Your Kingdom Come

Last week my brother and I made a quick trip to Saskatchewan by car. Somewhere between Hafford and Krydor at about 12:30 A.M. I leaned back in the passenger seat and gazed out my window and up into the prairie sky. The expanse was peppered with stars. The song playing on the stereo was U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name". It seemed fitting; echoes of that eternal city as I stared off into the face of infinity.

So this, the second post devoted to the Lord's Prayer is an interesting one. How many have uttered "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" and didn't consider their request literally? It does have a nice ring to it but what are its implications?

I've always been amazed that despite God's sovereignty, His predestining of people and His ability to design and bring intricate plans to pass, that He would instruct people to pray in this way. Its almost as if we need "us" to pray more than He needs "us" to pray. Nevertheless, the prayer itself finds us gazing from our mortal foothold off towards eternity and inviting all that God "is" there, to be here in this "not so spiritual" place called earth. This is a bold prayer. It is a "buying in" to God's plan of redemption. This is a prayer one would offer after venturing through the door of salvation. Faith has been exercised in receiving His gift. The first marvelous taste has been received. If this is you Lord, I want what You have, not the meager counterfeit that the world has to offer.

When we ask that God's Kingdom come, we invite all that is His to invade every part of us. We aren't asking Him to go to a third party location where we admire His government from afar. This is a request that goes straight to the heart. We ultimately are asking for more than we bargained for.