“Pray, then, in this way: Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.”

Matthew 6:9-13

Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We have prayed the words most of our lives.  Knowing that God often works through His ambassadors on earth, how often do we ask God to reveal specific ways He desires to use each of us in His glorious plan of implementing His will on earth?

The poorest people in the poorest countries are being destroyed through an outpouring of evil.[i]  A variety of seemingly unrelated forces converge on east Africa and the poorest regions of the Mideast causing horrific devastation – extreme weather conditions, extended local conflicts, the war in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic, global inflation, and devalued currencies.  345 million people lack sufficient food each day to sustain life.  900,000 people across Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan face starvation and death.  Hospitals overflow with patients suffering starvation and illnesses that would be readily fought by healthy bodies.  Aid organizations are experiencing reduced donations as inflation leaves donors with less to give and other tragedies grab headlines.  Further, as inflationary forces devalue the organizations’ depleted funds, they are able to purchase and deliver less food to starving masses (the cost of food the World Food Program provides is up 46% since 2019).  Images of starving children and mothers helplessly watching their children die are snapshots of evil manifesting itself through converging natural and manmade sources.

Similar events are taking place across our hometowns.  In some regions, food is available because demand is down – as food prices have risen, people have been unable to afford the food they once consumed.  Families facing expenses rising faster than wages must decide which necessities to eliminate.  Should they forfeit medication, electricity, gasoline, insurance, food or something else?

As I read articles and see photos depicting the horrors people are facing around the globe, I ponder, what can I do?  What should I do?  My heart breaks, but that is not helping people in need.  Action is required, but what action?

Pondering it all, I cannot help but ask, how can God allow this to happen? And I am reminded of several truths.  First, famine is nothing new.  God called Abram and God led him to a region suffering famine.  Joseph’s family suffered through famine, and they were reunited with him while seeking food in Egypt.  Second, we know God loves each person including those in Somalia, South Sudan and across the region – “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son …” (John 3:16).  Third, God cares about and values all living creatures, humans more than others, but every living creature on earth still dies.  Jesus says,

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?  Matthew 6:26-27

Fourth, Jesus weeps and Jesus is God.  When Jesus saw people gathered from across the region mourning Lazarus’ death, He cried with them (see John 11:35).  As Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, He stopped to survey the adoring crowds, and He wept over the city because the truth remained hidden from them (see Luke 19:41).  He has suffered as a human, He understands pain, He loves us and each person across the far reaches of the globe, and He shares our emotions (see Hebrews 4:15). 

Fifth, God is sovereign.  He is eternal, existing outside of time, and He is everywhere all the time.  He knows everything.  He has all power in heaven and on earth.  He created everything.  He brings order out of chaos.  Nothing happens that He does not either cause or allow because He is in control.

Sixth, God chooses to work through mere humans.  He chose Moses to lead His people out of captivity in Egypt.  He called prophets to deliver words of remembrance, warning, and assurance.  He called John the Baptist to pave the path for the coming Messiah.  He called the Apostles to grow His church.  He could have snapped His spiritual fingers and caused it all to happen supernaturally, but He chose to employ people into His holy service and He continues doing so today.

We are created in His image, as His image bearers (see Genesis 1:26-27).  We are His ambassadors, His servants, His representatives, His people empowered by Him to reveal His glory to the world.  Paul writes,

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.  So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God.  For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  2 Corinthians 5:17-21

In light of this foundation, what are we to do? 

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  God calls us to serve Him, to love one another, to go and make disciples, and to go and bear fruit that will last.  Jesus says,

And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.   I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.  John 15:16-17

What fruit will last?  Nothing tangible lasts.  Our decision to either believe and follow Christ Jesus, or not, has eternal significance.  If we liberally and generously sow seeds of the gospel of Christ Jesus, fruit that will last forever will be born.  We know this is God’s will because He tells us to go and make disciples. 

Every person will die, and those who die apart from Christ Jesus will suffer forever.  Our overarching priority must be to communicate the gospel often; however, as Jesus demonstrated by feeding crowds of hungry people, starving people may not be able to hear the Good News and God cares about our physical needs as well as our spiritual needs. With this in mind, we often focus on temporal needs first, such as physical, psychological, relational, and emotional needs.

And we must pray.  Pray for yourself begging God to enlighten the eyes of your spirit that you might discern and know His holy will for you and understand His direction for you.  Pray for people in need, that God will direct resources and people to them to satisfy their needs, and to tell them the good news of Christ Jesus.  Pray for everyone in positions of authority and power, that their hearts might break for the needs they are empowered to help, that they will be sensitive to the personhood of each suffering individual, that know or will come to know Christ Jesus and endeavor to serve Him through their position, and that they allow God to direct their decisions. 

While prayer is powerful, essential, effective and something we should commit our lives to, it is not enough.  We believe and trust and know with certainty who Christ Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit is, but we must also be out in the world making a difference in lives around us.  We are saved by grace through faith, but faith without action is hollow. James writes,

If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.  James 2:15-17

And later after discussing Abraham’s faith manifesting itself through action, James writes,

You see that faith was active along with his works, and by works faith was brought to completion.  James 2:22

Faith leads to action, but what are we to do?  Other than pray, which is powerful and effective and essential, what action should we take to help starving people in the poorest countries halfway around the globe?  What action should we take to help starving people in our hometowns? 

Pray for discernment.  Pray to see God’s guidance.  Pray to recognize opportunities in your path for you to help God’s will be done on earth.  As you pray, ask God to open your mind to fully understand His holy word.  As you seek Him and His guidance, consider the position and resources God has entrusted you to steward for His glory because there is a reason we are each where we are.  How might God desire to shine His glory through you?

His holy word tells us over and over and over that He hates injustice, and He expects His people to care for people in need and to implement systems of justice.  Through the prophet Micah we read,

He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?  Micah 6:8

And through Isaiah, God says,

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you;
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”  Isaiah 58:6-9

We pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We know we are God’s ambassadors on earth created as His holy image bearers.  He desires to use each of us in His glorious plan of implementing His will on earth.  May you be His instrument implementing His will on earth today, tomorrow, always.  Amen.

[i] Steinhauser, Gabriele. “Starvation Grows Among World’s Poorest,” The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2022, p.A6.