The Lord’s Prayer: Your Will Be Done
Perhaps this has become a soapbox for me at this point, but there is something that is incredibly crucial to remember as we develop out theology and ethics of the Christian life: God is not just the God of another, otherworldly realm we call “heaven” and the end goal is not for humanity to drift off into space as disembodies spirits and head to that “heaven.” God is the God of the heavens and the Earth, and the end goal is for those two things to become one.
So what does that mean for us in light of the next line in the Lord’s Prayer, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Conceptually, God’s will is done perfectly in heaven. Heaven is what we are striving for Earth to look like in a very real sense, and we want God’s will as perfectly executed here as it is there.
The difference is this: on the Earth, God has partnered with humanity in his dominion. When we read Genesis 1, we find beautiful imagery about God’s partnership with humankind:
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
God chooses not to treat humanity as simply another species on the Earth, not to make them his slaves, and not to leave us to our own devices; instead, he shares his divine rule with humanity.
The problem comes when humanity rejects that partnership, either by refusing to rule at all, or by refusing to partner with God in that rule. Jesus shows us, however, what partnering with God looks like. Our desire is for the will of God to be done on Earth, and in that way, the merging of heaven and Earth becomes more and more real. And following in the footsteps of Jesus is how we accomplish that goal.
God has given us a beautiful gift in inviting us to rule alongside him in his creation. But it’s up to us to accept this invitation. So let us come together and ensure that God’s will is done on Earth as it is in heaven.