“THY WILL BE DONE”—but in fact we are thinking: “Our will be done,” and thus this third petition of the Lord’s Prayer is first of all a kind of judgment on us, a judgment of our faith.Alexander Schmemann, Our Father
LORD, may your grace help me to want what you want, to prefer what you prefer.Dom Hélder Câmara, Through the Gospel with Dom Hélder Câmara
I NOW … SEE that this prayer is a cry of hope and yearning, a sigh of longing, even a despairing plea … all rooted in God’s hope.Arthur Paul Boers, Lord, Teach Us to Pray
GOD’S KINGDOM is not a place, but rather a relationship. It exists wherever people enthrone Jesus as lord of their lives.J. I. Packer, Growing in Christ
AS CHRISTIANS, we are not opposed to boundaries. The gap between the world and the kingdom of God ought to be made clear. … While we are not opposed to boundaries, God’s kingdom enables us to be opposed to the way the world sets up boundaries—on the basis of gender, class, race, economics, or accent.William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us
WHEN YOU PRAY that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven, envision conflict being resolved, marriages and families healed, truth told and people faithful to one another, initiatives that break through the vicious cycles of retaliation, and love that creates new community among people through forgiveness, reconciliation, and peacemaking.Glen H. Stassen, Living the Sermon on the Mount
THE SECOND main petition in the Lord’s Prayer—”Thy Kingdom Come”—rules out any idea that the Kingdom of God is a purely heavenly (that is, “otherwordly”) reality. … Think of the vision at the end of Revelation. It isn’t about humans being snatched up from earth to heaven. The holy city, new Jerusalem, comes down from heaven to earth. God’s space and ours are finally married, integrated at last.N. T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer
THE QUESTION Christ poses to the world is whether it is invested in God’s reign. The question he poses to his disciples is whether they have the patience to keep posing it.Telford Work, Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
GOD GRANT that the kingdom of Jesus Christ may grow in his Church on earth, God hasten the end of the kingdoms of this world, and establish his own kingdom in power and glory!Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.”Revelation 11:15, NRSV
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