"As It Is in Heaven
“Like a snowy mountain peak above us, ‘Be ye perfect ’ dazzles our dim eyes. Canst thou look from thy pure height and love us?
May our earth-clogged feet to thee arise? We before the vision veil our faces,
Yet would have it not a ray less bright; Shine into our sin’s dark hiding places,
Flood our lives with thy transfiguring light.”
Lucy Larcom%
“As it is in heaven” is the standard of the doing of God’s will on earth which the Lord’s Prayer sets for us. It is a high ideal, and yet there can be no lower. The petition is a prayer that heaven may begin in our hearts right here on the earth. Indeed, it must begin in us here or it will never begin at all for us. None can ever enter heaven save those into whom heaven has first entered. Heaven only can be wings to lift us to heaven. “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” was the Master’s own word. Every one goes at last “to his own place,” the place for which his character fits him. There can be no heaven for men of unheavenly mind. It is time we had right views upon this subject. We must have the life of God in us before we are ready to dwell in blessedness with God.
A gentle author has recently said, “We are too much in the habit of looking forward to heaven as something that will be an easier, pleasanter story for us to read when we have finished this tiresome earth-narrative; a luxurious palace-chamber to rest in after this life’s drudgery is ended; a remote celestial mountain-retreat, where the sound of the restless waves of humanity forever fretting these shores will vex our ears no longer.” We forget that heaven is not far off yonder, — at least our heaven is not, — but begins right here in our common days, if it is ever to begin at all for us. Is not that what the prayer means — “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven “? “On earth” — in our shops and stores and schools; in our homes and social life; in our drudgery and care; in our times of temptation and sorrow. It is not a prayer to be taken away out of this world into heaven, to begin there the doing of God’s will; it is a prayer that right here on the earth and now we may learn to live as they do in heaven.
When we think a little of the true mission of Christian lives in this world, — to make at least one spot of it better, changing briers to roses, darkness to light, hate to love, we see how important it is that our prayer be not, “Lord, take me home out of all this sorrow and sin;” but, “Lord, let me stay here longer and do thy will and bless a corner of earth.” Well does Susan Coolidge sing, —
“When I sit and think of heaven so beautiful and dear, Think of the sweet peace reigning there and the contentions here, Think of the safe, sure justice beside the earthly wrong, And set our ringing discords against celestial song, And all the full securities beside ‘O Lord, how long?’ Oh, then I long to be there, and in my heart I pray, Lord, open thou the pearly gates, and let me in to-day.’
And then I turn to earth again, and in my thoughts I see The small, unnoted corner given in charge to me, “as it is in heaven:’ 26 r
The work that needs be done there which no one else will do,
The briers that rend, the tares that spring, the heartease choked with rue,
The plants that must be trained and set to catch the sun and dew;
And there seems so much to do there, that in my heart I pray,
1 Lord, shut thy gate, and call me not, and let me work to-day.’”
How do they live in heaven? What is that sweet, beautiful life into whose spirit we ask now to be introduced and ultimately to be altogether transformed? There all wills are in perfect accord with the divine will. We begin our Christian life on earth with hearts and wills estranged from God, indisposed to obey him. Naturally we want to take our own way, not God’s. The beginning of the new life is the acceptance of God as our King. But not at once does the kingdom in us become fully his. It has to be subdued, and the conquest is slow. Christian growth is simply the bringing of our wills into perfect accord with God’s. It is learning to do always the things that please
God. Tennyson puts this truth in striking way in two lines of “In Memoriam:” —
“Our wills are ours, we know not how — Our wills are ours to make them thine.”
“Our wills are ours.” This is the profound truth of human sovereignty. God made us in his own image, made us free to do as we will. Even God himself cannot compel our will. “Our wills are ours.” Their freedom is inviolable. But this is only half the truth.
“Our wills are ours to make them thine.”
They are ours to give to God, to yield to his will. The giving must be our act, must be voluntary. Yet until we make this surrender, we have not begun to live the Christian life, nor have we begun to grow into that ideal holiness which is heaven’s common life. We begin making our wills God’s when we first begin to follow Christ. But it takes all life to make the surrender complete. Taught of God and helped by the divine Spirit, we come every day, if we are faithful, a little nearer doing God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven.
“Thy will be done.” That means obedience, not partial, but full and complete. It is taking the word of God into our heart and conforming our whole life to it. It is accepting God’s way always, cheerfully, quietly, with love and faith. This is not easy. Our natures do not incline us to do God’s will. We like to have our own way. To obey God is ofttimes to take up a cross. Much of the doing of God’s will is passive — letting the divine will be done in us. Sometimes this is like driving a ploughshare through our life’s fair garden. It cuts into our plans and destroys our cherished expectations. Still, whatever this will may require, whatever it may crush, we know it is ever preparing us for the heavenly life.
In the wasting of the marble under the chisel the image grows more and more into the beauty of the sculptor’s thought. When God’s will cuts away our cherished things we know it is well, and that we are being fashioned into the beauty of the divine thought for us.
