Your Will Be Done

The third petition is that of sons: “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” There can now be no grander prayer than to wish that earthly things may be made equal with heavenly things. For what else is it to say, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,” than to ask that people may be like angels? It asks that, as God’s will is always fulfilled by the angels in heaven, so all who are on earth may also do not their own will but his. No one could say this from the heart except someone who believed that God arranges for our good all the things we see, whether fortunate or unfortunate, and that he takes more care and thought for our good and our salvation than we ourselves take for ourselves. Or at any rate it may be taken this way. The will of God is the salvation of all people, according to these words of the blessed Paul: “who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Of this will the prophet Isaiah also says, in the person of God the Father: “And all your will shall be done.” So when we say, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,” we are praying in other words for this: that as those who are in heaven are saved, Father, so also all those who live on earth may be saved by the knowledge of you. [a]