“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10). One thing that we will discover as we learn more and more about our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ is that They want the best for us. If we ask for bread, God will not give us a stone, nor will He give us a stone if we actually ask Him for a stone. What is best for us does not always seem so to us when we are in the thick of it, especially if what is best for us in the long term is unbearably awful for us in the short term. The sooner we realize and accept that there is no difference between the Lord's will and our will if we knew all of the facts and were thinking clearly and were properly motivated and committed to our salvation and eternal life, the easier it will be for us to pray, and actually mean it when we say, “Thy will be done.” Knowing this might make it easier than not knowing it, but it is not always easy to say “Thy will be done.” After all, Jesus Christ had a perfect knowledge of God's plan and His will and knew that to perform the Atonement would be the best for Jesus Himself and for everyone else. Yet even Jesus struggled and pleaded to find some other, less painful way. We are not bad or unfaithful or rebellious children if we quake and tremble under the heavy burden of “thy will be done.” But, like Jesus, despite all of the pain and fear and doubt, we can choose to say “not my will, but thine, be done.” “Thy will be done” unlocks our Heavenly Father's power in our lives. He wants to bless us more than we can possibly imagine, but if we are opposing Him and trying to supplant His will with our own, then He can do nothing for us. I hope that with each and every one of our prayers, we become a little more adept and a little more eager to perceive and comprehend and carry out our Father's will.