What is the heavenly pattern after which our lives are to be fashioned? Can we know what we are to be? We get the answer in what God has given us as the rule for our life — his law. The divine law is summed up in one word — love. “Thou shalt love.” God is love. “As it is in heaven” means love wrought out in all pure, beautiful, holy life. “Thy will be done on earth” means therefore love in all earthly life. All the lessons may be gathered into one — learning to love. Loving God is first. Then loving God begets in us love to all men; for, as George MacDonald says, “When God comes to man, man looks round for his neighbor.” We cannot have the love of God in our heart and not love our fellow-men.
If, then, we know what love really is, we can readily find our pattern for life “as it is in heaven.” What is love? We have a portrait of it in St. Paul’s wonderful thirteenth of First Corinthians. “Love suff ereth long and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.” Then we see the perfect incarnation of this vision of love in our blessed Lord’s human life, as portrayed for us in the Gospels. “As it is in heaven” is like Christ.
But what is the love that is the whole of the will of God? Do we really understand it? Do not many of us think only of its earthly side? We like to be loved, that is, to have other people love us and live for us and do things for us. We like the gratifications of love. But that is only miserable selfishness, if it goes no further. It is a desecration of the sacred name to think that love, at its heart, means getting, receiving. Nay, love gives. Getting is earthly; “as it is in heaven” is giving. That is what God’s love does — it finds its blessedness in giving. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” That is what Christ’s love did — it poured out its very life-blood to the last drop. The essential meaning of loving must always be giving, not receiving.
Perhaps our thought of the heavenly blessedness is often a selfish one, that it will be all enjoyment, all receiving. But even heaven will not be an eternity of self-gratification, of the bliss of receiving. Even there, especially there, where all imperfections will be left behind, love must find its supreme blessedness in giving, in serving others, in pouring out into other lives. It will forever there be more blessed to give than to receive, to minister rather than to be ministered unto.
“On earth as it is in heaven” means therefore not merely the gratification of being loved, but the blessedness of loving others and giving out the richest and best of one’s life for others. Sometimes we hear people sighing to have friends, to be loved. This is natural. We all hunger for love. But this craving may become unwholesome, even miserably morbid. As one writes, “It may be only a covetous outreach after a blessing which belongs to another, and without which that other life must be left wholly unsunned and unrefreshed.” A great deal more wholesome desire is the craving to give love, to be a blessing to others, to pour out the heart’s sweet life to refresh other weary hearts.
It is God’s will that we should love; it may not always be God’s will that we should be loved. It seems to be the mission of some in this world to give and not to receive. They are set to shine in the darkness, burning up their own life as the lamp’s oil burns, to be light to other souls, while no one gives light to them. They are called to serve, to minister, to wear out their life in giving sweetness, comfort, and help to others, while none come to minister to them, to pour love’s sweetness into their hearts, and to give them daily bread of affection, cheer, and help. In many homes we find such lives — a patient wife and mother, or a gentle, unselfish sister — blessing, caring for, serving, giving perpetually love’s richest gifts, herself meanwhile unloved, unserved, unrecognized, and unhelped.
We are apt to pity such persons; but may it not be that they are nearer the heavenly ideal of doing God’s will than are some of those who sit in the bright sunshine of love, receiving, ministered unto, but not giving or serving. Was it not thus with our Lord himself? He loved and gave and blessed many, at last giving his very life, but few came to give him blessing and sweetness of love in his own soul. It is more divine to love than to be loved. At least God’s will for us is that we should love, pouring out our heart’s richest treasures upon others, not asking meanwhile for any return. Loving is its own best return and reward.
“This is life — to pour out love unstinted, Good and evil, sunlike, blesseth he; Through your finite is his infinite hinted — Children of your Father must ye be.”
Thus “as it is in heaven “shines ever before us as the ideal of our earthly life. It is not a vague, shadowy ideal, for it is simply the complete doing of God’s will. Perfect obedience is heaven. Sometimes it is serving others, some- “AS IT IS IN heavens 269
times it is quiet, patient suffering, or passive waiting. The one great lesson to be learned is, perfect accord with the will of God for us every moment, whatever that will may be.
“Father, I do not ask
That thou wouldst choose some other task,
And make it mine. I pray
But this; let every day
Be moulded still
By thine own hand; my will
Be only thine, however deep
I have to bend, my hand to keep.
Let me not simply do, but be content,
Sure that the little crosses each are sent,
And no mistake can ever be
With thine own hand to choose for me.”
“As it is in heaven” may seem far above us to-day. The song is too sweet for our unmusical voice to sing. The life is too beautiful for us, with our imperfect, inharmonious nature, to live. But if only we are true to our Christian faith; if only we strive ever to do our Father’s will; if only we keep our heart ever open to the love of Christ and to the help and sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit, we shall rise day by day toward heaven’s perfectness, until at last we shall enter the pearl gates and be with Christ and be like him. For the present our striving and our prayer should ever be: “Thy will be done on earth, in us, as it is done in heaven.”