Traditions of Prayer

When You Pray, Consider Forever.

The final words of Jesus' model prayer as recorded in Matthew's Gospel shift our attention from the here and now to the hereafter. One of the reasons that God's work is so often cut short in our lives is because we allow it to be choked out by this world's worries, riches, and our pursuit of them. Those words quoted above call us to pause and remember that life isn't all about the temporal but the eternal, the forever.

Our heavenly Father's kingdom is forever. Stories about politicians and potentates fill the 24-hour broadcasts of television's cable news networks. No matter how secure their positions seem, sooner or later those leaders and rulers give way to their successors. God is their judge. He puts down one and sets up another (Psalm 75:7), but His throne is eternal. Why then should we fret over the latest doings of this man or that?

Our heavenly Father's power is forever. By His word, all things were made and continue to be held together. None of these His works has diminished His power one iota. Beside His, all other powers—in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; in the material and the spiritual realms—pale in comparison. No problem that any of us face today nor all of our problems combined can begin to challenge the limits of His unlimited power.

Our heavenly Father's glory is forever. The sun in the skies above us burns so intensely that even at a distance of 91.4 million miles, we can't stare into its face. Yet, our sun is slowly, like all stars, burning out. Its glory is fading at a rate imperceptible to the human eye, unlike the glory of the luminaries in Hollywood, on Wall Street, or showcased on ESPN. Their star-power burns out relatively fast, but God's glory never does. He is as radiant, as regal, and as resplendent today as He ever was or ever will be.

It is this God who possesses the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever that followers of Jesus are privileged to call "Father." What more can be added to that profound thought but "amen!"

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When You Pray, Remember the Family.

The two greatest commandments, according to Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40, are to love God with all of one's being and to love neighbor as self. The model prayer aligns perfectly with these two commandments. It opens with adoration and submission to God. It proceeds from there to petitions for ourselves and our neighbors.

If God is your heavenly Father, you are not His only child. You have millions of brothers and sisters all over the world. While there's certainly nothing wrong with you laying your personal concerns before the Father's throne, you would be remiss to ignore the rest of your spiritual family's needs.

The requests as laid out by Jesus in the lines above are conspicuously not for me and mine but for us and our. Here the Lord teaches us to pray as earnestly for our neighbors as we do ourselves.

We are to pray for daily provisions. Bread is an apt representation of the various things we all require for our day-to-day survival. It's nearly impossible for we 90% of Americans who are food secure to imagine what it was like for the 90% of Jesus' listeners who lived hand to mouth or for the millions of adults and children who still go to bed hungry every night. If any one of us and our neighbors are praying for "our" daily bread and God responds by giving two loaves to our house but none to our neighbor's, has He answered only one of our prayers? Or, could it be that He has answered both of our prayers, intending that second loaf to be shared?

As much as we all need bread, we need pardon even more — God's pardon and our neighbor's. Just as God's mercy makes it possible for us to live in community with Him, our mercy towards one another makes it possible for us to live peacefully together. Forgiveness is a rare and precious ointment in a world ravaged by violence and pain. There never seems to be enough of it to salve every wound.

The reason for all that pain is what gives rise to the third petition for protection. "Lead us not into temptation" we pray, because we know the dangerous beast that lives within our own breast. "Deliver us from evil" we implore, because we're aware of the lion that roams without, seeking whom he may devour.

How it must thrill the Father's heart whenever He hears His children remembering and loving one another as they pray!

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When You Pray, Honor the Father.

The preceding words are more than a preamble. They serve to correct our perspective, to reset our priorities, and to prepare the way for what is to come as we pray.

If God is our Father, that makes us His children. The first command given to all children in Exodus 20:12 is "honor thy father." That's what these opening words of the model prayer help us to do.

Our Father God's position "in heaven" denotes His transcendence and authority. He is, in the words of Isaiah 6, "sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up." He is up there; we are down here. He is the Ruler; we are the ruled. He is God; we are not. How easily we forget!

It should be our number one petition and our heart's passion that our heavenly Father's person, connoted by His "name," be "hallowed." In other words, everything within us should desire that our God be treated as holy, by ourselves and by all creation. We should long to see obeyed the commandment of Exodus 20:7 forbidding that the name of the Lord our God be taken in vain. To its eternal detriment, the world weighs its Creator far too lightly. Our prayer as His children ought to be that we assign Him His true weight in all things.

Wherever our heavenly Father's name is hallowed, it is evidence that His plan is beginning to be fulfilled — that is, His kingdom yet to come is already at work among us, and His will that shall one day be obeyed throughout earth as it is in Heaven has already begun to be carried out in that handful of dust that comprises our earthly bodies. To open our prayers with our eyes sensitized to our Father's position, person, and plan helps bring into focus what we should pray next.

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When You Pray, Say "Father."

Some things both are and are not as simple as they appear. Prayer is one of those things. What could be simpler than talking to God? Then again, what could be more profound than talking to God?!

If given the opportunity to speak with someone rich, powerful, or famous, you probably would first want to ask someone close to that person how to address them. Who better to ask how to talk to God the Father than His own Son, Jesus? That's what the disciples did in Luke 11:1. Jesus response in verses 2 through 4, found also in Matthew 6:9-13 as part of His sermon on the mount, constitutes a model prayer.

Jesus begins His instruction in Matthew 6:5 by saying "when," not "if," you pray. It's safe to assume that most everyone prays at some point in their lives. There are no atheists in foxholes or during final exams!

What Jesus says next is more about how to pray than what to pray. The King James Version captures this distinction when it translates Matthew 6:9, "after this manner therefore pray ye." Jesus is giving us a model or a guide, if you will. He is offering us a pattern, not a talisman. Forget that and you'll be more likely to reduce this prayer to the "vain repetition" that He warns against in verse 7.

Based on what Jesus says here, prayer is not a time to:

1. build your spiritual profile,
2. brief God on what He doesn't know,
3. badger Him through much speaking,
4. beg Him as if He were anything less than a kind-hearted father, or
5. bargain with Him, promising this for that.

Rather, prayer is a time to call out "Father;" in Aramaic, "Abba;" or to use the first English word that most of us learned as babies, "Da-da." What could be simpler and at the same time more profound than talking with God as your Father? Through Jesus, that is the believer's distinct privilege (John 14:6; Hebrews 4:14-16).

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