Why Do Christians Pray, “Thy Will Be Done, on Earth as It Is in Heaven”?
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of a series on the Lord’s Prayer, line by line. Rev. Campbell Markham is a Presbyterian minister in Perth, Australia.
“Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.” — Matthew 6:10 (NASB 1977)
“Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free…” So begins the Australian national anthem.
We pride ourselves—whether we are teens or oldies and no matter how long our island continent has been peopled—on our youthful energy and optimism. And on our freedom. Our freedom to do what we want when we want.
There are two distinct ideas of freedom.
Covid 2020 challenged this. Most of us submitted to unprecedented restrictions and lockdowns wagging our tails like loyal Labradors. Are we free?
At a time when our liberty is being pressed and questioned, we should remember that there are in fact two distinct ideas of freedom:
Horizontal freedom is my freedom in relation to other human beings to do just what makes me happy. We might call this anthropocentric freedom. It is the child of our selfishness and the mother of human greed, irresponsibility, tyranny, and misery.
Vertical freedom is my freedom in relation to God. It is the freedom to live according to our God-given nature. It is freedom from an inner slavery to rebellion against God, which constrains us from being what we were created to be. We might call this theocentric freedom. It is the source of humility, generosity, self-sacrifice, and unexpected happiness.
We’ve learned the hard way—like the fish who leapt from sea to sand crying, “Freee-duuum!”—the gasping misery of denying and defying our nature. And this originated in the garden of Eden when Adam rebelled against God’s rule, bringing guilt and a depraved nature upon himself and all his posterity.
Only God wills what is right.
When we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we recognize God’s perfect justice, wisdom, and holiness. He only wills what is right.
We recognize also that the heavenly angels, under the reign of God the King, and untouched by the rebellion of sin, freely and gladly do God’s perfect will.
And we grieve that, right now, God’s will is not done on earth. No one keeps his Ten Commandments. Who even knows them?
We pray, then, that we will know angelic freedom on earth—that our chains of sin will be broken, that we’ll be free to do our heavenly Father’s good will, and that we will live in the delight of this.
