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Our” establishes community. “Father” establishes relationship. Jesus begins not with a thing God can give, but with who God is.
The Treadmill
There was a season when, from the outside, almost everything looked right.
Business was moving. Opportunities were abundant. My children were good. My house was good. My career was good. I had the kinds of external markers people often use to reassure themselves that life is working.
One day I was on a treadmill listening to worship music when I felt God confront me with a sentence that cut through all of that success: “I don’t have your heart.”
I loved God. I knew church. I knew ministry.
I knew Scripture. But that moment forced me to confront a harder distinction: God can be present in a life without being enthroned over it.
That became what I call a Kingdom check: Does God merely reside here, or does He reign here?
It is easy to become intensely spiritual when everything is falling apart. Need has a way of making prayer urgent. The deeper test may come when the bills are paid, the opportunities are coming, the family is okay, and you can solve many problems without asking anybody for help. Fatherhood means I do not reduce God to an emergency contact. I need the Father when I am down, and I need Him when I am up.
Kingdom Check
Does God merely reside in your life, or does He reign there? What evidence supports your answer?
Today’s Practice
Name one area where success or self-sufficiency has made you less conscious of God. Spend time with God today without asking Him for anything.
Prayer
Father, I do not want Your gifts to become substitutes for You. Have my heart in success and in struggle, in abundance and in need. Reign here. Amen.
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