When the average Christian hears Jesus teaching
them to pray, “Your will be done, on
earth as it is in heaven,”[1]
they face the greatest battle they will ever experience. It is the battle of
the two greatest will in the whole wide world: Fathers, and ours.
More precisely, there is a battle between
the will of the divine Father and the will of the sarky child (that would be
us).
Now, along with pastoring our home church I
also help my wife with our in-home family daycare. I can tell you that I have
been part of many skirmishes of the will. From a very young age our precious
little ones seek to exert their wills over ours. What begins with waking us up
at any time of the night because they only know one thing, what they need,
turns into temper tantrums, pouting, crying, the evil eye, because parents or
care-givers are not letting them have their way.
Contemporary Christianity, at least of the
North American variety, allows for so many options in church experiences that it
is easy for anyone to find a church gathering that fits their sarky little
wills and lets them do church however it fits whatever else they are doing.
This means that, teaching someone caught up
in stereotypical church culture to start praying, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” is likely going
to be the most culture violating experience of their lives. It will expose how
many things they have buried under layers of superficial activity. It will
uncover how much of their activities are just religious behavior on a
foundation of sark-dependence.[2]
And it will likely produce conflict between their genuine desire to begin
seeking Father’s will in everything (as it is done in heaven) and the desires
of other church folk who want to maintain a church life in which they can do
their own will in how much they appear to do God’s will.
Obviously, since our Father in heaven knows
best, the best thing we can do for our lives and churches is not only pray, “your
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” but devote ourselves to working out
our own salvation with fear and trembling because we know our heavenly Father
is working in us to both will and to do his good pleasure.[3]
And, also obviously, if what we get in life
is what most pleases God our heavenly Father, nothing else could ever be better
than that.
Join our home church as we learn to both
pray, “Our Father in heaven, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,”
and learn how to join him in the answers to our prayers.
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1] Matthew 6:11 in the context of Matthew 6:9-13 which is Jesus’
teaching his disciples how to pray.
[2] I use “sark”, the transliteration
of the Greek word, “σαρκ”,
which is translated in English Bibles as, “flesh”.
It is that part of us that operates independent of God, and, as Paul describes
so thoroughly in Romans 7:1-25, it is totally unable to do the good we want to
do, and it can’t stop doing the bad we don’t want to do. Thankfully, Romans 8:1-39
presents such a wonderful opportunity to operate in the Holy Spirit that we are
able to so, “walk by the Spirit,”
that we “will not gratify the desires of
the flesh” (Galatians 5:16 in the context of Galatians 5:16-26).
[3] Philippians 2:12-13
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