Grieving With Hope After Miscarriage And Loss By Adriel BookerSample

Day Four

Your Kingdom Come

Scripture: Matthew 6:10

When Jesus showed us how to pray in Matthew 6:10, he acknowledged within his prayer that God’s will is not always done on earth, yet we’re to pray it will be. 

Babies die before they’re born. Violence ravages communities. Prisoners are beaten and tortured. Nations turn a blind eye to genocide happening next door. Racism kills dreams and claims lives. Abuse destroys families. Ego corrupts governments. Carelessness and apathy wreck oceans and forests. 

We can watch the news and see that God’s will isn’t always happening; it seems obvious that monstrosities like the horror of war don’t represent God’s heart or intention. But what about when it’s our life, our baby? Do we believe it then? Do we believe Jesus’s prayer is still relevant? 

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

We suffer because we live in a world where things are not as they should be. This is not God’s design; we weren’t created to suffer. The human story begins in Genesis chapter 1, not chapter 3. 

Suffering exists, but not because it’s God’s intention or will for our lives. It exists because he created us with the capacity to love, and love always requires free will—it cannot be forced. With humanity’s free will came the wonderful, awful ability to rebel against Love. Our rebellion in the garden set the world in motion toward suffering, and it still spins today, leaving brokenness in its wake. 

This was not God’s will then, and it’s not God’s will now. 

All these years after Eden, we’re still groaning under the weight of sorrow. Jesus has come, but we’re still waiting for him to come again. He’s saved us from ourselves, and he’s still saving us as we awaken to his purposes in our lives. The kingdom of God is at hand, and every day it’s further established as we live into it and allow God to heal us and heal creation through us. 

But our in-between remains a tension. We hold the promise of hope and redemption in one hand and the reality of a world still infected with rebellion in the other. This is the reason we continue to pray, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. May it be so.

Is it encouraging or discouraging to you to know that some of Jesus’s prayers remain unanswered? Why? Does this change the fact that God will have the final word when he comes again?