It is easy to pray for good things. You want our loved ones to be healthy and safe. You want the unrest and violence in our country to end. You want your children to follow God. You want those suffering with sickness to be healed. You want joy to be restored in your marriage. These are good things. But do you have the courage to pray for something more?
You sell God short when you only ask for things that seem to good to you. In the prayer of our Lord, Christ gives us something better to ask for: he asks that God’s kingdom will come and that his will be done.
This request requires trust in God. This is a request for God to do things beyond what you can ask or imagine. This request redefines your expectation of what is good. It boldly proclaims that God has better plans for your life than you do. When you and I pray this prayer we don’t fully know what this might mean for our lives. In humility you acknowledge you don’t have the answers, but that God does.
You limit your prayers when you only ask for what you can conceive. Praying for God’s will to be done requires faith and trust well beyond the limits of what you think is good.
When you pray for God’s will you are you are praying in faith. Praying this way is scary. It makes you vulnerable. God’s idea of what is good may be radically different that yours. Ask God for the courage to trust him to determine what is good for your life.
Your kingdom come, your will be done. This is a bold prayer. Paul reminds us of the wonder of asking for God’s will to be done in our lives:
However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love him…” (I Corinthians 2:9)