This last Sunday I began a two part series on the Lord’s Prayer. This Sunday I will wrap up and summarize what was covered this last week. There is a word, I believe, that applies to the prayer. That word, radical. The word radical likely raises all kinds of images for us, whether positive or negative. But the word is a great word when it comes to our walk with Jesus.

One definition I found defines radical as “relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something.” With this definition in mind, I would hope we find both our relationship with Jesus and the Lord’s Prayer radical. The more seriously we take both, the more we will find the fundamental nature of who we are dramatically affected.

Speaking of radical, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says, “Your Kingdom come.” It is here the prayer begins to get truly radical and upending, especially if we pay attention to what we are really praying and asking for. To get into this, we need a definition of God’s Kingdom.

God’s Kingdom is a place and time when everything is as it should be. It is where and when love, wonder, kindness, compassion, humility, joy, service, selflessness and justice prevail. It is when there is no illness or heartache. It is where relationships are characterized by mercy and forgiveness. Simply put, the Kingdom of God is where and when everything is as God wants it to be.

In essence when we are praying for God’s Kingdom to come, we are praying for heaven on earth. Think of everything that is right in the world. Such things reflect something of what God’s Kingdom looks like. Think of everything that is wrong. That sheds light on the gap between where we are and how God wants things to be.

Several writers have noted, including John Ortberg, that when we pray for God’s Kingdom, we are saying we are ready to be fully committed followers of Jesus and all that entails. That we are asking God’s Kingdom to infuse and replace our own kingdoms. That we are willing to give up our way of doing things for God’s.

Such things have compelled me to ask myself questions as, “What are my kingdoms in my own life? Where do I put myself in the place of being king? What might God say about my kingdoms and how I rule things in comparison to how God would want things done?”

I have also asked myself, “To what degree when I pray ‘your Kingdom come’ do I really mean it? Do I really want God’s Kingdom to arrive knowing the many changes I’d have to make to live into God’s Kingdom? Am I willing to upend things to align my own kingdoms with God’s?”

Or, as Paul writes in a letter from one version of the Bible, “Are we willing to fit every thought, emotion and impulse into a life shaped by Christ?” Is this humanly impossible, yes. But it is what we are asking for and striving for when we say, “Your Kingdom come.” And the writer NT Wright states, when we pray for God’s Kingdom, “we must of course be prepared to live this way.”

The point of all of this is not to make us feel inadequate, less than, guilty and bad. Rather the point is to highlight the radical nature of what we are asking God to do in our lives, which is to bring God’s Kingdom into our lives, to accept the resultant changes God seeks to make, and to embrace a life characterized and infused by God’s love. I believe when it is all said and done, when we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come,” while we may discover we must let go of many things, in the end, we will find the amazing life God has in mind for each of us.