We pray it so often;
"Your kingdom come....."
But I wonder if we know what we are praying, sometimes I have visions of the transforming power of God sweeping across the earth, visions of the second coming and of a world put right once and for all. A force so powerful that I cannot and will not be able to resist it, a move of God that would simply overwhelm me.
"Your kingdom come...."
Easy enough to pray, but if we really mean it we must be open to it as individuals, open to expect that mustard seed faith to grow in us and to spread through us, open to the possibility that our prayer for peace or patience might to be answered in and through us as we engage with day to day stuff, for God is at work in our lives.
"Your Kingdom come..."
Easy enough to pray, but if we really mean it we must be open to it together, open to expect the church to grow, to go through seasons, to be a place of constant change, and that is very hard for many, for we have a strange tendency to expect the church to be static. We misinterpret it, believing that we somehow encapsulate church in an hour on a Sunday morning, and while that is an important hour it should only be a place from which we are sent to be church, making a difference in the world through the week.
"Your kingdom come..."
Easy enough to pray, but if we really mean it we must be open to it appearing around us, open to expecting to find God at work in unexpected places and in unexpected people, calling us to join him in surprising ventures, to dare to become more than we are, and at times to leave the old behind in order that we can embrace the new.
"Your kingdom come..."
Easy enough to pray, but if we really mean it we must be willing to acknowledge that what is being built in through and around us is precisely that, God's kingdom and not ours, his means of restoration, not our relic, his place and ways of healing, not our systems and structures, his unfolding life in our midst challenging, changing and surprising us, leading us into being more than we could possibly ask or imagine....
Luke 13 18 Then Jesus asked, "What is God's kingdom like? What can I compare it to? 19 It is like a mustard seed. Someone took the seed and planted it in a garden. It grew and became a tree. The birds sheltered in its branches."
