“…your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, ESV)
A good prayer will include the petition for God to have His way. This is one of the hardest parts of the Lord's prayer. We want to be self-made and self-governed. But Jesus leads us to desire God's way and governance. And He wants us to ask God for it.
If you think about the way the typical American Christian prays, this is quite the opposite. We are prone to seeking our own way in prayer. We know what we want and we want God to accomplish it. Or, at least, we want Him to give us the means to accomplish it ourselves. How often are our prayers driven by the desire to see God's will accomplished above our own?
As hard as it is to lay down our own will and trust our lives to the will of God, it is the best thing for us. The prayer asks for God's will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven.”
We all want heaven. We all long for it. But do we realize that heaven is the perfect manifestation of God's will? Everything that happens in heaven is in perfect submission to God's will. The angels obey Him perfectly and joyfully. All the creatures of heaven worship Him in total surrender. When we lay down our own will and cry out for His to be done, we are asking for Him to bring heaven to earth. And, indeed, the more God's will is accomplished over man's (“on earth”), the more our world will become like heaven (“as it is in heaven”).
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