May Your Kingdom Come
Does your relationship with God revolve around you or Him?
Verse of the Day
‘May your Kingdom come soon.’
Today’s Devotional
I often find myself in conversations with people and I am dominating the conversation with things I want to talk about. I call it “word-vomit”, and it’s not something I’m proud of. Occasionally, though, I get a little mental nudge to stop focusing on myself and all that I want to say and to ask how the other person is doing. Contrary to my errant thinking, it’s not all about me. The more I practice focusing on the other person’s needs, the more fulfilling my relationships become.
“May your kingdom come” is the phrase of the Lord’s prayer that serves as my “nudge” to focus on what God is doing, not just in my life but in the lives of others and the world.
What is God’s Kingdom? When Jesus spoke these words, the Jewish people were still hoping for a political king to save them from Roman oppression. The kingdom Jesus came to establish is a spiritual one, which is hard for humans to comprehend. In his book Pray Always, Anthony Lee Ash says, “the kingdom might be best defined as the rule and reign of God.”
We know, though, that God is all powerful and in control of everything. So why do we need to pray for God’s Kingdom to come? Because He gave each of us free will to choose whether or not to be part of His Kingdom. Ash explains this concept further: “The rule of God can be effective on earth only where humans will allow it to be. People must be willing to open their lives to full trust in God. They must be willing to accept what Jesus has done and make a complete commitment to it. They must be willing to live the life required of those in the kingdom. In short, they must be “born again”, that is, become Christians in the fullest sense.”
What would happen if we prayed for God’s Kingdom to come personally, into our own hearts and lives? Are we willing to trust God enough to ask for us to have the courage to give ourselves completely to Him? And as we open our lives fully to the Kingdom, wouldn’t our prayer naturally be that this Kingdom fully inhabit all of those we love?
Why don’t we pray bold prayers like this? My guess is that we are scared. We are afraid of what it might look like if we invite God to fully take over. We fear others will think we are fanatics (aka weird). We aren’t sure that we trust where God would take us or ask us to go. We want the Kingdom, but maybe we only want it on our terms (which isn’t Kingdom-minded at all).
Phillip Yancey, in his book Prayer, said this: “I need to think more about God than about myself when I am praying. Even the Lord’s Prayer centers first on what God wants from us. “Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done” – God wants us to desire these things, to orient our lives around them. How often do I come to God not with consumer requests but simply a desire to spend time with God, to discern what God wants from me and not vice versa?”
I am becoming convinced that the order and focus of my prayers matters. I believe with my whole heart that God cares about every little thing that I bring to Him. But if I am to learn how to pray from Jesus, then it would be wise to follow His pattern. Focusing on God’s Kingdom and asking for it to come puts my prayer concerns in the proper perspective. My stuff matters to God, but it is becoming very apparent to me that His stuff needs to matter to me.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Is your prayer life more about you than about God?
Are you willing to pray for God’s Kingdom to come into your life in a more all-encompassing way?
How can you open your life to full trust in God?
How can you live today as a committed member of God’s Kingdom?
Are you willing to trust God enough to ask for the courage to give yourself completely to Him? Who else can you pray for in the same way, that God’s Kingdom will be the rule and reign in their life?