“May your Kingdom come”

A student may pray, “Lord, help me to pass this exam.” As they pray, how do you think they expect God to answer? No doubt they would hope for God to create out of nothing in their mind all that information they didn't learn! But it is more likely they are asking God to help them bring to mind the information they did learn. There is participation in that prayer - both with what God does and with what the student has done.

When we pray, it is often similar. We may pray, “God, show that person they are loved”, and then proceed to act towards that person in a way which demonstrates God's love. In such circumstances, we have become God's answer to our prayer.

As you know, Jesus taught us to pray:

"Our Father in heaven, may your name be honoured, may your kingdom come soon. May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.”
- Matthew 6:9-10 (NLT)

There is an edge to this part of the Lord's Prayer – sometimes we live out a Christian faith which describes its benefits all in terms of eternity - “become a Christian and you will go to heaven.” In contrast, the Lord's Prayer anticipates that heaven might spill over into now – that we may taste on earth what heaven is like.

Certainly the Lord's Prayer acknowledges that the world we live in is not like heaven – otherwise why would we ask God to bring earth into line with his will? But the prayer doesn't leave the earth there - it asks God to make things different: it says, “God, show us what heaven is like - may your will be done here on earth”

Have you ever wondered how we might expect God to answer this part of the Lord's Prayer? Those who willingly pray the Lord's Prayer must believe that God will answer it in their lives first – “God, may your will be done in my life”.

But how might we see God's will done on earth as it is in heaven? We have a suspicion that God often chooses to work out the answer to this prayer through us; we have a part to play in being the answer to this prayer. Those who live their lives under God's will endeavour to bring to the world the will of God – “God may your will be done on earth, through me.”

We see the Big Week Out as a working out of this prayer: we believe the Big Week Out and projects like it, try to bring a taste of what heaven is like to earth. They demonstrate through action what life might look like when we live within the will of God. They face the challenges of a world askew and bring to it the hope, healing and wholeness God gives through Jesus.

Big Week Out seeks to identify the needs within our community and bring to it a taste of the kind of love God has for us, through Jesus.

Certainly we at the Big Week Out do not believe that Christians have a monopoly on generous service. People from many walks of life and faith also serve the needs of our community generously, for that we are thankful. But our motivation for service comes from the love God has demonstrated to us in Jesus.

We have seen God take seriously his own Lord's prayer by being involved in this world, going the ultimate distance in bringing heaven to earth by giving his one and only Son.

For us the Big Week Out is part of our participation in the Lord's prayer: “may your kingdom come soon. May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.”

We hope that as we serve, people might gain a glimpse of what heaven is like, because they can see what God is like.