We have been talking about the Lord’s Prayer and praying it at noon every day. (Maybe you’ll join us?) I suggested that folks set their smartphones to beep at noon to remind them to pray. Then on Sunday, several beeps interrupted my sermon. Someone later said, “I like this; it reminds us to pray and it reminds you to stop!”
We’re now reading and thinking about, “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done.” There are several ways to read that, “God’s kingdom comes wherever his will is done” or “If you want God’s kingdom to come; do his will.”
The Psalmist wrote what is perhaps the most read and memorized song in the Bible, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” (Psalm 23)
The Oxford Dictionary says time is “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” In other words, there are three spatial dimensions (height, width, and depth) and there is a fourth dimension (time). Time has never been completely understood, but it seems to be a measure of what happens in the three spatial dimensions. What is a year? It’s the time our earth takes to go around the sun. What is a day? It’s the time our earth takes to make one full rotation on its axis.
Now the Psalmist is telling us to take time to think about how we live and what are the consequences of our lifestyle. If we accept Jesus as our shepherd, he will erase our sins and give us a new life (thy will be done), and we will live in his house forever (thy kingdom come). So “take the time!”

Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving the Woodland – Bold Springs UMC, a marketplace chaplain, and with Mary Ella, a missionary to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.