The Lord's Prayer - Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done

Intro..

For the last year or two, I've been trying to pattern my morning prayers after the Lord's Prayer.  I find that the structure allows me to be more consistent (if sometimes somewhat repetitive at times) in the discipline of prayer.  I've realized that there's nothing wrong with being consistent and somewhat repetitive.  Jesus related in his parable about the persistent widow who kept asking for the same thing over and over until she got it.  Here's a link to Part 1 - Our Father...  Part 2 - Your kingdom come, Your will be done... is below.

Your Kingdom Come..

There's a lot of meaning in the prayer 'Your kingdom come...'  If I'm praying that and sincere, I'm asking God to come and rule and 'reign' in my life.  Taking a step back and thinking about this, one uses reigns to control and steer a horse.  Similarly, I'm surrendering control to my King in asking Him to come guide, steer, and direct my life.

What does God's kingdom look like in my life?  There's a fun reggae song based on a verse in Romans 14:17 that I often remember in thinking about this.  It goes:  "Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost.  Righteousness, Peace, Joy in the Holy Ghost, that's the Kingdom of God!"    I sometimes reflect and consider: Is my life reflecting those attributes during my day?  If not, it might be time for me to give those reigns back to God.

Finally, consider the potential of the Kingdom of God in our lives.  Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed, which even though its very small, when planted it can grow into a large tree that birds can hang out in.  When I was reflecting on this word picture in my mind, another one popped up.  The influence of a small domino knocking over progressively larger dominos.  Apparently, you can increase the size of the next domino successfully 1.7 times with every new domino.  If you start with one 10 millimetres high, and increase 1.7 times with each domino, 244 dominos later the last one is the size of the Empire State Building.  That's the potential influence of the Kingdom of God, and I find it encouraging. 

Your Will Be Done....

This might sound a bit silly, but I struggled and was in a way frustrated for years to know and understand what the 'will of God' was for my life.  It made praying this prayer challenging.  I was stuck in a rut of defining 'God's will for my life' as a big plan, and I could never seem to hear or grasp.  Consequently, I'd often add a phrase of my own while praying this...  'Your will be done, God, if I can figure out what that is.'

Suddenly one day (in church, perhaps?) someone read 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and I was a bit shocked.  God's will didn't need to be a big, architected plan for my life.  It could be a simple everyday choice in small things.  That verse goes like this:  "Be thankful in all things, for this is God's will in Christ Jesus for you."

At first glance, the thought is 'oh, actually doing God's will isn't that hard.'  Its easy to skim over the phrase '...in all things...'  That clarifier is a challenge to live up to!  I've realized its not nearly as easy as I thought to be thankful in all things in any reasonable fashion or consistency without God's help.

As I let those truths marinate in my live for a good bit of time (several years - not days or months), I realized that there were some other similar verses similar to this that I had not considered.  Micah 6:8 is one:  "He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what God requires of you.  But to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Luke 4:18,19 was the most recent one that stuck out to me in this context.  Its also the most challenging as it talks about specific actions and results...

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”