There are no hungry children in Heaven

When you say the Lord’s Prayer, what does “on earth as it is in heaven” mean to you?

Over the past week, I have been very busy setting up our kitchen, and buying food supplies for the official start of our children feeding programme. In the mist of all the busy-ness, there was a strong force that motivated me to keep going. It was a simple, but compelling and overwhelming conviction that God the Father is grieved to see His children hungry and malnourished. He was asking me to do something about it, to put right something that is wrong. 

 

Jesus had also been confronted with a hungry crowd. His disciples were so overwhelmed that they asked Him to send them away. Instead, Jesus said “You give them something to eat” (Matt 14:16). As I take concrete action to feed our hungry students, I have heard Jesus say the same words to me. He says it in a gentle and loving way, inviting me to put right something that is wrong in this world, His Father's world.

I read this familiar story again a few moments ago. I heard Him say something that took my breath away. 

“Do you know why I fed the people? There were many hungry children in the crowd, and I couldn’t bear to send them away.”

We know there were 5000 people present, excluding women and children. If half the men were married, and each man brought two children along, there would have been 5000 children present. 5000 children. Can you see that? There might have been as many children, as there were grown men. Jesus saw them, loved them, and fed them so abundantly, there were leftovers. He always did His Father’s will, on earth as it is in heaven.

There are no hungry children in Heaven, only happy ones.

What does “on earth as it is in heaven” mean to you now?