9 You should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, help us to honor your name. 10 Come and set up your kingdom, so that everyone on earth will obey you, as you are obeyed in heaven. 11 Give us our food for today. 12 Forgive us for doing wrong, as we forgive others. 13 Keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil.
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My
parents were divorced not long after Rachel & I got married. It
had been a long time coming—I remember telling close friends in
high school that I expected my parents to get a divorce at some
point. It wasn’t a terrible relationship hovering on the brink of
disaster—my parents were great parents, and they had a good
relationship, they just grew apart over the years. They were
different people with very different interests, and by the time I was
in my early twenties it was pretty evident as to where things were
going. So it was no surprise to me when they decided to get a
divorce.
This
wasn’t shocking, but it certainly had a profound impact on how I
looked at my own marriage. From the time Rachel & I began
dating, I’ve been terrified of divorce. It’s not that I wake up
every morning in fear that she’s going to realize there are better
options out there, but I’m probably more aware than many of how our
marriage is going, of how we’re growing and how we’re doing
emotionally. The seeds of my parents’ divorce were sown many years
ago and watered by busy lifestyles and different interests for a long
time, so I look out for those things.
One
thing that’s become important to us is vacation. Vacations are
times when we can unplug, unwind and check in. We go to places where
there are no distractions and we can connect, to see how we’re
doing, where we’re doing well and where we’re not doing so hot.
It’s a great time to be together and to focus on our relationship,
both things that are pretty difficult on a day-to-day basis.
We
like to go to the beach, and we like to stroll along the surf.
Whenever we do, we always talk about how we can take a bit of this
sensation back home with us. We would love to be able to enjoy the
sense of peace and calm from the beach when we’re stuck in traffic
or dealing with a chaotic home. We’d love to capture or bottle the
tranquility of the beach and bring that home. Every vacation is like
this in a way—there’s something about it you want to bring home,
to sustain you when the chaos descends, to help you de-stress in the
midst of life’s busy-ness.
It’s
impossible to do this fully. You can do it to a certain extent, but
the chaos of life always seems two steps ahead of your ability to
recapture the peace and calm of vacation.
And
that, friends, is how I want you to think about this passage we’re
studying today.
We
have a hard time with ‘Thy will be done’. We aren’t entirely
sure what God’s will is, and if it’s going to be done, why bother
praying, right? What does God need from us if he’s just going to
go ahead and do his will? Why not spend the time asleep on the sofa
rather than praying?
I
think the most helpful way to look at this passage is going to be by
starting at the end. Let’s focus a bit on the ‘as it is in
heaven’ part.
So
what is God’s will in heaven? Well, when we spend time looking at
the depictions of heaven in the Bible, they all include a few things.
The first is that they’re centered around God, and out of that we
have an existence of peace, joy and hope. When we speak of heaven,
we speak of a place that doesn’t include death, suffering or pain.
There are no tears of sorrow there, although there may be a few of
laughter. Death is a place of wondrous music and transcendent peace,
and we’ll want for nothing. There will be people from every tribe
of every nation and every tongue represented there. All of our needs
will be satisfied and we’ll live with God forever.
So
that is God’s perfect will played out in heaven, a place where
there is no sin and death. Sounds great, right?
Then
let’s back up a bit. Now we’re praying for God’s will, which
we’ve just discussed, to be done one earth, too.
What
this means is that we want God’s will, that health and joy and
peace and hope, to be present here on earth. God wants all people to
experience the peace and health and wholeness that we’ll have in
heaven. We want that for this earth.
But
just like we can’t fully capture the sense of being on vacation
once we come home, our life on earth cannot fully capture the reality
of heaven because of the same sense of chaos. Sin and death are
still present here, so we’re limited by sin’s reality here. We
know that Christ has defeated sin, but the final victory will not
come until the end of time, so until then we want the earth to
resemble heaven as much as possible.
I’d
like to say a thing or two about prayers for healing here. We often
pray for healing, but we pray for God’s will to be done and
recognize that not all of our prayers work fully. We wonder why it
would be God’s will for people to have cancer or disease or to die
before we think they should.
Let
me say what I believe. Just like the chaos of our daily lives
corrupts the peace and tranquility of vacation, sin and death corrupt
how God’s will works in our lives here on earth. In heaven, we
know there will be no cancer, no disease, no death. There will be no
need for Hospice. That is God’s will for all people—that we live
pain free.
And
yet, here on earth there is still sin and death to be dealt with. We
can’t shake them off by our own hands, and God’s appointed time
to defeat them fully has not yet come. They still are at work in the
world, operating under names like cancer and warfare and famine and
oppression. They bring suffering and death, and they tarnish God’s
will in the world. So we pray for God’s will, and yet we know that
it’s not always perfectly done here on earth. We know that sin and
death misdirect life away from God’s will.
Yet,
there is that reminder at the end of the phrase about God’s will in
heaven. Even if there is not physical healing in this life for an
individual, there is still ultimate healing in God. In Christ, we
defeat death, and we live in God’s will forever in heaven. We pray
for God’s will to be done perfectly here, but we recognize that’s
not always going to be the case. Sometimes it looks like sin wins,
but Jesus reminds us in this prayer that God’s will is going to be
done in heaven. Ultimately, we are healed, but that isn’t always
the case on this side of heaven.
So
when we pray for God’s will to be done on earth, we’re praying
that people experience God’s peace and hope to the fullest extent
possible.
What
this means is that rather than this being a permission giving passage
to sit back and do nothing, it actually should motivate us more than
ever to get out and get to work. We’re praying for God’s will,
peace and hope for all humans, to be done on earth, and Scripture is
very clear that God uses ordinary people like you and I to spread his
peace and hope. God’s message spreads through human speech and
human action, so our prayer is one for our own lives to be busy doing
God’s will, spreading peace and joy and hope and love. We have to
do as much as possible to make sure this earth resembles the heaven
we’re looking forward to. We have to get busy serving one another
to show them God’s amazing love and help them see the invitation
God has for all people to enter his will and dwell in heaven.
So
the prayer for God’s will to be done is a call to action, a call to
get busy participating in making earth like heaven, a call to let our
lives be a glimpse into the eternal. Sin and death will be present
here until Christ returns, so we won’t live perfectly, and we won’t
be able to cast off the shackles completely that prevent us from
making this a full reality here, but we can strive to be emissaries
of hope and peace, to bring that portrait to the world, that they
might share in Christ’s hope and peace.
And
as we do this, God’s kingdom spreads. We’re praying for God’s
kingdom to come in fullness, and we know that it has come in Jesus
Christ, but it is still to come—it won’t culminate until Christ
returns, but we pray for it to come within us, that we might be
caught up in the vision and work of heaven, and we pray for it to
come for those around us, that the Holy Spirit might use us to
welcome them into God’s kingdom. In the fullness of time, sin and
death and pain will be fully cast off, but until then, we pray that
our lives be part of God’s spreading of hope and joy and peace and
love.
So
may God’s will be done in our lives. May we look forward with joy
to heaven, and may our lives reflect the hope of heaven in all we do.
Let
us pray
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