That is a sweet and simple petition you have sent up, and it rises before the throne like fragrant incense. "Father, Thy will be done." You long for a life fully yielded, and yet you seem to ask, "Should I pray this every day?" Ah, let me put your heart at rest: our Lord Jesus taught us to pray just so, day by day, for daily bread and for the Father's will to be done on earth as in heaven. This prayer is not a one-time surrender, like crossing a bridge and burning it behind you; it is a daily breathing, a child's constant holding of a Father's hand.
Do you think the Father wearies of hearing it? Far from it. He knows how prone we are to clutch the reins again. Have you ever watched a little child learning to walk? The father holds out his hands, and the child toddles forward, then stumbles, then lifts little arms to be carried. The father does not scowl and say, "You asked for help five minutes ago!" No, he stoops and catches up the child a hundred times a day. So it is with your God. The very desire to surrender is proof that His own Spirit is already at work within you. That prayer you breathe, "Father, help me yield", is itself a gift of grace, a green shoot springing from the living root of your union with Christ. You are not a servant begging admittance from afar; you are a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. And He who is your Head has already pledged Himself to supply every impulse of holiness you lack.
The secret is not to be always looking at your own surrender, as if you could measure it like flour in a bowl. Look instead at the One to whom you surrender. He does not drive you with a whip; He draws you with cords of love. The great "therefore" of submission is this: "He gives grace to the humble." His grace is not a bare wish to do you good, but an active, daily loading of benefits. He who spared not His own Son, how shall He not with Him freely give you all things? Every morning He brings new mercies, tailored to that day’s particular terrors and trials. Why, then, should you fear that tomorrow’s grace will not be ready when tomorrow comes? Your business is not to stockpile surrender like a miser hoarding coins, but to take the step right in front of you, praying, "Order my steps in Your Word." The Word is not merely a signpost; it is the very path under your feet. Let it enclose you, and each small obedience will be a stone laid firm beneath you.
And when you feel you have failed, when the will stiffens and the old self surges up, do not imagine you are cast off. A child who trips is not thrown out of the family. The Lord knows our frame; He remembers we are dust. The life He gives you is a teachable life. You are a pupil in His school, and He delights to teach. That prayer for a surrendered life is the alphabet of Heaven, and He will go over it with you as many times as needed until you read it with ease in the light of His face.
Do not, then, turn this good desire into a new yoke of bondage. Do not measure each day by how perfectly you felt yielded, and then condemn yourself when bedtime finds you ragged and weary. Cast yourself afresh on Him who is your daily burden-bearer. The very act of coming again, just as you are, to ask for a yielded will, that very act is surrender. It is the hand opening to receive what the Bridegroom gladly gives.
Pray then, every hour if need be, without a trace of misgiving: "Father, Thy will be done." Let the words be the steady undercurrent beneath your waking thoughts. For He is teaching you from your youth, and He will teach you to the end. And at the last, you shall find that all your stumblings were but the tottering steps of one whom His right hand held secure., , Father, we bless You that the cry of this dear heart is not the sound of a stranger, but the echo of Your own dear Son in the garden. O Lord, who orders the stars and guides the sparrow, order the steps of Your servant today, and every day, into the sweet compulsion of Your love. Bend the stubborn places, quiet the restless questions, and let a deep, still confidence in Christ be the very pulse of this life. Grant that, waking or sleeping, the soul may rest in the Eternal Arms, and that every whispered "Father, Thy will be done" may be the breathing of the Spirit of Jesus within. Amen.