Episode 79: The Lord's Prayer, Part Two--Where Does God Live?

In their ongoing series about the words we call "the Lord's Prayer," pastors Erica and Steve explore what we mean when we talk about the God who is "in heaven," and how God's space relates to our space... especially talking about a God who is beyond time and space.  Is "heaven" supposed to be a geographical or astronomical location, accessible in a spaceship?  Is heaven only a future reality, or is God "there" now?  Or, as the Scriptures themselves seem to be saying, are God's "realm" (what we often call "heaven") and humanity's "realm" (what we often call "earth") made to be interrelated, interconnected, and interpenetrating?  Instead of picturing heaven as "up there, somewhere far away," maybe Jesus has in mind God's space as an all-encompassing reality with the universe we know residing within God's space, so that God can be both beyond us and yet immediately present to us at all times, like the atmosphere of air surrounds us all the time but also fills our lungs with every breath.  Or perhaps we could picture it like a child's bedroom that exists within the larger house owned by the parents, a space that the parents still take responsibility for, but in which the children exercise some of their own choices and responsbilities, too? And what difference does it make how we picture how heaven and earth relate?  Join us for a conversation that ranges from parenting to particle physics as we explore what we mean when we talk about praying to the God who is "in heaven."