“Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” — Matthew 6:10.

As One who had come from heaven to earth to be born as a baby, our Lord Jesus understood perfectly the unfathomable difference between heaven and earth.

He knew the disparity between the performance of God’s will in heaven and on earth.

In heaven, everything is absolutely perfect.

So, He taught us to pray that God’s will be done in heaven as it is on earth.

The term ‘God’s will’ refers to God’s desire and purpose.

Unlike the earth, which is inhabited by fallen angels and human beings, in heaven, God’s will is carried out completely; it is performed with joy and without hesitation.

There is no opposition to God’s will in heaven.

That explains why the earth is full of evil, wars, disasters, diseases and poverty.

At a critical moment in His earthly life, Jesus also made that prayer.

“Not mine but Your will be done,” He prayed in Gethsemane.

It is because our Lord Jesus submitted to the divine will that you’re a child of God.

However, many people always quote this petition as if it meant only submission to some painful providence.

We suppose it refers only to losing friends or money, or being sick or in trouble. However, it is only a little part of its meaning.

It is for the doing of God’s will, not the suffering of it, that Jesus was teaching.

As Dr Miller suggested, it is a good deal easier to make prayers like this for others than for ourselves.

We all think other people ought to do God’s will, and we do not find it a difficult prayer to make that they may do so.

But what about ourselves?  

There is no other person in the world for whose life we are really and finally responsible but ourself.

This prayer, then, if we offer it sincerely, is that we may do God’s will as it is done in heaven.

We can pray it, therefore, only when we are ready for implicit, unquestioning obedience and submission to the divine will the moment we know what that will is.

Then sometimes it is a passive doing that is required.

When we align our individual desires with God’s purposes and desires in accordance to His word, God’s will would be done.

God asks of us something that costs pain or sacrifice or earthly loss; when this is true our prayer may cut deeply into our own hearts.

It may mean a giving up of some sweet joy, a losing of some precious friend, the sacrifice of some dear possession, the going in some way of thorns and tears.

We should learn always to say the prayer, and then to hold our lives close to the line of the divine will, never rebelling nor murmuring, but sweetly doing whatever God gives us to do.

‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ is a profound prayer-  a transformative vision – calling on the people of God to actively participate in bringing heaven’s perfect alignment with God’s will into earthly reality.

I mean, even a little child agrees that our earth desperately needs God’s will to be done in it.

The evidence is everywhere!

Yet, it all starts with individual hearts.

When we align our individual desires with God’s purposes and desires in accordance to His word, God’s will would be done.

When God’s will is done in each individual heart, whole families and communities are transformed.

When communities are transformed, there is a global Impact – whole societies are transformed as divine justice rules and the harmony of creation and the universe is restored.