Thy Will Be Done

Written by J.R. Mosely, November 7, 1903

Art by Zari Harat, Germany, 2025  

The prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane, "Thy will be done," is in harmony with all his other prayers and with his whole life-work and purpose. He not only came down from heaven to do his Father's will, but, under the most trying human conditions, he delighted to do His will. His meat was to do the will of Him who sent him and to "finish his work." He explained his ability to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and to judge righteous judgment, because he sought not his own will, but the will of Him who sent him. He made willingness to do "His will" the basis for knowing "the doctrine." He taught that his brothers and sisters were those who did the will of God. He made doing the will of God the condition for entering into the kingdom of heaven. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

To the degree that the Christ-light has lit up any life coming into the world, it has brought the spirit of joyful and willing obedience to the will of God. All who have had this light have not only prayed, "Teach me to do Thy will;" but they have delighted to do that will. From the days of Enoch until now they have sought to do "God's work in God's way," and to please God rather than themselves. This has been especially true of the worthies of the Old Testament, the Apostles of the New, and the saints and reformers of the Christian Church. And the one through whom the Science of Christianity, the understanding of God that heals the sick and the sinner, has come to this age, the Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, has been and is "a willing disciple at the heavenly gate, waiting for the Mind of Christ" (Preface to Science and Health, p. ix). Through willing discipleship and joyous obedience to the will of God, Mrs. Eddy has been enabled to do what she has for the health, morals, and spiritual elevation of the race.

What is the will of God concerning us, and why have all men and women, to the degree that they have attained unto peace, joy, moral grandeur, and spiriutal illumination so earnestly longed and prayed for it to be universally done on earth as in heaven?

God's dealings with Israel reveal that He wills both the temporal and eternal good of His children. Whenever the children of Israel were "willing and obedient," they ate "the good of the land;" "The evil diseases of Egypt" and "the surrounding nations" were not put upon them; they obtained "joy and gladness" and "sorrow and sighing" flew "away." "He brought them forth also [possibly three millions in number] with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes." "And He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness." And the promise to them was, only be faithful to me and you shall not be sick in the least, "for I am the Lord that healeth thee;" and God willed to withhold no good thing from them. Their "iniquities," not God, "turned away these things," and their "sins withheld good things from them. But, however far their own sins separated them from God, and the health, prosperity, joy,—the salvation,—He willed for them to realize; whenever "they cried unto the Lord in their trouble." "He delivered them out of their distresses." In fact, the whole story of God's dealing with the disobedient children of Israel is the story of the good Father and the prodigal son written large. And all that the Father had was for the more faithful ones who sought to be ever near Him, even though they never understood the fulness of His love for them, any more than they were reconciled to His loving and forgiving spirit toward His prodigal children.

The obedience of Moses to the will and purpose of God enabled him, after he was eighty years of age, to take up and carry forward for forty years a work that would have worn out a score of unfaithful leaders; and at the age of one hundred and twenty, "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Joshua, the companion and successor of Moses and one of the two faithful spies, lived through forty years of wandering in the wilderness, led the people through Jordan, conquered much of the land, and lived until he was one hundred and ten; and before he departed he reminded the children of Israel that God had been faithful to all His promises. Caleb, the other faithful spy, on his eighty-fifth birthday was found asking for and receiving his share of the inheritance of Israel, and bearing testimony to this fact: "I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now."

"The time would fail me to tell" of the heroes of faith who "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valient in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens" and "received their dead raised to life again." And those who only had occasional and partial glimpses of God's will concerning them, found in these moments of true insight and obedience that God willed their prosperity and not their poverty; their health and not their sickness; their joy and not their sorrow; their holiness and not their unholiness; their salvation and not their damnation; their good and never their ill.

The whole career of Jesus, from his conception to his ascension, revealed and demonstrated that God wills the coming of His kingdom through the destruction of the devil and all his works,—sin, disease, and death. He recognized that God willed to supply the lowest as well as the highest needs of man. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things [that ye have need of] shall be added unto you."

He was always "willing" to heal the sick, and he never questioned but that God was equally willing. In fact, a conspicuous part of his ministry was given to healing the sick; those whom he commissioned to preach the Good News were also commissioned to heal, and his final commission: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," contained the assurance that healing the sick would be one of the "signs" that "shall follow them that believe."

He awoke others, as well as himself, from the dream of death, thus proving that the last enemy (death) as well as the first enemy (sin) is contrary to the will of God. He also revealed that God wills our joy and peace as well as our holiness and perfection, and that all His children should be saved. "This is the Father's will, . . . that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." "Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish."

