Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:10 (NIV)
Prayer can be dangerous. Ask God for patience, and He might give you the opportunity to practice it. Ask Him to strengthen your faith, and He may allow you to go through trials that will increase Your faith. Ask God to do His will on earth as it is in heaven, and you may find yourself displaced as the ruler of your own little kingdom.
Does that mean we shouldn’t pray as Jesus says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”? Absolutely not. But, it does mean that, when we pray for God’s will to be done, we should be ready for some excitement!
God’s will is always done perfectly in heaven. The angels don’t debate whether or not they will obey God. They don’t question His Word. They know that He is God and they are not, and so they follow Him without arguing. Unfortunately, the same can’t always be said of us. That’s why Jesus taught us to ask God to do His will on earth, in our lives, as it is done in heaven.
Jesus is telling us to submit our will to God’s. He wants us to subordinate our desires to His. We should follow God’s agenda rather than our own. Why? Because God is God and we are not. He is infinitely wiser, infinitely more knowledgeable, and infinitely more powerful than we are. Our best course of action is to willingly follow God’s lead.
How can we do that? A great place to start is by humbly confessing to God that we’re inclined to try to run our own lives rather than following His will. Then ask Him to give you a greater desire to see His will done than to follow your own agenda. Ask Him to give you a heart for His priorities and purposes. Ask Him to accomplish His will through your life. Then watch what happens!