"Thy Will Be Done"

Where I go to church we always have a point where we pray the "Lord's Prayer" together. This is a very old custom for the Christian movement, incidentally. An ancient church manual from about AD 110 called The Didache prescribes that it should be prayed 3 times a day.

In the this prayer, after beginning by asking that God's reputation (his "name") be kept holy, Jesus teaches that the next thing to pray about is the theme of all his teaching: The Kingdom of God. He links our request for the Kingdom to come with another request that explains a little more about what that would mean: "Manifest Your will here on earth, as it is manifest in heaven," (Gospel of Matthew 6.9-13, Voice).

Remember that citizenship in God's Kingdom isn't something we get in the great by-and-by. We are already citizens here and now. The Kingdom comes as we live it on earth, in our daily lives. And the action of the Holy Spirit within us, particularly as he 'floods our hearts with his love,' brings us closer and closer to manifesting it 'as it is in heaven.'

The idea for this post, though, actually occurred to me when I read the BibleGateway's verse of the day, which is a famous Old Testament scripture.

He has told you, mortals, what is good in His sight. What else does the Eternal ask of you But to live justly and to love kindness and to walk with your True God in all humility?

Book of Micah 6.8, Voice

What does it look like for the Kingdom to come in our lives, as we "manifest" it? It looks like that.