By Justin Rossow
How many times have you prayed the Lord’s Prayer in your life? How many times have you paid attention as you prayed the Lord’s Prayer in your life? Don’t answer that. And don’t feel bad about it, either. Focused prayer is really hard; that’s one reason we pray again and again and again.…
I remember an anecdote about Martin Luther. I don’t know if it’s true… but Brother Martin reportedly made a bet with a friend that his friend couldn’t get through the entire Lord’s Prayer without his thoughts wandering. Luther let the man go into a closet and shut the door and promised not to distract him. Luther was so confident of victory, he bet his own horse.
When Luther’s friend came back out, he was shaking his head. With a rueful smile the friend reported that the prayer went really well. He got all the way to “For Thine is the Kingdom,” when he began to wonder if the horse came with a saddle.…
Sustained, focused prayer is hard. Meaning what you pray is hard. Meaning even the Lord’s Prayer ain’t easy, in part because you pray it all the time.
But what do you mean by the Lord’s Prayer? Let’s start there. What do you think you are doing when you pray the Our Father? What kind of prayer is “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”?
If I imagine “God’s will” as that cold, calculating, good-for-you-but-you-won’t-like-it pill you have to swallow, then “Thy will be done” usually means something like, “Go ahead and have what you want, God, even though I know I won’t like it.”
But God’s will is tied directly to God’s delight.
What if we prayed, “Our Abba in heaven, Your Kingdom come; Your Good Pleasure be done…”? What if we prayed, “Our Father, Your Desire (Yes, Please!!) be done…”? What if Jesus is teaching us to pray, “Our Father, Your Kingdom Come, Your Delight be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”???
Before we are done with this chapter on God’s will, let’s take a brief look at the prayer we use most often to ask for God’s will to be done. The prayer Jesus taught us takes on new meaning when you know you are praying for delight.
You are asking God to do the things God actually delights in doing. You are inviting the Spirit to shape you to delight in and do the things God delights in. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to delight in God’s will and to walk in God’s ways, to the glory of God’s holy name.
Our Father who art in heaven …
Jesus begins his prayer with relationship: Abba, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Jesus is placing the same Abba prayer on our lips that he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane. This prayer for delight is grounded in relationship. You are not a slave; you are a beloved child. And you ask for God’s delight to be done in your life as a darling child asks their loving Father. You are also praying for obedience, but the obedience that flows from relationship, the obedience of delight in God’s will as you observe God’s ways to the glory (and hallowing) of God’s holy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done …
Just as the Beloved Son prays, “Father, your will be done,” he teaches beloved daughters and sons to pray, “Our Father, Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done.”
Praying for God’s Kingdom to come is praying for God’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And praying for God’s will (Yes, please!!) to be done is praying for God’s delight to be a reality in us and through us. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Delight be done.”
God actually delights in saying yes to this prayer. This is exactly what filled Jesus with joy in the Spirit and made him jump up and spin around and go, “Woohoo!” The Father delights in revealing the kingdom not to the wise and learned, but to the little children. (This means you!) Or, as Jesus says to us in another place,
Fear not, little flock,
for it is your Father’s good pleasure
[Wow!, Thoughtful Delight]
to give you the kingdom.
(Luke 12:32, ESV)
The apostle Paul puts it this way:
This is good, and it is pleasing [Wow!]
in the sight of God our Savior,
who desires [Yes, please!!]
all people to be saved
and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
(1 Timothy 2:3–4, ESV)
God’s Thoughtful Delight and Desirable Delight is to bring people into the eternal kingdom. When you pray for God’s kingdom to come, you are praying for God’s delight to be done. But it doesn’t stop there.
Give us this day our daily bread …
When you ask God to supply for your daily needs, you don’t come as a beggar. Your Father loves to daily and richly provide all that you need to support this body and life. You are asking God to do what God loves to do, and would do even if you didn’t pray.
But when you pray for your daily bread, the Spirit works in you an attitude of dependence. You receive your daily bread with open hands and a thankful heart in a way you miss if you receive the same daily gifts with no thought for the Giver.
