So far in this weekly series on the Lord’s Prayer, we have asked for God’s Kingdom to come into our lives and eventually to fill the entire world as the waters cover the sea.

We now, in adding this phrase “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven”, are recognising that in Heaven (of which we know so little) God has complete authority and all that he wills to be done is done.

We know that above this earth there is a perfect place where righteousness dwells. We have a vision of perfect light, perfect worship, wonderful music, no sickness, no pain, no wars and perfect harmony. So we can easily add to our prayer for God’s Kingdom to come to earth that “thy will be done”.

Do You Mean It?

Who would not want to pray this prayer? Surely we all want our Almighty, all-wise and powerful, all-seeing, sacrificially-loving Father to take control of our lives and do what only he can do, perfect in every way.

Yet, do we really mean it? Sometimes words, however beautiful, like a costly masterpiece hanging on our walls, can become like wallpaper after a time – so familiar that we do not continue to appreciate both their beauty and their full reality as we once did.

So what is in that picture of the outworking of the Lord’s prayer?

Our Surrender

Here on earth, the perfect answer to our prayer “thy will be done” involves the imperfections of mankind being dealt with and all our struggles and strivings being counteracted with love and heavenly discipline.

We would like to think that we were ready to be in absolute submission to the will of God. Sometimes we are moved to long genuinely for it as a deer pants for cool, living water - to find the abiding place in Jesus where his will becomes our will in all things, and where prayer finds immediate answer.

To find such a place of total submission, one must also accept the truth expressed by God to Isaiah (Isa 55:8), “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”. There are implications to the prayer we are praying and we must be ready to accept them. We cannot pray this prayer “thy will be done” and alongside it present God with our formula for how it is to be answered. He will answer in his way, and this could be costly.

Christians have wrestled with the concepts of the sovereignty of God and the free will of man for centuries, but this prayer is a declaration of the desire for the sovereignty of God.

Consider Afresh

Many of us have prayed for revival in our nation, having heard about the wonderful fruit of revival in past eras. “Come down O love divine and visit us once more!” Yet, mostly we gloss over the cost of such revival in terms of human struggle when the convicting power of the Holy Spirit descends on a person or an entire nation.

Indeed, it is a truth borne out of experience that the prayer “thy will be done” is most heartfelt at a time of desperation, when perhaps we have expended all our own efforts to little gain.

Let us – for we must – pray this prayer together, but let us consider again what we are truly praying. May we count the cost before we pray it next time. Let’s not miss the depth of what is being asked, so that we can truly mean what we pray.

Author: Dr Clifford Denton