The third request in the Lord’s Prayer is “your will be done.” What does this mean? First, we are praying for God’s moral will to be done, that his commands would be obeyed. We want God to help us do his will. Second, we are praying for God’s providential will to be done. We are expressing our trust in God’s plan for our lives as Jesus did in the garden before the cross.
Do our prayers look like this? Is this our heart’s desire?
The second request in the Lord’s Prayer is “Your kingdom come.” What does this mean? First, we are praying for Christ’s return, when his kingdom will come in it’s final fulfillment. Second, we are praying for people to come to Christ, when the king comes into their lives and they enter the kingdom. Third, we are praying for God’s people to submit to their king, when they act like true subjects of the kingdom. The question is, do we really want these things?
Do we long for Christ to return? Do we long for people to be saved? Do we long to live for Christ? Does these desires affect our lives?
Again, our prayers reveal our hearts. What do our prayers reveal? Are we crying out for Christ to return? Are we crying out to God for our lost loved ones, co-workers, neighbors, communities? Are we crying out to God for his grace to help us live for our king? Do we pray like this? Is this our heart’s desire?
O Lord, change our hearts more and more that our desires and prayers might be focused on your kingdom!
The first request in the Lord’s Prayer is “Hallowed Be Your Name.” What does that mean? It means that we want God’s name treated as holy or set apart. We want his name to be honored, respected, glorified. The question is: do we really want this?
Do we wake up in the morning desiring to live for God’s glory? Is this what makes our hearts beat? Is this our passion, our delight? Do we want God to be glorified in our day, our activities, our home, our jobs or school, our church, our neighborhood, our country, our world? Does this desire translate into our lives?
In my last post I noted that our prayers flow out of our desires. So if we are not praying for God to be honored, it means either we lack this desire or that this desire is buried under a bunch of competing desires. So consider these questions:
Are our prayers filled with praise to God? Are our prayers filled with requests that God glorify his name in our lives, our home, our churches?
As we examine ourselves, do we find that we really desire God to be glorified? Or maybe we need to cry out – “Change our hearts, O God!”
What is prayer? The Westminster Catechism says, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will….” Note that prayer flows out of our desires, or put the other way: what we desire is what we pray for. Prayer is the overflow of our hearts.
We look in a mirror to see what our hair looks like. Prayer is a mirror that we look at to see what our heart looks like. What do we see?
John Piper says in his book When I Don’t Desire God – “What a person prays for shows the spiritual condition of his heart. If we do not pray for spiritual things…then probably it is because we do not desire these things. Which is a devastating indictment of our hearts.”
Does our prayer life reveal a lack of desire for the things of God?
While I agree with Piper’s general assessment, it seems to me there is another possible reason we may not pray spiritual things. It may not be that we don’t desire spiritual things at all, it may be that we simply don’t desire them enough. The desire for spiritual things may be buried under a ton of competing desires. That is, our heart may be distracted or divided or both. This too would be a devastating indictment of our hearts.
Which brings us back to looking at our prayer life. What does it reveal about our hearts? No desire for spiritual things? A low, distracted desire for spiritual things? Other desires that are smothering our desire for the things of God?
Perhaps one desire we need to cultivate is the desire that God would change our hearts, and then take that desire to him in prayer. Change our hearts, O God!
Brian J. Mikul 