Attaching to Our Father Through the Lord’s Prayer by Cyd and Geoff HolsclawSample

Your Kingdom Come

As a little girl, my make-believe more often included being able to help my grandpa in his wood shop than being a princess. This fits with how we can think of the Kingdom of God: as a family business.

Our Father has a business of repairing ruptures, of flourishing the life of everyone and everything in the world, of blessing the entire world with love. And as he goes about the work of this Kingdom, he wants us by his side, working together.

But our Father’s family business is in competition with many other businesses and industries that are

• focused on distraction, consumption, and abuse; and
• offering freedom through pleasure that ends up giving us bondage, addiction, and pain.

In a broken world full of competing businesses, our Father’s family business is the only one that offers repair among the ruptures. And this business is built entirely on self-giving love.

The Father is in the business of

• offering us love and acceptance;
• welcoming weakness and vulnerability;
• healing hurts and reconciling enemies; and
• bringing life from death, beauty from ashes, and wholeness from brokenness.

When Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father “your kingdom come” we are asking, praying, and hoping that the Father’s business of repairing ruptures would grow so that all the ruptures of the world can be repaired, the hurts healed, the weaknesses strengthened, the failures forgiven, and the wrongs made right.

It’s a HUGE job! And we’re invited to join our Father in this family business of repairing ruptures! God wants us to work alongside him to make everything new.

The good news of praying “your Kingdom come” to the Father is the reminder that we aren’t alone in the work of repairing the world or ourselves. It’s the Father’s business. It’s God’s work.

And so when we pray as Jesus taught us, we are really asking for help. We are asking the Father to do what the Father is more than ready to do. We are reminding ourselves that the Father is available, and is ready to alleviate all that distresses us.

Because our Father is in the business of repairing ruptures.

AS YOU PRAY…

As you pray the Lord’s Prayer today, talk to the Father about the places in your life and in the lives of those you love that need repairing. Ask the Father to show you where you can partner with the Father’s Kingdom business of love to repair ruptures.