Your Kingdom Come...

"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...' " -Matthew 6:9-10

This is a Part 1 blog. 1 of 4 to be exact. The past 5 weeks, the youth of PHOTOS and I have been walking through a little series called, "Livin' Like Jesus Prayed." Basically, we've been walking through it actually looks like to pray and live out the prayer Jesus taught us to pray millennia ago.

I have to confess that most of the time when I arrive to a church service on Sunday mornings and we get to the part where we all share in praying the Lord's Prayer, it's really easy for me to just speak. I mean, after all, these are words I know like the back of my hand (which side is that again?) I've been saying them since I was in vacation bible school as a little tike. Sometimes I don't even know what I said! Have you ever been there? It's ok to raise your hand, no one is looking (go ahead and turn around, I promise no one's looking!)

And yet, when Jesus is describing how to pray to his disciples for the first time, this is the blueprint he lays out for them. There must be something to it I figure. So piece by piece I've tried to work through it, to understand what Jesus is getting at. To understand what we're called to be praying for. To understand how to pray and how to receive the life and life to the fullest He offers. So today I start where every good journey should begin, at the beginning. "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Moses.

Moses didn't have plans to set the Israelites free in Egypt. When he fled to Midian, he married and started to tend sheep out in the desert. He was content. He was happy even. But God had other plans. On the mountain he set a bush on fire, but it did not burn. When his curiosity got to be too much, Moses reached the bush to investigate. "Moses! Moses!" the Lord called out. And as if to answer his call to arms, Moses replies with a simple "Here I am."

"I have heard the cries of my people," God answers. And then he lays the big one on Moses. "And now, I am sending you to Pharaoh (only the most powerful person in Egypt who wants him dead) to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." BOOM! No more farming. No more sheep herding. Those days were over for Moses. Now he was charged with rescuing his entire people from Egypt. And he was shocked! "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

I think that's the pivotal question in this whole story. Who am I to do that? I'm JUST a shepherd. It's like Moses is saying, "God, I'm just a nobody. I've got my own thing going on over here and SURELY there is someone better for this job." But God had his man, and He knew it. He didn't have any doubts. "I will be with you," He replies. Moses had no plans to save the Israelites, but God did. And He was going to see those plans through. And Moses went.

Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was just a boy. A teenager MAYBE. And God came to him and said, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." Whoa whoa whoa! A boy? Prophet to the nations? Jeremiah responds, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a CHILD." Jeremiah was probably being apprenticed in a trade at this time. He had a plain old life laid out before him. But God had other plans.

"Do not say, 'I am only a child.'... Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," God reassured. God had plans for Jeremiah, plans Jeremiah could have never dreamed of and probably was afraid of and quite possibly didn't want to be any part of. But Jeremiah went.

As God would later speak to the Israelites in Jeremiah's book, "For I know the plans I have for you... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I think that's what Jesus is getting it. It's like he's saying, "Pray this, 'God let you kingdom, your plans, be my plans. I let your will be done in my life now, just as it would in heaven.'" It's like he's saying, "God, don't be in my plans. Instead, let ME be in YOUR plans." Moses and Jeremiah had there own plans, and God totally changed them. He took them on a total 180-degree flip. He doesn't promise that life will be easy when we follow those plans. Moses faced insurmountable odds and challenges (like crossing a sea and turning a river into blood,) but God would NOT let His plans fail. Jeremiah was barely a boy, but God gave him the words.

God has purpose for our lives. He has plans to prosper us, to give us hope, to give us life and life to the fullest! When I pray, I want to ask not for God to be in MY this or MY that, but to let me be a part of HIS this or HIS that. Because those plans will never fail. When we catch a glimpse of those plans and get a chance to tag along to those plans, that becomes a beautiful adventure.

forever unfinished...