Read and meditate on the Lord’s Prayer this week…beginning with Matthew 6:9-10…
9“This, then, is how you should pray:
” ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Instead of eloquent, showy public prayers or wordy, repetitious private prayers, Jesus shows the type of prayer God desires. The point is to teach us how to pray more than what to pray. The Lord’s Prayer is a beautiful prayer. There can be great value in meditating on its words and even reciting them when we can’t seem to verbalize our own prayer. But we must remember that there is nothing magical or extra powerful about these words. Jesus is not teaching us some formula for prayer but rather showing us the simplicity of prayer.
Our Father in heaven. Relationship. Intimacy. We are talking to our Father. He loves us. We don’t have to fight for His attention. He is always with us. We don’t have to earn His love. He has already showered us with it. As a child, we turn our eyes to Him and ask Him to help us, hold us.I think of my son Joshua reaching up to me, “Hold me, Daddy!”
Hallowed be Your name. Respect. Humility. He is our Father not our buddy, not our mascot, not our genie. He is holy. He is God. I am not. I think of my own role as a father. I desire intimacy with my children. I want there to be freedom and honesty in our relationship. But there must also be respect. When they forget that they are children and start talking like they are the authority in the house, then they have crossed the line. They have abused their freedom. They have mistaken my love for license. The same is true in our relationship with our heavenly Father. Intimacy and humility must go together.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Our hope and our ultimate desire. God, come fix this earth! Remove disease. Conquer death. Bring lasting peace and righteousness. Isn’t that at the heart of all our prayers? When we pray for health, we are longing for the day when God removes the curse of sin from our physical bodies and gives us a resurrection body patterned after His Son. When we pray for peace in relationships, we are longing for the day when God finally unites His children as one. Whether it is finances, political peace, the salvation of a loved one, comfort for the depressed, calmness from anxiety, forgiveness from a friend…all of it is a longing for God to reign on earth, to remove the curse of sin, to reconcile relationships, to restore the Garden of Eden. The whole story of Scripture is summarized in this one request. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
Lord, I feel overwhelmed. So much is out of my control. Needs abound around me. Struggles abound in my own heart. I need You. You are great, You are awesome. Thank You for loving me, for saving me. I long to see You face to face. Give me grace to live for You, to learn from You, to love others, as I wait for that day when my faith will be sight.