“Your kingdom come, your will be done.” –Matthew 6:10
The kingdom of God is the central element of Jesus’ teaching and finds its way here into the prayer he taught his disciples to say. For us, during this time extended prayer and fasting, we are leaning ourselves toward the coming of God’s kingdom and all that means.
The arrival of the kingdom of God means the surrender and fall of all other claims to rulership in the world and in our lives. If God’s kingdom comes, it means that no other power has sway over our lives. The kingdom is a place where the liberating of the King through healing, forgiveness, transformation, love, and peace is released. With this in mind, none of us would want for the kingdom not to come.
Beyond the kingdom here, Jesus teaches us to pray for God’s will to be accomplished. The will of God is a way for us to speak of what God wants for our lives and our world to look like. This requires our obedience and the subjugation of our wills on a personal level. I must surrender my own plan for where my life should go and what I will do if God’s will is to be accomplished. This is perhaps the more difficult part of the prayer above.
Today, as you continue to seek God during this time of prayer and fasting, I urge you remember that we pray both for the power of God to be released and for God’s grace to lead us in more complete and consistent obedience.