10 Contemplative Days in the Lord's PrayerSample

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us. Help us not to give into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen

You stir the eager passion of your prayers in a pool of surrender. Surrender is nothing that cools your passions. Surrender isn’t anywhere near resignation. It’s not like somehow you have to divorce your desires before you find your prayers inside Jesus’ desire. No, prayer has been pulling your passions and his passions into one. The prayer then, that “Your kingdom come and your will be done,” is a prayer of a lover’s union that desires most to have their desires owned and overtaken by the desires of the other. You’re ready to lose yourself there. You find that you have a God whose passions are red hot, and your desires find their brightest fulfillment in him. In fact, you find that the desires you’ve held were authored on your heart by him directly, and have been driving you back to find him—our father, in heaven, hallowed, loved, complete, and listening for us to knock on his door with your prayers.

“On earth as it is in heaven,” allows you to acknowledge the gap. There is tension in the gap. The way it is here and now on earth is not how it’s meant to be. It’s certainly not the way it will be then and there in heaven. The kingdom of Jesus is still coming and his salvation is still growing. Your prayers are joining him in pulling down pieces of the way it should be down into the way it is in your everyday life right now.

A few ways to enter into prayer today for, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” starts with noticing your desires. Really take some time to notice what you want most. Notice then if or how these desires may have come from God or are pushing you back into God.

Notice whether your prayers are postured in surrender. What feels right about surrender, and what feels uncomfortable?

Then notice God’s desire. Spend a silent moment letting him tell you what he wants most for you, his kingdom, and his will. Is it widely different or largely the same as that which you desire?

Turn each of these things you’ve noticed into a prayer.