Prayer is not a patient wait for the rule [of God] to come into effect at the end of history, it is a patient participation in present rule. God’s rule is not being held in reserve to be inaugurated at some future date, after centuries of human rulers have done their best (or worst). It is in operation now. It does not depend on public acknowledgement.
Whether men and women know it or not, they are now living under God’s rule. Some live in rebellion that can be either defiant or ignorant. Some live in an obedience that can be either reluctant or devout. But no one lives apart from it. It is the premise of our existence. There are no days when the rule is not in operation. The week is not divided into one Lord’s day when the rule of God is acknowledged and six human days in which factories, stock exchange, legislatures, media personalities, and military juntas take charge and rule with their lies and guns and money. Nor is the rule restricted to occasional interventions that are later remembered as great historical events—exodus and exile, Christmas and Easter.
It is, of course, not obvious. The decrees of the rule are not audible to unbelieving ears, the beauty of the rule is not visible to unbelieving eyes, the presentness of the rule is not apparent to anxious minds and hurting bodies. But many great and important realities are not obvious: the atomic structure of matter, for instance, or the properties of light, or the complexities of language. All the same, even when we misunderstand or do not understand we continue to pick up objects, see forms, and speak words. Likewise, neither ignorance nor indifference diminishes God’s rule. Day after day “the Lord reigns.” Taking into account the rebellious passions, malicious temperaments, and slothful wills of millions of people, along with the good intentions, misguided helpfulness, and ill-timed ventures of other millions—not to speak of the disciplined love, purged obedience, and sacrificial service of still other millions—our Sovereign presides over and works with all of this material, personal and political. With it and out of it he shapes existence. He seems to be in no hurry. But prayer discerns that leisure is not indolence. Slowness is not slackness. In the end the sovereign will is done.