Most of our lives are not lived at the beginning of a story or at the end of one. They are lived somewhere in the middle — in that long, unfinished stretch where things are still forming, still unresolved, still waiting to make sense.
We live between what has already been spoken and what has not yet come to pass. Between hope and fulfillment. Between prayer and answer. Between longing and arrival.
We wake up most mornings into a world that feels incomplete. Relationships that are still strained. Questions that remain unanswered. Circumstances that have not been healed. And if we are honest, even our faith often feels like something lived in tension — strong in conviction, yet carrying a quiet ache for something more.
That is not a failure of faith.
That is the human condition.
And it is precisely there — in that in-between space — that Jesus teaches us how to pray and how to wait.
He gives us a prayer so familiar that many of us learned it before we could read:
“Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.”
And He gives us a promise so vast it stretches beyond history itself:
“Surely I am coming soon.”
To which the church responds:
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Those two texts stand like pillars at the edges of Christian life.
One anchors us in the present.
The other anchors us in the future.
One calls us to faithfulness now.
The other assures us of redemption then.
Yet for many believers, those two truths sit in uneasy tension.
Because some days, the Lord’s Prayer feels heavy. It sounds like responsibility. Like obedience. Like a call to live differently in a world that often punishes faithfulness rather than rewards it.
Some days, the promise of the Second Coming feels distant — abstract, delayed, almost unreal — especially when life is painful, when injustice lingers, when prayers seem to echo back unanswered.
The question before us is not whether we believe these words. Most Christians do.
The deeper question is this:
How do we live faithfully between them?
How do we pray for God’s kingdom to come now without becoming exhausted by what we cannot fix?
How do we wait for Christ to come again without disengaging from the world He still loves?
How do we live in obedience today without losing hope for tomorrow?
If we lean too hard in one direction, something essential begins to erode.
If we live only in “Your kingdom come,” faith can quietly turn into pressure — into striving, into the subtle belief that everything depends on us getting it right. Over time, that kind of faith can harden into exhaustion or resentment.
If we live only in “Come, Lord Jesus,” faith can quietly drift into distance — into withdrawal, into a passive waiting that excuses disengagement and dulls responsibility.
Jesus does not give us one without the other.
He gives us both — because we need both.
The Lord’s Prayer keeps us rooted in obedience.
The promise of His return keeps us rooted in hope.
One prevents passivity.
The other prevents despair.
One keeps us faithful in the present.
The other keeps us patient with the future.
The Christian life is not choosing between them.
It is learning how to live in the shadow of both.
That shadow is not dark.
It is protective.
It shelters us from the illusion that we must fix everything.
And it shelters us from the illusion that nothing we do matters.
It teaches us to live engaged without being frantic, to hope without denial, to obey without anxiety, and to wait without withdrawal.
When Jesus teaches us to pray “Your kingdom come,” He is not asking us to pray for God to become King. God already reigns. The prayer assumes His kingship.
What it asks for is recognition — that God’s will would be honored and trusted here, in real lives, in ordinary decisions, in the quiet places where faith is actually lived.
When Jesus promises to come again, He is not announcing the beginning of God’s reign. He is announcing its completion — the moment when what is already true becomes fully visible, when resistance ends, justice is restored, and creation itself is set free.
Between those two truths — God reigns, and God is coming — is where we live.
This is life between the prayer and the promise.
And learning how to live there — with courage, humility, patience, and hope — is the work of mature faith.
— “Your Kingdom Come”: Living Under the King Today
When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your kingdom come,” He is not asking us to pray for something distant or abstract. He is not teaching us to wait passively for a future event. He is teaching us to acknowledge a present reality.
God is already King.
That may sound obvious, but it is easy to miss the weight of it. We often hear “kingdom” and imagine a place — a realm, a territory, a future world that will one day replace this one. But in the biblical imagination, a kingdom is not first a location. It is a reign.
A kingdom exists wherever the king’s authority is recognized.
That is why Jesus pairs the request for God’s kingdom with a request for God’s will. The two belong together. Where the will of the King is done, the kingdom is present.
So when we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we are not asking God to arrive. We are asking for alignment. For recognition. For surrender.
