Like this:

I recently attended a marriage conference with my wife at Christ the King PCA in Houston, Tx. The speaker was Paul Tripp (and I highly recommend him and his books). He has written an outstanding marriage book called: “What did you expect? Redeeming the realites of marriage”. Much of what he says in the context of marriage applies to all of life. One of the things he said during the conference has really stuck with me. As Christians we are usually willing to say: “Lord, Your Kingdom come.” Meaning, that what God wants is more important than what I want. But the unspoken subtext of this statement goes like this: “Lord, Your Kingdom come, but please let me furnish it.” Meaning, as long as His will and His purposes are in line with what I want and what suits me (i.e. keeps me comfortable, happy, pain and trouble free), then by all means, Lord, bring Your Kingdom…do Your will. We (and to be honest…”I”) want this far too often. By God’s grace, built on His love to us in Christ and through the powerful work of the Holy Spirit we need to come to a place where we can say: “Your Kingdom come…no matter what that means.” We are willing to take whatever God sends because His kingdom is so much better than ours.
It is also funny how in the midst of writing this I got a call from my wife and one of my children asked me, “Daddy, will you get me everything I want for my birthday?” This simple cry of my child’s heart is repeated by our own hearts everyday.
To drive this point home during the conference, Mr. Tripp started repeating the phrase “I want”, over and over and over and over and over…I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want…is this getting annoying yet?…it sure did at the conference, but that annoyance made a good point. My heart endlessly craves things selfishly. We all need God’s grace and the powerful work of His Spirit in us to change our ceaseless selfish wanting and humbly confess, “not my will, but Thine be done.”
Whose kingdom are you living for today?

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