The personal apostles and students of Jesus became better healers, helpers, and preachers, after his ascension than while he was physically present with them, because until that time they had not fully comprehended his teachings. They rose to such understanding of God and confidence in Him that whatever they asked, "according to His will," was granted them; and there is no record that they ever refused to heal the sick or to meet any human need on the ground that it was not according to the Divine will. Paul, who was not a personal disciple of Jesus but was afterwards called "to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God," had a clear sense of the power and willingness of God to heal the body through the spiritualization of the mind. His missionary journeys, as well as every new epoch of missionary progress on the part of the other apostles, were introduced by a special manifestation of healing power. He felt no harm from the sting of the venomous viper, and those who came to him for healing were healed. He taught that the "Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" sets "free from the law of sin and death." He saw that the will of God was for us to give thanks in everything, to rejoice always, and to bear all the fruits of the Spirit. He also discerned that God wills not only our sanctification, but also universal redemption through Christ; "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth."

According to the testimony of the Church Fathers, many of whom were men of great learning as well as piety, the "signs" and blessings that Jesus promised "shall follow them that believe" continued for a considerable time after the days of the apostles. Such a critical and skeptical historian as Gibbon, speaking of the causes which led to the rapid spread of Christianity during the first centuries of missionary activity, says, "The Christian Church, from the time of the apostles and their first disciples, has claimed an uninterrupted succession of miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of visions, and of prophecy, the power of expelling demons, of healing the sick and raising from the dead. . . . In the days of Irenæus, about the end of the second century, the resurrection from the dead was very far from being esteemed an uncommon event" (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I., pp. 539, 541).

As the church became worldly and political and departed from the pure and simple faith of the primitive Christian Fathers, these special manifestations of God's healing and resurrecting power became less pronounced and less frequent; but healing through direct spiritual means has been believed in, and to a certain extent practised, in every age of the Christian Church. The healing will of God has been re-emphasized and re-demonstrated in every spiritual movement and religious reform that sought to bring man in closer unity with the Mind and nature of Christ. In their days of greatest spirituality and consecration, special signs of healing followed the work of the Waldenses, Moravians, Huguenots, Covenanters, Friends, Baptists, and Methodists. Some healing followed the work of Luther, and Wesley was a firm believer in the power and willingness of God to heal the sick. His journal contains many reports of healing through direct spiritual means. He even prayed for his horse, and claimed remarkable answers to prayer over the elements.

But the most marvelous revelation of "the kindness and love of God, our Saviour, towards man,"—His willingness and ability to meet every human need,—that has appeared since the coming and the establishment of Christianity, has come to this age through the discovery and practice of Christian Science. Through the healing of unnumbered cases of sickness and of sin; through the joy, peace, wholeness, and holiness which this faith imparts, Christian Scientists are demonstrating anew the signs and blessings that always have followed and always will follow "them that believe," them that know and love God, and wholly rely upon Him.

In the light of Christian Science, God is good and made everything like Himself, good and very good, and He can will nothing unlike Himself. Because He is Love, He wills for us to be loving. Because He is Spirit, He wills for us to be spiritual. Because He is harmonious, eternal Life, He wills our life, health, and immortality. Because He is perfect, He wills that we be perfect. He also wills that everything unlike Himself, everything that is hurtful, be destroyed. He wills that "every plant" which He has not planted "be rooted up;" that the world, the flesh, and the devil be overcome; and that all the works of the devil be destroyed. And because God wills our freedom from sin and the consequences of sin that we may be like Him in all things, every step in our redemption is the expression of His love. He wills "that all should come to repentance," because He is unwilling "that any should perish." He so loves us that He is in Christ divorcing us from "the evil one," as well as reconciling us unto Himself.

God demands perfection, and the atonement of Christ reconciles man to the perfect will of God, and not God to the imperfect will of man. "The atonement is a hard problem in theology; but its scientific explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting Love" (Science and Health, p. 23). The sacrifices that the just make for the unjust, lead to the end that even the unjust may become just, and are designed to destroy the wrath of evil and not to appease divine Love. And while God works everything together for good to them who love Him, and to the end that all may love Him, even making the wrath of man to praise Him; while Jesus turned the crucifixion into an everlasting defeat of Satan, sin, death, hell, and the grave, and a victory for Life, Truth, and Love, "the enemy," not God, willed the evils that Christ came to destroy.

Therefore, when we pray "Thy will be done," we pray for God's will to "be done in earth, as it is in heaven;" and in heaven, we know there is no sin, sickness, or death. We do not pray for the suffering nor for the death of our dear ones, but we pray that they may be brought into harmony with God, in whom there is no pain nor death. We pray for good to triumph over evil; for Spirit to be victorious over the flesh; for Truth to destroy all error; for Life to overcome death; for divine harmony to displace human discord; for Love to cast out fear and hate; for God to be with us, and for all evil to "flee away." We pray for the full, and the earliest possible, realization of the vision and prophecy of St. John: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." We pray for the consummation of Christ's healing, comforting, and redemptive ministry.