We are asking that God’s authority would be honored — not someday, but today. Not everywhere first, but here. In us.
That makes this prayer deeply personal and quietly demanding.
Because it means the kingdom does not arrive with spectacle. It arrives with obedience.
It arrives when we choose truth over self-protection.
When we forgive instead of rehearsing grievances.
When we trust God’s way instead of grasping for control.
When we listen before reacting.
When we obey even when obedience costs us something.
This is not dramatic faith. It is loyal faith.
And loyalty is what kings look for.
The kingdom of God does not advance through force or visibility. It advances through surrendered lives. Through ordinary people choosing faithfulness in ordinary circumstances.
That is why Jesus can say the kingdom is “among you.” Not because the world is fixed, but because the King is present — and His reign is real wherever He is trusted.
This helps us understand something crucial: praying “Your kingdom come” is not a burden placed on us to fix the world. It is an invitation to live under God’s reign in the world as it is.
We are not asked to bring heaven down by sheer effort.
We are asked to live in alignment with heaven’s values.
That distinction matters.
When we confuse kingdom living with outcome control, we become anxious. We start measuring faithfulness by results — by visible success, by changed circumstances, by quick resolutions. And when those don’t appear, discouragement sets in.
Jesus does not measure kingdom faithfulness that way.
He measures it by trust.
Trust that obeys even when outcomes are uncertain.
Trust that follows even when clarity is incomplete.
Trust that remains faithful even when results are delayed.
To live under God’s kingdom is to accept that obedience is our responsibility — outcomes are God’s.
That frees us.
It frees us from trying to carry the weight of history.
It frees us from believing that everything depends on our performance.
It frees us to be faithful rather than frantic.
It redefines success.
Success in the kingdom is not control.
It is surrender.
Not dominance.
But devotion.
Not speed.
But faithfulness.
This also means that kingdom living is often hidden. It does not always feel impressive. It rarely draws attention. Much of it happens in the quiet decisions no one applauds — in homes, in conversations, in moments of integrity that pass unnoticed.
That is not weakness.
That is how God works.
The kingdom comes like yeast in dough.
Like seed in soil.
Like light that does not announce itself but still reveals everything it touches.
So when we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we are praying something very concrete:
“Lord, reign in my choices.”
“Lord, reign in my responses.”
“Lord, reign in my desires.”
“Lord, reign in my relationships.”
We are placing ourselves under the King — not once, but daily.
And that daily allegiance matters, because it forms us.
Over time, living under God’s reign reshapes how we see the world, how we treat people, how we carry disappointment, how we respond to injustice, how we endure suffering.
It does not remove us from the world.
It roots us more deeply within it — but with a different center.
This is how the kingdom comes now.
Not all at once.
Not everywhere.
But truly.
It is why Jesus teaches us to pray this prayer every day.
Because allegiance is not settled once.
It is practiced continually.
— “Even So, Come Lord Jesus”: Living With the End in View
If the prayer “Your kingdom come” teaches us how to live under God’s reign now, the promise of Christ’s return teaches us how to live without losing heart when the world does not yet reflect that reign.
The truth is, not everything changes when we pray. Not everything heals. Not every injustice is corrected. Not every loss is restored. Without the promise of the Second Coming, those realities would slowly erode hope.
The promise that Christ will come again does not deny present pain. It gives it context.
It tells us that what we experience now is real — but not final.
That distinction is essential.
The Second Coming is not God’s response to failure, as though His first plan didn’t work. It is the fulfillment of a story that has been moving toward completion from the beginning. God’s reign is already real, but it is not yet uncontested. Christ’s return is the moment when what is already true becomes fully visible.
This is why Scripture speaks of the kingdom in two tenses. It has come. And it is coming.
That tension is not a contradiction. It is the space where faith lives.
To say “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” is not to abandon the present world. It is to refuse to let the present world define the limits of hope. It is to trust that God Himself will finish what we cannot complete.
That promise reshapes how we endure what remains broken.
It allows us to grieve without despair.
To name injustice without surrendering to cynicism.
To carry sorrow without believing it has the final word.
Because we know that the King who reigns is also the King who is coming.
That knowledge steadies us.
