Have Thine Own Way, Lord

“Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. 

You are the potter, I am the clay. 

Mould me and make me, after thy will. 

While I am waiting, yielded and still.”

The affect of these simple phrases can be varied. To one, the words fall off the tongue with familiarity without calling for action, response, or emotion. To another, the words evoke remembrances of sights, smells, maybe even a small stirring. 

To a third, it brings the faithful invitation of God, to believe what He believes and flow in the river of His making. In this river a person can find life, and that life will be abundant and full. It calls for a person to see beyond themselves into the realm of the presence of God, where His will is done in its fullness all of the time; without fail. The phrases call for choices that often lay beyond our experience by calling us to die to ourselves and live to God. 
To ask God to “have His own way” is to decide that our own doing is over. We are done with the familiar choices that call us to everyday life with its mundaneness and melancholy. Instead we are called to abundance, into that place where God is recognized as the King. To see God as the faithful orchestrator and director of our lives no matter how much time it takes or what it requires. God is the King and Lord and therefore He is to have His own way. 

Recognizing the reality of God’s rulership is difficult to see in a society where “personal rights and choices” are engrained so deeply that it seems that the full measure of God’s intended freedom is found in this world and nation. As long as the right person is in office, the right laws are being passed, and everyone is “safe”, we say that God is in control and things are being done according to His will. However, if the opposite is true, then the destruction of the country is immanent; which (according to them) is not the will of God. We are quick to judge God’s rulership when we see things going the opposite way that we want, without understanding that the Lord rules in the heavens. All authority in heaven and on earth was given to Jesus, therefore He rules. 

But, but, what about the babies being murdered, or the health care bill, or the overspending and corruption of the government? These things don’t change the realities of God, His rulership, or the purpose of His will on the earth. There are no stumbling blocks in His way. He does everything according to the counsel of His own will and nothing stops that. “The heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord, and He turns it wherever He wishes”. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will harden the one whom He wishes to harden. 

Letting God have His own way is less about the letting, and more about the submitting. “Stop striving, and know that I am God, I will be exalted in the earth.” and again “As I live says the Lord, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” To recognize that as maker, or potter in this case, He has full rights over His creation to do with it as He wills. If a person will submit to this moulding of his own free will. If he will lose to gain, then he will find life abundant and full.