The Lost Card and the Found King
OPENING PRAYER:
Father, quiet the noise of my own desires so I can hear Your voice clearly. Help me see where I've been building my own kingdom instead of seeking Yours, and give me the courage to surrender what I've been clutching so tightly.
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
This verse appears in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, immediately following His teaching about worry and anxiety over basic needs like food and clothing. Jesus was addressing people who lived hand-to-mouth, yet He called them to prioritize something invisible—God's kingdom—over their most pressing physical concerns.
REFLECT:
Pastor Rodney opened his heart with a confession that might make you smile, but it reveals something profound about how we all approach God. As a young boy, he lost his prized Bo Jackson rookie card and prayed with everything in him to find it. He made promises to God, bargained, believed, and wished—but the card never turned up. Looking back, he had to ask himself an uncomfortable question: if God had said yes to that prayer, whose life would have improved? Only his own.
This story isn't really about a baseball card. It's about the pattern we all fall into when we approach the God of the universe like He's Amazon with a "buy now" button. We fill our cart with requests, set our preferred delivery timeline, and then evaluate God's faithfulness based on whether our order arrives on time. The pastor confessed that even his most serious prayers—like begging God to heal his brother from cancer—followed this same consumer-driven formula: "God, here's what I want, here's how I want You to fix it, and here's my timeline." He realized he wanted to be God, telling the Almighty what to do rather than bowing before Him as King.
What makes this so convicting is that none of us intend to be this way. We don't wake up thinking, "I'm going to treat God like a vendor today." But we're swimming in a culture of consumerism, and it seeps into everything—even our most sacred conversations with our Father. We approach church as a product we consume, faith as a service God provides, and prayer as a transaction where we expect returns on our investment. The pastor challenged us to recognize that when we pray "Your kingdom come" in the Lord's Prayer, there's an unspoken second half we need to whisper: "not my kingdom come."
Jesus taught His disciples to pray this way because He knew our default setting. Before we ever get to "give us this day our daily bread," we must first bow our knee to the King and acknowledge whose kingdom we're actually living for. The power of this prayer isn't just in the words—it's in the reordering of our hearts. When we truly pray "Your kingdom come, not mine," we're choosing to step out of the center of our own story and into the dangerous, beautiful adventure of God's mission in this world.
I WILL STATEMENT:
I will pray the Lord's Prayer daily for the next 21 days. Join us live, in-person, to pray together for the next 21 Days, because something powerful happens when God's people pray together in unity. All are invited to join a live prayer meeting at one of our traditional campuses (Westlink, Goddard, Valley Center Activity Center) for the next three weeks, Monday through Friday at 6:00 AM. Don't miss what God is doing when His people unite in prayer. To find out more, check out the Weekly Guide in the Pathway app or click here.
CLOSING PRAYER:
Jesus, I confess that I've treated You like a vendor more often than a King. Forgive me for the ways I've built my own kingdom and called it Yours. Teach me what it truly means to seek first Your kingdom, trusting that You know what I need far better than I do. Amen.