reverse.
A little over a year ago I was in the middle of some of the biggest struggles and doubts of my life. I was searching and desiring to know what God really wanted from my life and what my life as a Christian was supposed to be about. I had spent so much time in Church, and Christian School, and Seminary and more Church that I think I was starting to forget what it was all about in the first place.
So I dove into the one place that made the most sense for me - Jesus’ Prayer. The one in Matthew 6 where he is telling his disciples what to pray for. I thought, “If this is what Jesus wanted his disciples to pray for, isn’t this what I should be about?” I spent a long time just turning the prayer over in my mind, thinking it, praying it, even living it. (As a side note, it is amazing how fast the prayer for daily bread becomes a real prayer and not a spiritual one when you actually need daily bread and are not sure where resources will come from day to day.) Anyways, back to our story… it all changed one night as I was meditating on the prayer.
I was in that moment between awake and asleep where your mind floats through ideas and thoughts at the speed of light just before it all goes dark. When all of a sudden I jerked awake with the most profound, simple, and shocking discovery about the Lord’s Prayer…
It moves in a different direction.
This discovery was so redefining and life changing for me (and now a group of friends), that the direction of my life (our lives) will never be the same. It caught me off guard in such a way that my only response was to cry. It started off slow at first but as the weight of what I just realized started to sink in the tears started to pour out.
See, I was raised with the idea that you would get saved so you could go to heaven when you die. Heaven wasn’t really connected to this world in any sense other than those who put their faith in Jesus on this earth would go there when they died. It was an earth to heaven movement. And our “job”, as Christians I was told, was to get people from earth into heaven.
And we even had catchy slogans to convince people that they needed to turn from their wicked ways for a heavenly reward. If we wanted to use a little fear we would let them know they had better “turn to the Bread of Life or you’re toast!”, or the always catchy, “it may not be much here but the retirement plan is out of this world!”. It wasn’t always that corny but the message was always the same. Get saved now (and be good and don’t do anything bad) so you can have heaven later.
But the Lord’s Prayer moves in a different direction… “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”
The prayer of Jesus does not move from Earth to Heaven.
It moves from Heaven to Earth.
Read it again. It is seeking to move the kingdom and will of God from heaven to earth! If this is what Jesus was praying for and teaching us to pray for then what did that mean for my life? I realized, along with a group of friends, that our entire direction had to change. Our desire to be focused on heaven had led to a profound focus on us. But a quick read through the Bible and you see Jesus focused on them. The broken them, the hurting them, the poor them, the forgotten them, the lost them. The them we conveniently forget about when heaven is our focus.
I know what you’re thinking… didn’t Paul say, “set your mind on things above, not on earthly things“? He did. And that is exactly what I’m talking about. You see our minds need to be set above in order to come below. But unfortunately when many of us “set our minds on things above” we are really setting them on our destination, our future, our reward, our selves. Which… is actually quite below.
As we live out the Bible’s call to care for the poor, the single-moms, the homeless, the lost, the hungry, and the broken it all begins to take on a beautiful new light. When we live as we are called to, we bring a glimpse of heaven to a broken earth. When we love as we ought to, we are bringing God’s future into our present. After all isn’t that what Jesus’ miracles were all about? When he restored sight to the blind, made the lame walk, and raised the dead wasn’t he simply showing the world his advancing Kingdom? And we, like prophets, caring for the poor and needy are displaying the future God will one day bring where all is made right and no tears are shed. What a beautiful future!
The truth is we will all spend our lives on something. It could be on bigger homes, nicer cars, or better jobs. We can spend it trying to never doing anything wrong and going to church every Sunday. Or how amazing is it that, in following the lead of Jesus, we can spend our lives bringing heaven to earth? We can change the direction and tell of a God who gave everything to change everyone’s direction.
Join us in moving in a different direction. Reverse.
Which strangely enough in God’s Kingdom… is Forward.
2 Comments
JBRO on February 11th, 2010
Don’t you love that moment between awake and asleep? God speaks to you there. I have had it happen to me too. Thanks for sharing your “reverse” revelation. I have to say, I think that you have been living it in “reverse” longer than you realize. I never had the impression that you were earth bound and just waiting for Heaven “someday”. Your awareness of it is “higher”.
jojobcn2001 on February 11th, 2010
Josh, love it. Steve actually hit on it precisely this past weekend, without tying it to the Lord’s prayer, but Christians should RUN to pain. I always felt like you had these words that you’d talk about, bringing heaven to earth, but I never felt like I understood exactly what it meant, and not at all how you got there. This blog clearly communicates your vision and what God has revealed to you. When we meet people’s physical and emotional needs, it is more likely they’ll accept help with their spiritual needs.