When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your will be done,” there is an important assumption behind those words: God’s will and my will are not always the same.

That should not surprise us. If God is truly God, His plans will sometimes differ from ours. His wisdom is greater than ours, His perspective broader, and His purposes may lead us to places we would never have chosen on our own.

This means that following God requires humility. We have to acknowledge that we do not always know what God wants us to do.

We have some ideas. Scripture gives us clear truths about God’s character and how He calls us to live. Yet countless situations leave the answer unclear. What should I do here? How should I respond to this person? What does it look like to live and love like You (Jesus) in this situation?

Paul says that discovering God’s will involves renewing our minds. In other words, God does not simply give us better instructions; He changes how we think. Our desires, assumptions, priorities, and instincts are continually brought into submission to Him.

And this is not something that happens only once.

Every new circumstance and every person we encounter offers us another opportunity to surrender our thinking to God and to ask, “What would Your good, pleasing, and perfect will look like here?”

The unexpected God may lead us somewhere we did not anticipate. Our job is not to predict Him but to continually become people ready to follow Him.

Final Thought: Throughout your day today, pray this short prayer, “Not my will, but your will.” Pray it when you hit unexpected traffic on the way to work, when you are about to lose your patience with the kids, or when you are anxious about an uncertain outcome.