“Our Father, who art in heaven…”
These words conjure up layer upon layer of memories—thoughts, beliefs, reassurances and questions, meticulously woven together into the tapestry of my life that is not yet complete. Growing up in the Catholic church, the “Our Father” was the first and foremost prayer within the liturgical tradition that I memorized as a young child. Here is the Lord’s prayer as I learned it:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. Amen.
Allow me to backpedal for a minute. My pastor has been preaching about rest for the past two weeks, and I have been deep in thought about the implications of true rest. I am good at many things, but I will be the first to tell you that resting well is not one of them. It is only in recent years that I have even begun to understand the true rest that the Lord offers.
Think of an early stage of learning, like when a baby is first trying to walk. What does he do? He grasps your hands, wobbles, teeters, falls, pulls back up, wobbles, falls again, cries. You help him get back to his feet, and the pattern repeats itself until finally he takes his first step, which is met by cheers of praise. The struggle is not yet over though. He will continue to have setbacks alongside triumphs while he learns to ambulate as a biped.
Envision the first time your teenage daughter grips the steering wheel of the car and presses the gas pedal to the floor. For a fleeting second, you are convinced that your body has left a permanent imprint on the seat back. Moments later she hits the brake with too much gusto, and you are immensely grateful for the seat belt, not to mention the door frame handle around which your white knuckles are glued. She eventually learns to maintain a steady speed, and her driving skills gradually improve, but the struggle is not yet over. You pray for her future as an inexperienced young driver. Please, Lord, do not let her hit a patch of black ice and crash into her friend’s grandmother one week after she gets her license. (I remember that bleak December night in 1995 all too well. To be clear, it was the grandmother’s car I hit, not the poor lady herself! The dents were minor, but to a brand new driver, I felt like my world was falling apart.)
You get the point—beginning stages can be painful. This is where I find myself today as I am discovering what true rest looks like. I wobble, I teeter, I fall often, and I dust myself off and try again. Sometimes I accelerate too fast and must remind myself of what Jesus teaches, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:28-29). When I bind myself to His yoke and allow Him to guide and teach me, I feel the peace of my heavenly Father. I experience His joy in me. I find real, thirst-quenching rest.
As I travel this bumpy road toward true rest, yoked to Jesus for gentle guidance, the Spirit keeps impressing upon me the importance of prayer. Re-enter the Lord’s prayer. Thirty years ago, I recited it from rote memory as I held hands with family members at mass, while we trudged through the rosary in religion class, or for penance after confession. Through the decades, I began to ponder the significance of the lines just a little bit more, and I found comfort in the familiarity of Jesus’ words. At the most basic level, the Lord’s prayer was a link between my Catholic upbringing and my Protestant culture.
I have had the privilege of sitting under excellent Biblical teaching in recent years, and through that teaching, God has significantly deepened my understanding of the “Our Father.” When Jesus needed to rest, he would retreat to a secluded place to spend time in prayer with his Father. Prayer was central to his ministry. It was his refuge. In both word and deed, Jesus shows us how to commune with the Father in prayer.
In Lk. 11:1, we learn that after Jesus finished praying, one of the disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. What follows in v. 2-4 is not a strategy for prayer. It is not a technique for prayer. It is not a how-to 10 Steps to Master Prayer book. It is an actual prayer. Jesus teaches us how to pray by giving us a concrete prayer to pray. Here is the version of the Lord’s prayer from Mt. 6:9-13 that I have in my ESV translation:
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 evil.
Jesus gives us a prayer that is simple and profound all at once. It is short, not a bunch of babbling nonsense, or “gobbley-gook” as my father-in-law would say. Look just a few verses back at Mt. 6:7, “do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Simply put—more words do not equal better prayer.
Even though the Lord’s prayer is succinct, it is also sweeping—it covers all the bases. In it we see praise and adoration as well as petitions, or personal requests. Finally, Jesus’ prayer is structured. Verses 9-10 show us the importance of proclaiming truths about God, while v. 11-13 teach us how to ask Him to help us.
Do not think that Jesus gave the disciples this prayer so that they would only pray it and nothing else. It is both a stand-alone prayer we can pray with sincerity, and it serves as a model for personalized prayers. The whole of scripture attests to a robust and varied prayer life. In the Book of Psalms alone, we find a collection of prayers that run the gamut from thanksgiving to lament, joy to mourning, praise to condemnation. We can speak to the Lord about absolutely anything that is on our hearts. Lam. 2:18 says, “Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord!”
The Lord’s prayer does not limit us in our prayer lives; rather, it enhances them. Jesus clarifies what is of utmost importance. First, we acknowledge the holiness of the Lord and long with our hearts that His kingdom would be apparent here and now. I imagine it something like this, Holy Father, fill the earth with the knowledge and love of yourself, making everything right that is wrong. Bring the fullness of your glory to this earth as it already resides in heaven.
After prayer fuels ours longing for the Lord’s righteousness, glory and love to take the world by storm, we bring our personal petitions to His attention. We can pray for “our daily bread,” or our physical needs. We can pray for our hearts and the internal work that needs to be accomplished, like receiving forgiveness and extending forgiveness, and we can pray for protection from the evil in this world.
Jesus does not confine us to pray only within these categories; instead, he frees us to personalize them and expand upon them, devoting ourselves to prayer, “being watchful and thankful” (Col. 4:2). We are to confess our sins to one another (Jas. 5:6) and should present our requests to God with thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6). In Eph. 6:18, Paul tells us to pray “at all times in the Spirit.” From Lk. 18:1, we know that we “should always pray and not give up.” We are told to be “faithful in prayer” (Rom. 12:12) and to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:16-18).
The Lord’s prayer is not a fence in which to keep our prayer life contained, but rather a springboard to propel our words of praise, thanksgiving, heartache, and longing to the throne of our loving Father. There is not a prescription for correct prayer or a step-wise technique to help us perfect our prayer lives, but God does give us loving guidance in His Word. What is important is that we simply come before the Lord as we are, acknowledging who He is as we pour out our hearts to Him.
As the Lord told Moses in Ex. 33:14, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Jesus has given us direct access to deep soul rest, and a healthy prayer life is the roadmap that leads us to this destination. I am finally learning to stay on the road, thanks to the relentless work of the Holy Spirit. My prayer is that you will discover this beautiful road for yourself.
*I found great wisdom for this post from “The Lord’s Prayer” sermon preached by Kevin Jamison at Sojourn East on 4.14.19 and also his later sermons in August of the same year.
My prayer journal. A new gift from a dear friend. It has greatly helped me on my journey to rest.