Prayer-The Hope of Kingdom Come

A most calming, most hopeful way to see prayer in the light of Stanley Grenz describes it in his book, Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom. (Eerdmans, 1998) He says that every prayer is eschatological (related to end times). By this he means that prayer is the cry, the longing, and the hope of God’s will coming in the culmination of all things. That time when God wipes our tears, rights all wrongs, and the fullness of time and creation enters into the Consummation of the Story of God-theologically speaking. It is a response and movement toward God and faith, and his plan of redemption in the ultimate sense.

Just the same, Jesus prayed for what else? “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s kingdom, spiritual is here now, thanks to our Messiah Kin. Redemption has been won. Yet, as we all know the earth groans to be restored, tragedies happen, evil is committed, and not all is well with people and the world. This is the cry of prayer, in every nation and tongue.

Have you ever seen prayer this way?

http://djackson.stscs.org/ Doug Jackson

Lisa – I subscribe to a weekly e-column by the abbot of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert up in New Mexico. In today’s meditation he talks about how the Rule instructs monks to spend time in stillness before chapter meetings so that they will be able to hear the Spirit’s voice regarding the decision they are making. Then he adds, “We could say that the monk should always be still and silent because he never knows when he may be asked to participate in a meeting that will be important for the community.”

Thinking of that, having just read your blog, brought home to me how right you are about the apocalyptic and the present occupying the same space. As Screwtape reminds Wormwood, the place where eternity most nearly touches time is the present moment, which is why the Enemy wants us to live either in the past or the future. P