[A ‘Tuesday Challenge‘ originally prepared for the congregation of Horley Baptist Church during May 2025]
Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Luke 11 v2 [NKJV]
These words are taken from the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, after they had asked him to teach them how to pray.[1] The prayer-lesson was recorded by both Matthew and Luke and it serves us as an example of the way we should structure our prayers.
Jesus had developed the habit of regularly praying to his heavenly father – perhaps ‘habit’ is too weak a word to describe the interaction which was central to his life on earth. It is a practice that we would do well to emulate, even if our efforts are, by comparison, rather feeble.
What do we understand to be the kingdom of God? Why should we pray for it to come?
We can think of the kingdom of God as being the spiritual community of those people who accept the sovereignty of God. There are several places in the gospels where Jesus uses parables to illustrate various characteristics of the kingdom of God; he often likened it to a seed growing underground, not visible until eventually the plant appears. Similarly the kingdom of God is developing unseen and is only recognised by the fruit it produces.
When we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are praying for an in expansion of God’s reign on earth; to be made evident by increased righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and by its impact on wider society.
The gospels record three instances which could be called “The Lord’s Prayer”. The first instance is identified above; the second instance is the prayer that we read in John 17 in which Jesus declared that he had carried out the will of God.[2] The third instance is his prayer on the night of his arrest when Jesus himself confirmed his acceptance of God’s will:
Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.
Luke 22 v42 [NKJV]
Are we willing to accept God’s will?
The second sentence of our opening verse implies that we should not only passively accept God’s will but, rather, we should actively work to help to bring it to fruition. However, God’s plans are beyond our comprehension; often understanding them comes only with the benefit of hindsight. So how should we respond, how are we to promote God’s will?
One way is to develop a way of listening as we pray. As the model prayer shows, our prayers should be more than a roll-call of people to be blessed and a list of outcomes that we would like to receive. We need to take time to listen as well as speak despite the distractions around us and our own limits of concentration.
Tho’ dark my path, and sad my lot,
Let me be still and murmur not,
Or breathe the prayer divinely taught,
“Thy will be done!”
Charlotte Elliott (1834)
References:
[1] See also Matthew 6:9-13
[2] John 17:4
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Last week’s reflection: Promises, Promises
Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © Steve Humphreys
An interesting and thought provoking reflection. Thank you Steve.