Over the past month, I have been following the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, the Promised Land. And I have been intrigued and awestruck by God’s mighty power among the Israelites. From parting the Red Sea to opening up the earth to swallow up Korah, and everything and everyone associated with him, the Israelites experienced a raw demonstration of God’s power. This week, I am in the book of Deuteronomy and here, Moses is nearing the end of his tenure of leadership and time on earth. In one of his final speeches to the Israelites, he summarizes their experience of God’s rule and authority thus:

“Now search all of history, from the time God created people on the earth until now, and search from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything as great as this ever been seen or heard before? Has any nation ever heard the voice of God speaking from fire—as you did—and survived? Has any other god dared to take a nation for himself out of another nation by means of trials, miraculous signs, wonders, war, a strong hand, a powerful arm, and terrifying acts? Yet that is what the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, right before your eyes. “He showed you these things so you would know that the LORD is God and there is no other. He let you hear his voice from heaven so he could instruct you. He let you see his great fire here on earth so he could speak to you from it. Because he loved your ancestors, he chose to bless their descendants, and he personally brought you out of Egypt with a great display of power. He drove out nations far greater than you, so he could bring you in and give you their land as your special possession, as it is today. “So remember this and keep it firmly in mind: The LORD is God both in heaven and on earth, and there is no other… Deuteronomy 4: 32-39 NLT

If you rushed through reading these verses, I encourage you to go back and read slowly and picture what is happening in the texts. Allow yourself to be amazed by what these Israelites experienced with their own eyes! God demonstrated to the Israelites that He was truly a God both in heaven and on earth! Now lets fast forward to the New Testament where the disciples ask Jesus how to pray and make some connections. Jesus teaches his disciples (and us) to pray:

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10 BSB

As the Israelites sojourned through the desert and into the Promised Land, they experienced the Kingdom of God among them. For them, the Kingdom of God may have looked like rolls of thunder, flashes of lightning, the voice of God amidst clouds of fire and billowing smoke- the sheer terror of it all! But they also experienced the providence and provision of God- food, water, shelter, protection from wild animals and other nations. More importantly, they had the tangible presence of God with them day and night. God sat as a cloud over the Tabernacle:

Then the cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the glory of the LORD filled the Tabernacle…Now whenever the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out on their journey, following it. But if the cloud did not rise, they remained where they were until it lifted. The cloud of the LORD hovered over the Tabernacle during the day, and at night fire glowed inside the cloud so the whole family of Israel could see it. This continued throughout all their journeys. Exodus 40: 34, 35-38 NLT

The Israelites were constantly reminded that God was with them and for as long as they let Him, He was their King and Captain of their army. His kingdom “had come” for them. In light of the experiences of the Israelites in the wilderness, I ask myself, “What does it mean for us today when we pray God’s Kingdom come?”

In the current dispensation in which we live, it is easy to forget that God is still as powerful as He was back then. We do not see Him like they did or hear Him amidst the billowing smoke like they did. In fact, for many of us, praying His Kingdom come is asking for something we presume to be metaphorical. But let me challenge this presumption: God’s Kingdom is not a metaphor.

He is still doing the miraculous among us on a daily basis, In fact, through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and by the workings of His Holy Spirit, He is more accessible to us and even more so present with us than He was then. We seldom see his Kingdom here on earth not because it is not here, but because His Kingdom has been reduced to commonplace in our lives. Scientific and evidence-based discoveries have taken more pre-eminence in our world. The abilities that God gave humankind through the Adamic blessings in the garden of Eden- the ability to create and multiply knowledge, till the knowledge of God fills the whole earth have become perverted (then and even more so now), that we no longer see God’s Kingdom at work among us. The Kingdom of God is still manifest in the clouds, in the seas, in the mountains just as the Israelites experienced. We just do not see it anymore.

When we pray His Kingdom come, I believe we are asking to see manifestations of His power at work in our lives. We are asking for the intangible to be made tangible. We are asking for that which is hidden or has become taken-for-granted to be revealed in our everyday world. We are asking for the God of Heaven to be revealed on earth in palpable ways. We are asking to be awestruck by His power and presence among us. We are asking not just to be known by God but to know Him enough that we can see Him at work in the ordinary things as well as the complex ones. That is what I believe we pray for when we say “Your Kingdom come.” We are acknowledging that The LORD is God both in heaven and on earth, and there is no other (Deuteronomy 4: 39). God’s Kingdom is all around us, and more importantly in each of us who have come to know Him as our King (I will pick this up in another post soon).

I conclude with a hymn I learned as a child to remind us all of God’s kingdom among us (If you know this hymn belt it out as you reflect on God’s Kingdom come):

Yours Truly.