It means we do not have to rush history. We do not have to force outcomes. We do not have to resolve every tension in our lifetime. God is not impatient with time — He redeems it.
The early church understood this deeply. They lived under persecution, uncertainty, and loss. And yet their cry was not resignation, but hope: “Come, Lord Jesus.”
They did not say it to escape responsibility. They said it because they were living responsibly in a world that was not yet whole.
The promise of Christ’s return gave them courage to remain faithful even when faithfulness was costly. It gave them strength to endure suffering without bitterness. It gave them patience to wait without withdrawing.
It taught them that unfinished stories are not abandoned stories.
And that matters for us.
Many of us live with unresolved prayers. With relationships that did not heal. With injustices that were never addressed. With losses that still ache. And the temptation is either to demand closure now — or to give up on hope altogether.
The promise of the Second Coming offers a third way.
It allows us to entrust unresolved things to God without minimizing their weight. It tells us that justice delayed is not justice denied. That loss is not erased, but it will be redeemed. That tears are not ignored, but they will be wiped away.
This does not make waiting easy. But it makes it meaningful.
Waiting, in the biblical sense, is not passive. It is active trust. It is choosing to remain faithful even when the outcome lies beyond our control.
That is why the New Testament so often pairs watchfulness with faithfulness. We are not told to stare at the sky. We are told to stay awake — to live alert, engaged, responsible lives shaped by the certainty that Christ will return.
The promise of His coming does not remove us from the present. It anchors us within it.
It reminds us that what we do now matters, even when it feels small. That obedience is never wasted. That love is never forgotten. That faithfulness is never lost.
Because the One who reigns now is also the One who will return.
When He does, nothing entrusted to Him will be missing.
That hope does not excuse us from living fully today.
It enables us to do so.
It allows us to live without panic.
Without bitterness.
Without despair.
We live with the end in view — not because we are tired of the world, but because we trust God with it.
— Living Faithfully in the Space Between
So we find ourselves living between two truths that refuse to be separated.
God reigns.
And Christ is coming.
The kingdom is present.
And the kingdom is not yet complete.
The challenge of Christian life is not understanding this tension.
It is learning how to live well within it.
The space between prayer and promise can easily pull us in opposite directions.
On some days, obedience feels urgent. There is work to be done. People to love. Wrongs to confront. Choices to make. And the temptation is to believe that if we do not act quickly, forcefully, decisively enough, everything will fall apart.
On other days, waiting feels heavy. Progress seems slow. Change seems elusive. Faithfulness feels costly and invisible. And the temptation is to step back, disengage, or quietly lower expectations.
Jesus offers us a way of living that resists both temptations.
He calls us to live engaged, but not anxious.
Hopeful, but not naïve.
Faithful, but not frantic.
This is what it means to live between “Your kingdom come” and “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”
We take responsibility seriously — but we do not take responsibility for outcomes that belong to God.
We obey — but we do not control.
We act — but we do not force.
We remain present — but we refuse despair.
This posture changes how we understand faithfulness.
Faithfulness is no longer measured by visible success.
It is measured by trust.
Trust that chooses obedience even when results are delayed.
Trust that remains steady when progress feels slow.
Trust that continues loving when love is not returned.
This kind of faithfulness is quiet. It does not announce itself. It rarely draws attention. Much of it unfolds in ordinary life — in kitchens and workplaces, in conversations and choices, in moments where no one is watching.
This is precisely where the kingdom takes root.
The kingdom of God does not advance through spectacle. It advances through allegiance. Through lives oriented toward the King even when His reign is not yet universally acknowledged.
Living between the prayer and the promise also reshapes how we deal with unfinished things.
We begin to accept that some questions will not be answered yet.
That some relationships will not be restored yet.
That some injustices will not be corrected yet.
Instead of letting that reality harden us, we learn to entrust it.
Entrustment is not resignation.
It is confidence in God’s faithfulness beyond our reach.
It allows us to release the need to resolve everything ourselves.
To let go of the illusion that faithfulness requires closure.
To trust that God’s timing is not indifference, but patience.
This does not make us passive. It makes us resilient.
We keep doing the next right thing.
We keep loving the people God places in front of us.
