“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”
This phrase in The Lord’s Prayer resonates with me deeply. This sin-riddled world is not as it should be. There is pain, heartache, and brokenness everywhere. Just turn on the news. We ache for redemption and renewal. We long for things to be made right “on earth as it is in Heaven.” Don’t you want to implore Someone to intervene in all of this?
And yet, unexpectedly at times, there is great beauty here too: sunrises and sunsets, the laughter of a child, the fresh green of spring returning. Marbled into this broken world is a pervasive beauty that awakens wonder. Don’t you want to thank Someone for the goodness in all of this?
We live in this paradox of brokenness and beauty. Delighted and desperate. Imploring and grateful. Washed by grace, and awaiting glory.
I love C. S. Lewis’ insights in The Problem of Pain:
The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with out friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
And so we pray as Jesus taught us, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Because no matter what this life brings, we are loved, more than we know.
Dear Pastor Miller. My sweetheart, my wife of 64 years and I are blessed by the Lord as we engage in the Sunday morning worship services at Moody church. In our eighties we love and appreciate the ministry of God’s word more than ever. The Lord is doing a good work in and through you. We pray that He who has begun His good work in and through you will enable you by His Spirit to finish well. We also greatly appreciate the worshipful church music. It is a breath of fresh air compared to what is presented as Christian church music today. The Lord is glorified in our hearts when the message and the method compliment each other, as it is at Moody church.
We have joined the Lord’s work through brother Erwin Lutzer’s ministry since 1990. In daily prayer we remember Pastor Lutzer and you and your family and all who labor and worship at Moody church.
Just one request. Could you please have the scripture references you give inserted into the church bulletin along with your sermon outline. We are blessed when looking them up after the service.
In Jesus, our Lord and King Forever,
Larry A. & S. Helen Bivins, Augusta, GA.