The distance between my will and His will is forever going to be the distance between myself and paradise. How often do we suffer on this earth when we don’t get what we want? “Thy will be done” is more than just a phrase we recite when we say the Lord’s Prayer. These words are about surrender—the bridge leading us back to Eden.

Adam and Eve knew God’s will. God’s will was for them to eat of every fruit in the garden except the one He told them not to. The moment they each ate of that one fruit was the moment they stepped out of God’s will for the first time and formed each their own. This was when the separation first formed—the separation between mankind and Eden.

It’s because of this separation we suffer when we don’t get what we want. It’s because of this separation, we have a will that’s completely apart from God’s. Before the separation, our will and His will were one and the same. So what does this mean for mankind?

As long as we are on this earth, we will never be able to completely close that gap. God separated us from Eden, when mankind first separated himself from the will of God. What we can do, however, is begin to form a bridge of sorts, a bridge between my will and His, between Earth and Eden.

In order to build a bridge we must first have awareness of the separation. We must acknowledge that we have wants, “needs”, and desires that are completely outside God’s will. Next, we must surrender those wants, perceived needs, and desires. We have to let go of our fixation on what we don’t have and focus on what we do have. We have to let God be God, and we have to accept that His will is perfect because He is all knowing, eternal, and good.

I’ve come to understand the power of surrendering to an eternally powerful God. It’s in this surrender we can find peace on a restless earth; it’s in surrender, we begin to bridge the gap; it’s in surrender, we find our way back home.