And God delights in that dependence. Jesus himself is dependent on the Father for everything he needs; as the Spirit shapes that daily dependence in us, it delights the Father.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors …
When you go to your Heavenly Father burdened by guilt, you are not facing a cold, calculating, impartial judge who only begrudgingly lets you off if the evidence against you is not sufficient. No! You come to a God who loves to forgive! You come to a God who takes no delight in the death of the wicked, but who loves it when sinners turn back. You have a God who celebrates when the prodigal returns, a God who absolutely loves forgiving you!
And you are praying for the Spirit to shape that joyful forgiveness in your heart, too. Forgiving someone else 70 times 7 often feels like 489 times too many for me. But our God delights when we show mercy; when we let go of the burden of debt that comes from sin against us.
“Forgive us … as we forgive…” puts what we do and what we receive together in one beautiful symphony of relieving burdens and erasing debts. As we forgive, we are playing in tune with the music of who God is. As we seek forgiveness, we are asking to be put back in the right key. As we forgive and receive forgiveness, we are resonating with the delight of the Father, who delights to forgive.
Deliver us from evil …
God absolutely loves delivering you from evil. Evil certainly includes sin, death, and Satan. And “evil” is a broad enough biblical concept to include all kinds of bad stuff; whatever is wrong in this fallen and sinful world, God loves setting it right.
King David appeals to God’s Thoughtful Delight even as he calls out for rescue from his enemies:
Be pleased (ratsah), O Lord, to deliver me!
O Lord, make haste to help me!
(Psalm 40:13, ESV)
God’s ratsah, or Thoughtful Delight, is what God approves, what makes God go, “Wow!” God thoughtfully and joyfully approves of coming to the rescue, of saving the helpless, of delivering people from their enemies!
רָצָה (Ratsah): approve, accept be pleased with, delight in
In fact, that delight in rescuing is part of God’s core identity:
Let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight [chephets, Yes, Please!!].
(Jeremiah 9:24, NIV)
Kindness (or covenant love and faithfulness), justice, and righteousness: all three are about God setting right things that have gone so terribly wrong in this world. This is God delivering us from evil; it’s just part of who God is. Doing justice, righteousness, and covenant faithfulness brings God Thoughtful and Desirable Delight.
God’s delight—that is, God’s will—shapes our adventure as followers of Jesus who are shaped by the Spirit to do the things that delight the Father.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8, NIV)
God delights in kindness and justice and righteousness; and God loves it when you act justly and love mercy. “Walking humbly with your God” is a rough equivalent of “observing everything I have commanded you.” You are putting yourself under God’s Word of command and promise (and direction and exhortation and comfort and warning); and then holding onto those words as if your life depended on it. That’s walking humbly with your God. That’s obeying everything Jesus commanded you. That’s the Spirit of the obedient Son shaping obedience in you. That’s taking pleasure in doing God’s Good Pleasure. That’s delighting in God’s will and walking in God’s ways to the glory of God’s holy name.
For Thine is the kingdom … forever and ever. Amen.
This final coda of the Lord’s Prayer, added later by the Church, reminds us that this kingdom we are praying for comes to us ahead of time; but it is still an eternal kingdom, a kingdom that will not be complete or fulfilled in its most ultimate sense until Jesus comes again in glory.
It’s like tacking on a part of the Hallelujah Chorus to the end of your prayer: “The kingdom of this world … will become … the kingdom of our God … and of his Christ (and of his Christ) … and he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”
One Day, God’s Kingdom will come completely and God’s delight will be done perfectly on earth as it is in heaven. And until that Day, every time you receive your daily bread with a thankful heart, every time you ask for forgiveness or offer forgiveness, every time you see God delivering you from evil or inviting you to set this world right in a way that brings your Father delight—every time you pray and live out the Lord’s Prayer, you experience the Eternal Kingdom already present now, in Jesus.
Jesus delighted in the Father’s will. Jesus walked in the Father’s ways. Jesus brought and still brings the Eternal Kingdom. And one Day soon, the creation will finally and completely be set right. God’s Kingdom will come and God’s delight will be done once and for all, and justice and righteousness and mercy and kindness will have the final and eternal word on all of our brokenness and suffering and failure. We pray for that day. We long for that day. We delight to participate in that coming kingdom already now, ahead of time.
God’s will—that is, God’s delight—sets the course for this adventure of faith. As a result, we get to delight in God’s will and walk in God’s ways, to the glory of God’s holy name.
Editor’s note: this article is taken from Chapter 9 of Delight! Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved by Justin Rossow. Used by permission.