Good Morning, Blogging Family! This clip is inspired by the first of two chapters near the end of Hello, God that look at the Lord’s Prayer and suggest ways to apply it to your prayer life. Stay tuned for the conclusion of our preview series – a meditation on Micah 7 – tomorrow!

***

“‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ The disciples’ request would sound reverent, childlike—but they don’t stop there. They tack on an earthly comparison reminding their Messiah, eternal God dressed in human flesh, that they haven’t fully grasped his identity yet. ‘Teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples‘ (Luke 11: 1).

How does Jesus respond to his disciples’ misplaced modifier? There are plenty of instances where He does reprove his followers’ fixation with human tradition, but in this case He graciously ignores the slight and addresses the crux of their question: how to connect intimately with God. 

When we look at the opening lines of Jesus’s teaching prayer (commonly known as the Lord’s Prayer) in Luke 11:2, several simple, yet startling, truths arrest our attention.     

“Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread…”

First, Jesus’s prayer transforms the intimidating Judge of the Old Testament into “Father.” While He’s still instructing His disciples (and us) to pray for God’s name to be lifted high and revered, He personalizes the Creator and gives us a direct access to Him that John’s disciples could never have imagined. 

Next, Jesus’s teaching prayer undermines everything His disciples thought they knew about God’s kingdom. In Jesus’s day, most Jewish people thought the Messiah would emancipate their nation from the Roman empire. But the prayer Jesus teaches His disciples, unlike their cultural preconceptions, doesn’t put a time stamp on God’s kingdom arriving on earth. That’s because He wants them to realize God’s kingdom is first and foremost a spiritual one, made up of sons and daughters bought back from eternal destruction. God’s kingdom was coming in their day, and it is still coming in ours.

Finally, Jesus adds something deeply personal and unlike the rote prayers His disciples likely learned as children. He adds requests for daily, material provision. The sketches of God they would have glimpsed in the synagogue might have emphasized His jealousy for the glory of His name. Or His promise to deliver Israel, if the nation humbled itself enough. But the Father Jesus paints in His teaching prayer is also deeply concerned for whether they—uneducated “nobodies” from a disreputable district in Israel—have food on the table…

USE IT OR LOSE IT:

1. Have you previously considered Jesus’s prayer as a rote recipe to recite at church or school, or as a living model to help you grow your own prayer life? Has today broadened your perspective? Why or why not?
2. Jesus paints with broad strokes in His teaching prayer, graciously giving us plenty of liberty to color in our own unique details. Take each of first three lines and try to come up with your own version. For example: 

‘God, thank You that You love me so much more perfectly than any earthly parent.  I praise You for how wise You are, how powerful, how mighty—how You delight to show unfailing love and mercy to me, even though I don’t deserve it. Lord, please bring Your kingdom quickly to this broken world! I see sickness and sin and injustice all around me, and people turning to all sorts of things they believe are going to fix them. But I know that what they really need is the transforming message of Your Good News. Father, thank You so much that You care about the tiny practical details of my life, and want me to ask You for what I need…‘”

***

Shepherd Press is offering a discount on pre-orders of Hello, God, Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short until 5/31. https://www.shepherdpress.com/products/hello-god/. Use code “HELLO” to get 25% off!