“Our Father in heaven
hallowed be your name.” Matthew 6:9
I’m really grateful, Father, that you are in heaven. I’m thankful that you can rise above the fray and the chaos and the hatred and the conflict and the decay and the abuse and the injustice – not from a sense of ignorance or dispassion, but from the perspective of a sovereign God.
Give me, give us, the capacity and the desire to reflect on your goodness, and marvel at your creativity. Give us the space and the time to bask in your outrageous love. God help us to be thankful.
It’s far too easy, our Father, to languish in self-pity or to fret about what we don’t control. I confess this tendency in my own heart and life. It’s a ploy of Satan to distract us from the power and might of your hand; consuming us with our preoccupation with what is, instead of what will be. Glory will be. Perfection will be. Peace will be. Worship will be. Tearless and painless days will be. Justice will be.
Remind me, remind us, that you are simply making good on the promise of Jesus that in this life we will have trouble – not because you don’t love us or because you live in a state of revenge, but because holiness and Godliness can’t peacefully coexist with evil and corruption and sin. The conflict is evidence that you’re here, that you’re among us, and that your Spirit lives within us.
This reality ignites my purpose. It fuels my destiny. It brings meaning to the pain.
It is enough that you are my Father; that I can venture into this conversation with you; that I have access to you freely and boldly. It is enough because Jesus is enough. It is enough because Jesus declared that it was enough, that it was finished.
Stir in me, stir in us, hearts of praise and thanksgiving; not overlooking the pain, but proclaiming our adoration from the corridors of distain, from the avenues of confusion, from the valley of the shadow of death.
Indeed – you are in heaven. Our sovereign. Our Lord. Our King.
Above all, but in all. All powerful, but personal. Just and compassionate.
My soul is thankful. Not in denial, but with full illumination.
You are the great I AM.
Amen and amen.
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