His Kingdom Come

One of the most popular sections of the Bible is the Lord’s Prayer. Most people, even if they do not attend church on a consistent basis (and especially in the South), can recite the King James Version of this prayer under 15 seconds. However, its popularity does not indicate our understanding.

The prayer begins, “Our Father, who is in heaven, holy is your name.” Then Jesus says, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” While I was reading 1 Samuel 20, I had a picture of what this may look like when played out in life.

Saul was the first king of Israel because the people demanded a king to reign over them instead of continuing to allow God to be their king. So, God grants this request. He tells the prophet, Samuel, to anoint Saul, a Benjamite that was a head taller than everyone else. He was a fierce warrior and accomplished great exploits for the nation. However, there were two main instances where Saul messed up in obeying the Lord. He offered a sacrifice to the Lord before going to war against the Philistines, something that Samuel was supposed to do as the spiritual head of the nation (1 Samuel 13), and he did not completely destroy the Amalekites like the Lord commanded (1 Samuel 15).

These two instances show Saul’s character and attitude toward God. He was not fit to be the king over the people of God because he was willing to submit to God’s will and desires. God rejects Saul as king and tells Samuel to anoint another man to become king over Israel, David, the son of Jesse. Apart from the great military exploits of David, he was a man after God’s heart. He also became the best friend with Saul’s son, Jonathan.

Let us examine on Jonathan and think for a moment about the implications of being the son of a king. When a king passes away, the son becomes the new king over the nation. Jonathan is in a prime position to be the next ruler of the nation of Israel. When Saul passed away, he was going to become the king. The entire nation of Israel was going to be under his control and his power. But there was only one problem: David was anointed to be king over Israel when Saul died. So, theoretically, if Jonathan got rid of David, he would become the next king. I can only imagine that this thought/temptation crossed his mind at least once.

Saul understood the implications of David continuing to live. At dinner during a festival, he tells Jonathan, “For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Therefore now, send and bring him to me, for he must surely die.” Saul wanted David to be dead so his own family line would continue to rule the nation. You see, there was another kingdom that God wanted to establish, but Saul did not want this to happen and did everything he could to prevent this from happening. He was against David, and tried to kill him multiple times throughout his reign.

But Jonathan did not have any of these feelings. He loved David, his best friend and brother-in-law. He was willing to do anything to protect David from the hand of Saul, so that the will of the Lord would be accomplished in the land. Jonathan did not care that Israel would never be his kingdom.

Where are the Jonathan’s in the world? Everyone gets sold the bill of goods that they must be David’s or CEOs or leaders or champions, but Jonathan was an important person in the biblical narrative without ever being the king/center of attention. He was a supporting role in the script God was writing, and he owned it. Because of Jonathan, David was still alive to become king. It would have been so easy for him to betray David, but he resisted the temptation because there was a greater story being written. Without the sacrifice of Jonathan, there would never have been a house of David.

While Jonathan never had the title of king, he made sure that Israel was in place to have a godly king. Jonathan gave up the right to be king, and he did not try to take David out. He let the will of God happen in his life, even if it meant he would never be on top of the kingdom. He befriended David and made sure David was safe from the hand of Saul. He set David up for success.There is a lot to be said of men and women who are willing to take a backseat and support the success of someone else.

It is human instinct to want to be the best. The pride that dwells in the heart of every person is real, and it can become obsessive. But God calls some to take a backseat to someone else’s success. It goes against the American dream and human nature. But learning to surrender to the will of God is the first step in living out the prayer, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I think the life of Jonathan is a picture of that prayer. Jonathan had his own kingdom to be had, but God was going to go in a different direction. Saul rejected the will of God and sought to continue to establish his kingdom—he even tried to destroy the kingdom God wanted to establish. But Jonathan said, in a sense, “Your kingdom come—even if it means mine coming to an end.”

This is the prayer that needs to be prayed from our hearts. This is what it looks like to allow the Lord to have his way. We take on a supporting and submitting role instead of a leading role. We make way for the Kingdom to be established while we watch our kingdom come to an end. This requires great humility and obedience to the will of God.

Jesus says it like this in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Only when we lay down our personal kingdoms in humility can we experience the inheritance that is the kingdom of heaven.

If you are struggling with holding onto your dreams derived from selfishness and pride, look at the life of Jonathan. Although he had every right to be king, he did not think that was something worthy of him holding onto. Instead, he humbled himself and submitted to the will of God. He protected David and helped usher in the new era for Israel’s history.

If this sounds familiar, you would be right. Paul writes in Philippians 2:5-8, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” This attitude of Jonathan is a picture of the attitude of Jesus.

My prayer is that the Lord will show us where we have been trying to establish our own kingdoms in our life and echo the heart of Jonathan, “Your kingdom come, your will be done–even if it means mine coming to an end.” I pray the pride that filled Saul’s heart would be far from our hearts, so we can be free to submit to the will of the Father and allow Him to take over.