We keep practicing forgiveness, honesty, generosity, and humility.
Not because we believe our efforts will usher in the end of history —
but because we believe the end of history is already secure.
That security changes everything.
It allows us to live with open hands rather than clenched fists.
With steady hearts rather than frantic urgency.
With courage rather than fear.
We are no longer trying to prove something.
We are responding to Someone.
This is where obedience and hope finally meet.
Obedience keeps us rooted in the present.
Hope keeps us oriented toward the future.
Obedience without hope becomes exhaustion.
Hope without obedience becomes illusion.
Together, they form a life of quiet strength.
A life that works without worshiping results.
A life that waits without withdrawing.
A life that trusts God enough to act — and trust Him enough to stop.
This is the life Jesus invites us into.
Not a life of constant striving.
Not a life of passive waiting.
But a life of faithful presence.
We live as people who know the King already reigns —
and who trust that the King will return.
And until He does, we remain where we are placed —
loving, serving, obeying, hoping.
That is not lesser faith.
That is mature faith.
--- CONCLUSION
Most of us will not live to see the end of the story.
That is not pessimism.
It is simply reality.
We will pray prayers whose answers come later.
We will plant seeds whose fruit we never taste.
We will remain faithful in places that never fully heal.
And yet none of that makes our lives incomplete.
Christian faith was never meant to be lived at the finish line.
It was meant to be lived between.
Between the prayer Jesus taught us to pray
and the promise He made to return.
Between “Your kingdom come”
and “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
When those two truths are held together, something settles in us.
We stop trying to rush what God has chosen to redeem slowly.
We stop carrying weight that does not belong to us.
We stop measuring faithfulness by outcomes we cannot control.
Instead, we learn how to live well where we are.
We wake up and ask for daily bread, not tomorrow’s guarantees.
We forgive again, even when forgiveness feels unfinished.
We do justice where we can, without pretending we can fix everything.
We love people who may never change.
We obey God even when obedience feels costly and unnoticed.
Why?
Because the kingdom is already present —
and the kingdom is still coming.
Because the King already reigns —
and the King will return.
That knowledge changes how we carry the world.
We no longer live in panic, as though everything depends on us.
And we no longer live in passivity, as though nothing matters.
We live in faithful tension.
We pray for God’s will to be done today —
and we trust God to finish tomorrow.
We hold responsibility and hope in the same hands.
And that posture does something beautiful to the soul.
It steadies us.
It gives us patience without resignation.
It gives us courage without aggression.
It gives us endurance without bitterness.
We become people who can live in a broken world without being broken by it.
Because we know how the story ends.
And that does not make us careless about the present.
It makes us faithful in it.
When life feels unfinished — and it will —
we do not despair.
We remember that we are not waiting for God to act for the first time.
We are waiting for God to complete what He has already begun.
Until that day comes, we do what Jesus taught us to do.
We pray.
We trust.
We obey.
We wait.
Not because waiting is easy —
but because the One we are waiting for is faithful.
--- APPEAL
Today, the invitation is not to do more.
It is to trust more deeply.
To release the weight of outcomes you were never meant to carry.
To stop demanding closure where God is still at work.
To remain faithful in the ordinary places where obedience actually lives.
Some of you are tired — not because you lack faith,
but because you have been trying to carry both obedience and completion.
Today, Christ invites you to let go of what belongs to Him.
To pray again:
“Your kingdom come.”
And to trust again:
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
If you want to live with that posture —
faithful today, hopeful for tomorrow —
then quietly, in your heart, say yes to God’s reign now
and God’s promise ahead.
That is enough.
--- PRAYER
Father in heaven,
We thank You that You reign — even when the world resists You.
We thank You that You are coming — even when the wait feels long.
Teach us how to live faithfully between the prayer and the promise.
Help us to obey without anxiety,
to hope without denial,
and to wait without withdrawal.
Release us from the burden of outcomes that belong to You alone.
Give us courage to do the next right thing,
patience to trust Your timing,
and humility to live under Your reign.
Until the day when faith becomes sight,
keep us steady, keep us faithful, keep us hopeful.
And may our lives quietly say, even now:
“Your kingdom come.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Amen.
