Your kingdom come (Matthew 6:10a)

"Your kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10a)                                                                  

James, a twenty-one-year-old junior in college, typically smokes two or three joints per week, sometimes with friends, other times by himself. Bethany, a thirty-five-year-old working nurse, wife, and mother of three, feels so overwhelmed some days she loses her temper and yells at her husband for not doing more to help around the house and at her children when they don’t keep their rooms neat (which they seldom do). And Tom, a former UPS driver, having recently retired six months after turning sixty-five, can’t wait to sell his house in Kentucky so he and his wife Sherry can move to Florida where he plans to do nothing but play golf and relax on the beach.

At first glance James, Bethany, and Tom appear to have little in common. James has yet to even begin his career and his habit of smoking marijuana indicates he’s still “sowing his wild oats.” Bethany has achieved what most people want in life—a good job and a family—yet the stress of keeping everything together sometimes becomes almost more than she can handle. And Tom just wants to get the most out of the final years of his life with Sherry. Yet despite their differences, James, Bethany, and Tom share the need for God’s kingdom to come into their lives.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he taught them to pray for God’s kingdom to come. God’s kingdom refers to God’s rule. Therefore, when we pray for God’s kingdom to come we are asking for God to rule over everyone and everything.  Of course in the future, after Jesus returns, this will become a reality in the fullest extent possible because then justice and peace will prevail and thus suffering, poverty, injustice, ignorance, stress, war, death, destruction, disease, depression, famine, and sin will cease.

But the kingdom comes as we learn to live under the authority of God. So when James realizes that he needs to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit instead of the influence of marijuana, and he stops smoking marijuana and instead seeks to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God will have come to him. When Bethany learns how to deal with her anger constructively, and changes her behavior so that she no longer lashes out at her husband and children, the kingdom of God will have come to her. And when Tom sees that he can enjoy his retirement far more when he witnesses for Christ wherever he goes, either on the golf course and the beach, or anywhere else, and he begins to witness in many places, then the kingdom of God will have come to him.

So let us be found earnestly praying both for ourselves and for others that God’s kingdom come. We will all be the better for it.