Upon the recognition of the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, Saul, immediately questioned the Lord “What will thou have me to do?”, but did you notice, how the the Lord responded. The Lord’s response was, “Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.” First, he was asked to Arise, then He was commissioned to Go and then he was advised to wait for the Lord’s instructions that was to come to him, which he MUST follow. Saul asked for God’s will but the Lord did not respond by saying, “I will that you would or should or could do what you are told.” Instead, the Lord responded by saying that Saul MUST do what he will be told. Saul’s commission was not optional, neither is ours.

In the same manner, when we seek to do God’s will and we encounter the Lord Jesus Christ, He first want us to “arise” from our fallen state. He wants us to be on our feet and not knocked down by the devil or his schemes or by our own selfish sinful desires. Then he commissions us to “go” in His Name. But when we go, obeying, we need not be anxious of what is to transpire, because the Lord’s instructions will be sent to us at its appointed time. Jesus said, “give no thought to how or what you should answer when you stand before men for my Name, for the words that you must speak will be given to you, when needed, by the Holy Spirit of God” (Luke 12:11-34)). But we must recognize  that when the Lord’s instructions of what we must do is received, it is not optional but that it MUST be done.

His will is our MUST. When Jesus prayed in agony in the garden of Gethsemane, just before he was to be crucified, he asked God the Father to take the suffering that was to be, but in that same breath he expressed that, it not be His will, but that God’s will be done. In other words, when Jesus expressed that God’s will be done and not His own, He was surrendering totally to the will of God and in a sense asking God “What will thou have me to do?” and God’s response was “you MUST suffer and become sin so that the sinful can be made blameless and righteous in my Name.”

If you have asked the Lord, “Lord, what will thou have me to do?”, the next step is to take time to wait patiently for Him and when He sends His instructions, remember it is not optional. It is something that we MUST do, be it shame, suffering or sacrifice.