May Your Will Be Done On Earth
Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen
We're continuing our Covenant Weekly series walking through the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6. With the next line, "may your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Jesus prays for something so profound that we sometimes miss it as followers of Jesus.
Our Father is not just one in heaven, set apart and distant. We are praying for his kingdom to come soon, but we aren't praying for that kingdom to come somewhere else. The prayer is for the reality that exists within heaven - the kingdom of our Father - to become the reality here on earth.
This prayer longs for the peace of God to come here. The love of God to be known here. The presence of God to be felt here. The justice of God to be spread here. The mercy of God to be extended here. The life of God to be lived here. Here. And now.
And as we pray, we are challenged to think about how we are a part of God answering that prayer. We cannot reasonably pray for God's will to be done here while working in ways that oppose that will. It's like praying for God to help me lose weight while eating my triple Big Mac with upsized fries and coke. I can pray for it, but any reasonable person would rightly suggest that my prayers are meaningless and that I don't really want what I say I want.
In Genesis 1 humanity was created and given the mandate to extend the will and way of God over creation - to care for it in a way that reflected him in the world. This is what we lost with the fall. This is what we pray will be renewed as we pray your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. And this is what we work with God towards in response to our own prayer.