“Jesus was not passionate about suffering – He wasn’t gifted in death by crucifixion. Jesus was passionate about the will of His Father.”

I know – we’re not all good at the same things. Some of us are painters and others of us are mathematicians; some are poets and others are scientists; some are silly and some are serious. I’ve heard about “personality profiles” and “strengths tests” and I get it. We are all made differently and we do different things well, some exceptionally.

But, when Brad Buser said the above at Perspectives on Sunday, it was like the last puzzle piece fell into place to create the picture of my uneasiness about the way we “find God’s will for our lives.” It’s pretty simple, really.

We start here.

We say, “Self, what do you like to do? What are you good at?”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, hours before the appointed hour of his death, Christ said, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Not as I will, Lord, but as you will.
Not as I will, Lord, but as you will.

I used to love Frederich Buechner’s quote, “The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Now, I think it’s simpler.

The place God calls you is to be about Him.
It means treasuring the Lord more than my closest friend, choosing the Lord above my family, loving the Lord with an intimacy the earth cannot touch.

It means wanting the will of the Father more than life itself.

And there’s a tension in my bones that says making such a bold (albeit shaky) declaration in my soul must mean 20 years with a tribe who has never heard the Gospel.

I must go, now, toward a love that’s more than life itself. I must shake off everything that so easily entangles and run the race with one prize in mind.

I want so desperately to believe my calling is to be about Him.
Not as I will, Lord, but as You will.