Lord's Prayer: Thy Will Be Doneনমুনা

Right on the heels of “Thy kingdom come,” Jesus teaches us to pray “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” It’s all one, big, interrelated request. This week we’ll focus on the “thy will be done” part. But first, a bit about Hebrew poetry.

When we drop lines, we like to rhyme. When Old Testament writers dropped lines, they liked to parallel. What’s that mean? A Hebrew poet or songwriter will often give a two-line couplet. The second matches the first in some way. Not word-for-word, but in thought, like when Psalm 27:1 says:

The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of whom shall I be afraid?

Or in Psalm 103:19 –

The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
And his kingdom rules over all.

So when Jesus tells us to pray:

Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

He’s laying down this second line to flush out the first. Praying “thy kingdom come” and “thy will be done” are essentially saying the same thing. It’s praying, “God, I want your kingdom to come. And the essence of your kingdom is when things go your way. When your purposes come to pass. When your hopes are realized.”

Praying “thy will be done” is living with a hope of God’s ideal becoming reality. It’s a plea for God to come, intervene, even vindicate. And likewise it means submitting. It’s saying I want a will and a way greater than my own before which I’ll adopt a posture of obedience and humility, which then ironically emboldens and strengthens me.

Jesus wants us to hunger for God’s kingdom. Now he focuses our prayer life on the heart of what that means – God’s way happening in us and all around us, just like it would in heaven.

Consider this today…

Imagine if God were to get his way in everything. What would that be like? What excites you or scares you about that idea? How can you take a risk on Jesus to pray that way today?