I don’t claim to be an example of a prayerful woman. I’m more of a grasping the hem of His garment kind of a pray-er, so I share these things because I so desperately need the reminder!

Thankfully, I am Jesus’ disciple, and He is a kind and good teacher. We have his ocean-deep sermon in Matthew 5-7 on the Kingdom of God, and right in the middle is this simple, but comprehensive model prayer. 

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I shared a lot of thoughts from Dallas Willards’s The Divine Conspiracy last year–a whole book on Jesus’ sermon on the mount. Willard’s explanation of what it mean to pray for God’s Kingdom to come has stuck with me. 

Willard explains that praying for God’s Kingdom to come doesn’t mean we’re asking for it to exist, because it already has and will exist forever and forever. Rather, it means that we pray for the (little “k”) kingdoms of this world to come under God’s rule. 

When we pray this we can think of two areas of application, explains Willard:

One is personal. Think of your sphere of influence, your corner of the world. Your neighborhood, school, workplace, home. The things you do, the activities you’re involved in, the work you invest in. 

All of these are where God wants to act, rule, and reign, ushering in the peace of His kingdom! Willard writes, “We are therefore asking that, by means beyond our knowledge and the scope of our will, we be assisted to act within the flow of God’s actions.”

Jesus, Your Kingdom come, your will be done HERE with the people and places I love. Come work powerfully here this year.  

The second is more global. Here we think about bigger “structural or institutionalized evils that rule so much of the earth” (Willard). These are systems and cultural norms we get swept up in, sometimes seemingly beyond our control. 

Willard writes, “We therefore pray for our Father to break up these higher-level patterns of evil. And, among other things, we ask him to help us see the patterns we are involved in. We ask him to help us not cooperate with them, to cast light on them and act effectively to remove them.”

This makes me think about institutional racism, something I’ve been writing and learning about over the last year. 

Jesus, Your Kingdom come, your will be done THERE too, in the places I can’t see any way of fixing. Oh Father, come and powerfully bring Your peace. 

Let’s pray these prayers over this year and see what God will do in us and the world around us!

I made two things for you this month:

1. A coloring page map through the Lord’s prayer in English and Spanish. It has some fill-in-the-blank spaces where you can add your specifics to the prayer. For example, under “your kingdom come,” you can add “in my school,” “in my office,” “in my sports team,” etc. Under “daily bread,” you can write in the things that you need.

You can download the pages by clicking on the images below.

2. A “your Kingdom come” phone screensaver image in English and Spanish. You can download the screensaver by clicking on the images below and saving to your phone.

Thank you for being here! I’m looking forward to sharing this year with you. Comment below and let me know what you think of the printables and how you use them!