Your Kingdome come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
How do we pray for those things in the world where we are not sure what is the right answer, and / or we don’t think things will change?
We may wish the dictators out of power, the injustices righted, and the hungry able to get food, but sadly it won’t happen tomorrow or next week just because we pray for it.
Some even wonder if there is any point praying for justice, or for healing, or for change.
Jesus tells us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come and to look for a time (and then work for a time) when the Kingdom values will be seen and lived out here on earth just as they are in heaven. Is that not what we hope for anyway?
As we have discovered Jesus prayed with passion and compassion, and we should pray this with passion. We long for a world which is peaceful, just and fair to all. In our prayers we make that a focus, not least as it keeps us true to the values we should uphold.
I do not understand how prayer works or why some prayers are answered (apparently) and others do not seem to get the answer we think they should. I do know if the world was one where all our prayers were answered immediately, it would take the responsibility away from us, it would absolve us of most responsibility. I also know that prayers do change things, and that when we pray, “coincidences” seem to happen more often, but I also know that we can pray and cry out to God for something that is good and God does not appear to notice.
[Quick beginning of an answer – The Kingdom of God in its fulness is only going to be seen in God’s fulness. Death, brokenness, tears are part of this world but all that is of God will be held and kept by God into his new world where we will see all that is good and lovely, unblemished and without the brokenness and damage.]
And so we pray this prayer, daily, whenever, helping us keep to God’s values, reminding us that God’s Kingdom and values will be seen in God’s time, and committing ourselves to working for that; and as we do that we will discover, chinks of Kingdom light breaking in, making a difference, little answers, and some extraordinary changes.
We pray for God’s Kingdom to come because that is what we want for us and for the world
We pray for God’s Kingdom to come because that is good and right and life-giving
We pray for God’s Kingdom to come so we are not ourselves sucked in to the temptations to store up treasures on earth, to turn our back on others, to walk away from God.
When we are angered by the things that are happening, when we are saddened by them, maybe the only prayer we can manage is this simple line – “Thy Kingdom come” / “Your Kingdom come” – that is what we want even if we can’t see how it will happen, but we must also then think what we can do to help bring it about. Looking within leads to facing outwards.