Prayer

Several Sundays ago at the church I attend, a sermon was dedicated entirely to "The Lord's Prayer," which has had me thinking much more deeply about the content of this prayer, or more precisely, the meaning and intention behind this content. To think about The Lord's Prayer is to think about the notion of prayer itself: why we pray, how we are to pray, and what we are to pray for. As Jesus says in the Matthew's gospel, as a preface to the Prayer itself, we are not to pray in the presence of others to be seen and praised by them, but are to pray in secret, in the presence of God (Matt. 6:5-6). Jesus says, "your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (6:8), which sometimes makes us wonder about the nature of prayer. But He continues:

Pray then like this:
"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from [the] evil [one.]
[For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen]."
(Matthew 6:9-13, ESV; additional content of some manuscripts given in brackets)

Because Scripture is living, we can never drink of it deeply enough and will continue to see more in its words the more we read them. And who can begin to comprehend the deep mystery of experiencing God through prayer? That said, I humbly offer this brief meditation on The Lord's Prayer (as much for the writer as for the reader):

Our Father in heaven,
The Lord God is our one true Father, for which our flesh-and-blood fathers are a metaphor. Loving fathers deserve our respect and seek our love by building us up in their own; and how much more is our loving Father above deserving of honor and love! "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Our Father is in heaven, because heaven is in Him. Where He is, there can only be heaven. We have heaven in our hearts when we have Him in our hearts, and when we are free from "this body of death" and nothing separates us from Him, we can only be with Him in heaven, with heaven in Him.

hallowed be your name.
His name is honored and holy--and not only holy, but the name from Whom all holiness is conferred. His name for Himself is a statement of His fundamental and ultimate existence, and it is the statement from which all things have existence: "I AM" (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 90:2; John 8:58). His name is above all names.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
In heaven, His dwelling place, His will is always done, and it is only His will that is done. Desiring God is desiring His Kingdom, desiring His return, desiring heaven on earth, and desiring that His will be done on earth. The belief of this statement in our prayers renews His presence in our hearts; because if we treasure God's Kingdom, God's will being done, how can our hearts be anywhere but in Him? "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34).

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
What is our daily bread except those things the Lord knows we need? Our needs are met in Him, because He is sufficient. We know we are in need of nothing when we remember to submit all our concerns to him and drink deeply of His truth, goodness, and beauty (Matthew 6:33). He knows us better than we ourselves do, and He knows our needs better than we ourselves do. He meets all our needs if we keep our eyes fixed on Him, and as we fix our eyes on Him we are "casting aside all that entangles and the sin that so easily ensnares" (Hebrews 12:1-2), dismissing hypocrisy in favor of practicing what we preach, "removing the log from our own eye" before we claim we can point out the speck in the eye of another (Matthew 7:5); and the more often we practice what we preach, the more often we put others before ourselves and our faults before theirs, the more humble and forgiving--and Christlike--we are: "The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matthew 23:11-12).

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
When we desire God's presence, we necessarily desire the strength--not our own strength, but strength that comes from Him--to avoid temptation, to take off the deceitful desires of our "old self...and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God...and give no opportunity to the devil" (Ephesians 4:22, 23, 27). As we pray, we are increasingly conformed to His image, and as we are increasingly conformed to His image, our old self's tendency toward evil becomes our new self's repulsion from it.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
The Lord God is the be-all and end-all, the Great "I AM," "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 22:13). He is the sovereign King of all; His power is such that He spoke all that is into being and sustains all that is by His will; and His overwhelming beauty is The Beauty, of which all things beautiful are a symbol. The Beauty, but so much more: He is the source and the referent of all things true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). To Him be the kingdom, power, and glory, forever.