Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Part of the morning prayer practice is to pray the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a rich prayer, that warrants daily repetition. While some days it flows off my tongue without much thought, that occurs very rarely. There’s always something that catches me, on which my thoughts linger even as my mouth is moving on to the next sentence.
This morning, this was the phrase. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. I do not take this as some grand scene change in a play, where in an instant our scenery is different – all of a sudden we’re in the midst of God’s kingdom, or God’s dream. Rather I think this portion of the prayer hinges on the middle phrase – thy will be done.
Not to make it too simple, but Jesus said it’s pretty simple. Love God. Love your neighbor. And clarifying, he pointed to the least acceptable, different colored, ritually unclean person, and said that was a neighbor. So Love God – learn, study reflect about what God is, means, does. And love all. That is God’s will.
If we do God’s will – love God & love our neighbor – If we do that here on earth, then God’s heavenly dream will come to Earth. Not from some cosmic, inexplicable, instantaneous scene change, but rather from our actions. Now granted, we cannot love God and love our neighbor without an immense amount of God’s grace, but we have the choice to bring God’s kingdom here.
At the macro level, if all humanity could do that, I do believe we’d be living in a very different place, that might look like God’s dream for us. Nationally, the same. And this morning, I’m thinking about my corner of the world. My house, my family, my colleagues, my community. I absolutely believe I have the power to bring God’s kingdom near, and it’s directly related to my ability and willingness to do God’s will, and encourage and model that to those around me.
Today, I want to bring God’s dream a little closer to this human mess we are living in, by intentionally doing God’s will, here on earth, as God does in heaven
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