels like laying down control over the areas of life that matter most, our family, our future, our finances, our calling.
And if we’re being real, control feels safer than surrender.
At least when we’re in control, we know what we’re choosing. We know what to expect. We can manage outcomes, adjust plans, and protect ourselves from disappointment.
But surrender?
Surrender requires trust.
And trust is hard when:
We don’t see the full picture
We’ve been disappointed before
God’s timing feels slow
Or His direction feels unclear
So instead of fully surrendering, we live in a subtle middle ground.
We follow God, selectively.
We obey in the areas that feel comfortable.
We hold back in the areas that feel costly.
We ask God to bless our plans instead of surrendering to His.
And without realizing it, we create a version of faith that looks spiritual on the outside but remains self-directed at the core.
To say it more plainly: “We can’t live in God’s plan when we are constantly trying to live on our own.”
That’s not harsh, it’s clarifying.
Because it reveals where the real struggle is.
The issue isn’t that God’s will is impossible to find.
The issue is that our will is hard to release.
And this shows up in everyday ways.
It shows up when:
We feel prompted to forgive, but hold onto offense instead
We sense God leading us to step out, but we stay where it’s comfortable
We know what’s right, but delay acting on it
We often say, “I’m waiting on God,” when in reality… God may be waiting on us.
Waiting for us to trust Him enough to obey.
Waiting for us to surrender what we’ve been holding onto.
Waiting for us to stop negotiating and start following.
Because here’s the truth we have to wrestle with: Delayed obedience is still disobedience.
And partial surrender is not surrender, it’s control in disguise.
That’s why this part of the Lord’s Prayer is so confronting.
“Your will be done.”
Not adjusted.
Not negotiated.
Not filtered through our preferences.
Done.
Fully. Completely. Trustingly.
And yet, even knowing that, it’s still hard.
Why?
Because surrender touches the deepest parts of us.
It challenges our identity.
It exposes our fears.
It confronts our need for control.
And sometimes, it forces us to let go of things we’ve built our lives around.
Dreams. Plans. Expectations. Even good things.
That’s why surrender is not just a decision, it’s a process.
It’s something we return to again and again.
And here’s what makes this even more challenging:
Sometimes God’s will doesn’t look like what we expected.
The disciples who first heard Jesus teach this prayer didn’t go on to live easy, predictable lives. Their obedience led them into sacrifice, hardship, and ultimately, surrender at the highest level.
And yet, they didn’t turn back.
Why?
Because they had settled something deeper than comfort:
They believed God was a good Father
They had surrendered their lives to His will
And they were committed to living for something greater than themselves
That’s the invitation in front of us.
Not just to know God’s will, but to yield to it.
And here’s the shift that has to happen internally:
Surrender is not losing our life, it’s trusting God with it.
It’s believing that His plans are better than ours.
That His perspective is greater than ours.
That His purposes will lead to something more meaningful than anything we could manufacture on our own.
Even if we don’t fully understand it in the moment.
So today, don’t just ask, “What is God’s will?”
Ask something deeper: “What am I still holding onto that is keeping me from fully surrendering to it?”
Because clarity often comes on the other side of surrender, not before it.
And as long as we’re gripping our own plans tightly, it will always be difficult to receive God’s.
But when we begin to open our hands, when we begin to trust His heart, we’ll discover something unexpected:
Surrender doesn’t shrink our life.
It positions us to step into the life God has been leading us toward all along.
