The Lord’s Prayer - Will Tyler
One of the stumbling stones in my faith has always been prayer. After all, prayer isn’t an easy thing to do or something that doesn’t matter. How we talk to our Lord and Saviour is extremely important: He rules over everything, is the creator of everything, and directs everything by His sovereign will. Fortunately for those of us who struggle with prayer, we have the Lord’s Prayer and other instructions Jesus gave us to guide us in how to pray. Jesus said
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today 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. Matthew 6:5-13.
Now, I would like to break this down so that we can understand the different aspects on how to pray.
Praying to the Father alone. Jesus starts by saying, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Now this is often interpreted as telling believers to pray alone. There are benefits in learning to pray alone so that you have your own personal relationship with Christ. However, there are two things that this interpretation leaves out, namely, that there are other verses commanding us to pray together as believers (Matthew 18:20), as well as this interpretation misses the purpose of this instruction to avoid the desire to draw attention from people. We should not use prayer as a social tool, people shouldn’t look at us and say. ‘oh! they are so holy; look at how they pray.’ Prayer isn’t something we do for public recognition; it’s supposed to be an act between child and Father. Susanna Wesley, the mother of the now famous John Wesley, often needed time to pray during the day but also had to keep an eye on her children and work. She instructed her children that if they saw her with her apron over her face, they were to leave her alone for she was praying. Now I’m sure she wished she could have a locked room to pray in those moments, but the point is she was trying not to draw attention to others on how holy she was rather she was earnestly seeking the presence of God multiple times a day. If this mother could find a way to pray without announcing it to the whole world, we can definitely find time throughout our day to pray without trying to gain everyone’s attention.
Praying to the Father who knows you. Jesus instructs believers in prayer saying “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Sometimes believers try to impress God with long lofty prayers and think if I say the right words in the right order and repeat things I really want, then God will answer me. Jesus shuts this line of thinking down quickly saying “your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” When we pray, we can’t impress God. He already knows why we are praying. He knows your intentions for praying whether they are good or selfish. He knows what is truly valuable for us and what our human desires want. God will accept the prayer of a stuttering fool who is truly desiring the will of God, not because their words are eloquent but simply because they are God’s child. Of course, we are also commanded to pray without ceasing and whoever seeks finds, so praying again or asking again is not the problem. But we should make sure praying over and over again hasn’t turned itself into whining. For example, when I was little I loved McDonalds, and I would often ask my Mom when we drove past the golden arches if I could have some chemicals and steroids (I don’t feel right calling it food) from McDonalds. Often her answer would be ‘no’ and that was that. I could go a whole week asking every time we drove past, and it never annoyed my mother. However, if I pestered her for saying no, whining and crying, claiming she always says no, then it was a different story that would end in her telling me to stop whining. Sometimes believers intentionally or unintentionally act the same way in prayer. They begin to disrespect God because they are not getting what they want.
Praying to the Father with respect. After this Jesus says the Lord’s prayer “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” First, notice the respect in Jesus’ voice. Hallowed literally means “made holy, greatly revered, and honoured.” In prayer Jesus is careful to not disrespect the Father’s name. In our modern world we sometimes focus too much on the relational aspect of worship than the respectful. Yes, we are called to have a relationship with God but He is also our God. For example, I have a friend who is in the military. While he was explaining to me training camp, he explained to me the proper way to respect your superior officers. Even if the superior officer was a very good friend, it was disrespectful to salute them and call them by their first name. They could be greatly punished if they did that. Rather when they saluted, they were to say “Sir,” out of respect for who that person was in relation to them. Prayer is similar, when we pray, we are entering the presence of God, so to call God anything that places God as our equal is greatly disrespectful. After all, He is our Lord, our saviour, we are truly dependent on Him. We are in no way equal with Him, so let’s not act like we are in the way we pray.
Praying for the Father’s will. Jesus taught us to say, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This is Jesus’ first request, that God’s will would be done. In ethics and philosophy there is this idea of the greatest good, meaning the thing that every moral choice is trying to attain. The most common idea of the greatest good in our time is happiness, while other societies have believed honour, or human flourishing was the greatest good. But Jesus totally upends this whole conversation here if we really think about it. You see what Jesus requests isn’t that He would experience happiness, or honour, or that humanity would flourish. Rather what Jesus requests first and foremost is that God’s will would be done. This is the greatest good for all Christians, that God’s will would be done. Everything we pray for, every moral choice we make, should be compared to the true greatest good namely “Is this God’s Will?” If you really want to live a life that honours God, this is the question you will be asking yourself for every serious choice and prayer request you will have to make. Throughout church history always the greatest stories were those who wished to do the will of God regardless of their own suffering or circumstances. I talk about this more in the “A Vase By Any Other Name Devotional,” so if you need to know more about the will of God, please refer to that devotional.
Praying relying on the Father’s provision. “Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Notice how Jesus teaches us to rely on the Father even for our most basic needs. “Give us today,” is a blessing from God we don’t think to normally ask for, but Jesus shows us that nothing is too simple to ask the Father, even if it may be just to live through the day. Then Jesus shows us to ask for forgiveness as we also forgive our debtors. Prayer is not just submitting requests to the Father like He is some real version of Santa, rather our relationship goes so much deeper. We are to confess how we have wronged Him, and state that we are obeying His commands to forgive those who have wronged us. We have an admission that we will try to be His children by being like Him, we will be the children of God by imitating our Father. We will forgive as He forgave us.
Praying as warfare against sin. Lastly, Jesus shows us to pray by stating “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” Jesus shows us that we can ask God to help us with our battle in sin. This war against the world and sin that we are engaged in, we cannot win alone. We are called to ask the Father for help so that we can beat the enemy in each and every area of our lives. Every area of our lives the Father must come and bring His restoration, in every area we must wage war on sin.
In conclusion, I want us to dare to think about what we are praying. Does how we are praying reflect how what the scriptures teach about prayer or have we lost true prayer in a desire to be attractive to those around us? Do we come into the throne room of God hoping that His will would be done, or do we come into the throne room mostly thinking about ourselves? Do we desire to respect the God who saved us, or are we striving to control Him? We know when we come to God he is full of grace, and he wants us to grow in having a great prayer life with him, just as Jesus taught us.