In Earth

In Mathew 6:10, when Jesus was teaching what has become known as the Lord’s Prayer (sometimes referred to as the ‘Our Father’), Jesus uses the phrase, ”Thy will be done, in earth, as it is Heaven.” As a child, I always found that phraseology odd. Of course, George Carlin pointed out once that we sometimes use the words “on” and “in” interchangeably, even when we really shouldn’t. His example was: “Are you ready to ride on the plane?” “No, I’m going to ride in the plane. Let Evil Knievel ride on the plane.”

Still, more recently it was pointed out to me that we are, essentially, earth. In Genesis we are told that God created Adam from the dust of the earth, and then created Eve from Adam’s rib (the world’s first clone?). Presumably, all of us are descended from them. I say presumably because the Bible never specifically says that Adam and Eve were the only people that God created, it just never specifically says that He created others—but, if He did, I would think that He would have formed them from the dust of the earth, also.

Now, in Corinthians, we are told that we hold this treasure in earthen vessels. This also confused me when I was younger. One person tried to put my mind at ease by saying that it was simply trying to make the point that the ‘treasure’ is worth so much more than its container, and said that it was like trying to carry gold dust in a paper bag. I can relate to that, because I knew a guy several years ago who was sort of an undercover security guard. His job was to carry large sums of money from point A to point B, but his employers figured that an armored car was not only expensive, but draws attention to the fact that large sums of money were being transported. So, what they had him do was wear jeans and a T-shirt, and carry money in brown paper bags. He had to make several trips each day (carrying several thousand dollars each trip), but, the entire time he worked that job, no-one ever caught on to what he was doing. I think that the analogy runs deeper than that, though; it’s referring to the fact that our flesh is essentially an earthen vessel, which, in this life, is used to contain our souls. The treasure spoken of earlier is a reference to the Spirit of God. It stands to reason, since our flesh and blood bodies, which were formed from the earth, cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; only our spirits can.

Of course, Isaiah 64:8 also talks about the fact that we are clay, and that God is the potter. He fashions us as He wishes—at least, as much as we will let Him. He hasn’t taken away our free will, but He will help me bend my will to His, if I ask Him to, and if I will let Him do it.

So, in Matthew 6:10, Jesus is actually telling us is that we should be praying to God that He would help us to perform His will in our own bodies, as we would do His will in Heaven after we leave our physical bodies behind. That can be a tough thing to do, because the flesh doesn’t want what the Spirit wants. That’s a struggle that we will fight every day that we draw breath.