kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

Your will be done on earth as in heaven

Our praying for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven provides us with a basic foundation for our prayers. We’re asking that his will be done in our lives and in the world around us. Although we do all too frequently seem to get things upside down, and pray as if we expect God to change the way he is doing things just because we’ve given him our petitions. When we’re at our worst, we seem to expect God to change the universe and give us what we want, in much the same way as we’d expect a genie to give us what we demand after we’ve given his lamp a polish.

We must recognize the importance of conforming our will to his will — not his will to our will. Prayer isn’t about getting God to do my will; it’s asking that his will be done in my life, my family, my business, and in my relationships, just as it’s done in heaven.

Forty-two years after his death, Beethoven’s body was exhumed. Apparently, someone had buried him in a way that revealed his attitude; he was found with his arms up and his fists clenched in defiance. Beethoven became deaf at thirty, and remained so until he died aged fifty-six. He felt that God had hemmed him in and died an angry and bitter man.

It was only in grim resignation that Beethoven prayed for God’s will to be done. It’s possible to resent that God is God while praying for his will to be done. Many people despise God because he hasn’t made them master of their own fate. But those of us who have a relationship with God, and know him as Father, who know that his heart is not only righteous and holy but also gracious and kind, can know that all things will work together for good for those who love God.

This is the fifth post in a series offering a reflection based on each of the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer

Your kingdom come

When Jesus told us to pray, “your kingdom come”, he was speaking about his future messianic reign on the earth. Throughout Scripture, the story of the Bible looks forward to the return of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who will rule in righteousness when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15).

This concern for God’s rule on the earth is basic to our view of history. The German theologian, Joseph Wittig said that a person’s biography should begin with their death, rather than their birth. His argument was that we measure the contribution of life by its end, not its beginning. And that is how we should think about history.

We sometimes wonder if history is going anywhere. Is it simply a set of repeated events going around in cycles; heading towards nothing but oblivion? Many famous people have dismissed history over the years — one memorable one being Henry Ford’s summing up of history as “bunk”.

But history is heading somewhere in the Bible — the return of Jesus Christ. That light shines before us, and the darker the age, the brighter seems the glow.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re looking forward to that time when God’s messianic kingdom will be established by Jesus’ return to earth, as prophesied throughout the Old Testament. We direct our gaze, as we pray, to the day when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re also saying something else. We’re saying that we shall submit our will to God’s will. It follows that we want God to work his will out in our lives now, if we want him to rule over all people in the future.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re acknowledging God’s right to rule all people — including us. If we desire it for others, we must desire it for ourselves too. We shouldn’t pray for God’s rule over others, unless we honestly desire his rule over ourselves.

When we pray, “your kingdom come”, we’re praying for the second coming of Christ now, not at some convenient point in the future. Nothing in our lives should take precedence over his coming. That’s what we mean when we pray, “your kingdom come”.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

This is the fourth post in a series offering a reflection based on each of the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer