"All false religion proceeds in a certain sense from one illusion: People say 'Thy Kingdom come' out of one side of their mouth, but they don't, out of the other side of their mouth, say, 'My kingdom go.' It happens when we try to have both of those kingdoms reign, when we say that the Lord is the lord of our lives, but in fact we're the lord of our own lives. When Jesus is not the Lord of our lives, we will most assuredly lord it over one another. That attitude has resulted in the domination, competition and unbelievable success agenda of much of Western civilization: Christians have sought to lord it over one another while saying they were submitting to the lordship of Jesus Christ."(R.Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 6)
Every time I pray the "Lord's Prayer" I bid "thy kingdom come, thy will be done." Yet I will have to admit that is a hard bidding to live out. In my mind I know theologically that I want the Kingdom of God to break through. Yet I probably do more to build up the fortress of Ed.
If faith were truly what pushed my reason to be, and informed my decisions, I have a feeling at least 1/2 of what I do would stop being done. If I were truly to let go of my own self interests, it would be a minor miracle.
I find it incredibly hard to live into that prayer. I can get just as caught up in the competition, the need to seem to be successful and the one upmanship games that get played regularly in our world.
I can't help but notice when others seem to be doing better than I. Yet the real question I should be asking is, am I being faithful to what I feel called to do?
It is incredibly easy to mouth proclamations about Jesus being in charge of my life. It is a very different matter to actually live into that statement.
Blessings,
Ed
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