As It Is in Heaven

A few weeks ago, I was with my family at Lincoln Lake breaking out our kayaks for their maiden voyage of the year. I insisted the best time on the lake is late afternoon to sunset. The shadows and light effects of the sun descending behind the rolling hills that hug the lake’s shoreline leave the sky illuminated, and the lake's surface becomes a gigantic mirror.

Lincoln Lake

When the golden hour had begun, I traded off my kayak to my big kids and sat on the shore watching and waiting. I was not disappointed. The sky was illuminated, the trees became less defined, and the lake surface mirrored the heavens above and the darkened vegetation. I took pictures, but let me tell you, it’s just not the same as being in the presence of that moment.

Basking in the awe and wonder, I asked the Holy Spirit to reveal truths to me while being wrapped in Creation's majesty.

The Lord’s Prayer came overflowing from within my soul.

While absorbing the beauty of the heavenly sky above me, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”

I slipped my hand into the murky lake water here below, sending mini waves across the natural mirror of the stunning majesty above me, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Lightly brushing my hand over the grass tops around me, I had a real sense that this space satisfied my soul’s hunger differently, yet with the same importance, as everyday spaces of cooking and eating with loved ones around the tables. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Feeling my smallness beneath the heavenly stars in a gradually darkening sky and wrapped in the majestic graying forest of twilight, the boundary lines and markers that humanity has pegged with GPS markers are not seen. God owns it all. There is a wonder of oneness. No line of offense or boundary. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

My toes wiggle in the squishy mud, and in something like a therapeutic moment, the desire for the dopamine of algorithms melts away and there is a sense of freedom, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

In reluctance to rise and leave, star shine emerges from the dark canvas above. A happy man passes near me with a prize fish. He inquires if I am meditating. Yes, yes, I am. I tell him it is hard to leave. He agrees and wishes the day were longer.

Goodness me, yes. We wish it would go on forever, and in a real sense, it does.

“For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”