Wandering Through the Lord's Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer, as it is titled, is worth a re-consideration. I must say this prayer 3 or 4 times a day, sometimes to open a meditation when I am praying for my long list, or when I’m stopped at the stop light, or in the kitchen cooking or doing exercises. I always start my daily walks with the Lord’s Prayer in my heart.  It is a way of remembering God and his generous heart as he allows us to pester him 24-7 if needed. We are told Jesus, His Divine Son, taught this prayer as a form for all who had doubts about how to pray. And yet, as I begin to walk through it mentally, the Lord’s Prayer is pretty tough stuff. Whether you think we are children of God or that we have the right to demand things of God, it bothers me. 

When we begin with the “Our Father,” we trust that He is still our God, our Father, our Confident, our Heart, which allows us to cling to his Love somehow, boldly declaring that He is ours. I wonder if He is listening.  But we know God’s residency is in Heaven, and yet, we are told He is everywhere, even right beside us. I have an image in my mind that Heaven is where the river slaps the edge of a small beach, or the night is painted with the Northern Lights, or I am standing on the top of a mountain where I can see everywhere above the clouds. Heaven is usually up there in our imagination, and not down here where there is so much crime and disappointment as evil leaps in front of us to scare us and even kill us, but in our gardens, there are dogwood trees in pink, and hydrangeas in blue, and roses that run the distance with exotic colors, even a black rose has been created.  And we have no real concept of what or where heaven is, other than outer space which we cannot see.  All we really know is that God is in Heaven and we long to sit on His lap with amazing grace and peace no matter what or where Heaven is, probably something we cannot imagine but just hope to be in it. 

As we continue, Hallowed Be Thy Name - we are trying to get God’s attention, so we yell out that his name, as surely is His image, is holy, holy beyond anything we can imagine. He, not just his name, is consecrated, sanctified, the ultimate of holiness. Nothing can stop it or surround it or limit it. It is All. It is beyond anything we could conjure in our minds. And God’s name is just as all-encompassing as is He. No King or royalty comes close. So, to open the prayer confirming that we know just by using his name, by calling on him, is a whole prayer in itself. 

And the prayer points out and states firmly that “Thy kingdom come”, which is throwing out there this idea that no matter what happens, the Kingdom which we have in our hearts and minds, is where we will go from the tomb or ashes and be restored before God in his Home, that there is a place for the billions of humans who occupy earth at this minute. What we don’t know is if this “Kingdom” will come down to us or, more than likely, to be able to comfort all of us, it will be spread across the universe, that dark unknown space in which our tiny planet decorates with light do to the sun and moon. 

Then we faithfully acclaim “thy will be done on earth and in the heavens.”  At this point, earth seems to be the only “residency” in all the heavens, which encompasses as far as we can see or imagine in the dark of the night or the light of the day. It is such an enormous space, and no one knows if Our God has other civilizations elsewhere in the universe and beyond. We point out firmly that our prayer is “thy will” as it will be done here on earth as well as in those heavens about which we know nothing, really. 

Now it seems at this point the prayer makes demands. It bothers me because it is a statement rather than a plea with a please, it seems. “Give us this day our daily Bread.” There is no “please” or “if it is your will.”  And we insist that God forgive us our trespasses. Again, here is no respect but more a demand. Of course, we hope all of mankind has bread to satiate his or her hunger, although there seemingly lacks gratitude. Just that “Give me” and “Forgive me.” It’s like a demand we humans, his children, make as if we deserve these things.  And there is the dilemma of what means “trespasses,” but some have altered that word to be “debts” or “sins”. I was just brought up to never demand, but always plea with a please about anything I needed or wanted.
 
And the list of demands continues: Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. Two more tough pleas, not necessarily pleas but statements, like “Do it.” And I wonder what is the temptation that we need to avoid - temptation to do what? There is a wild and wide world out there which could be in this category. But Jesus probably surmises that we know what those temptations are in our own hearts and souls. Still, how do we fight temptation and evil? The request is there, but the “how” is not. Evil swarms around us like a snake and so many of us are not strong enough to shake it off. Temptation thrives on our greed. We must do things we wouldn’t even think of doing except in a moment it looks tasty and breaks us out of boredom and loneliness. 

And yet, we can defeat both temptation and evil if we just remember we are the children God loves and made. We are His creation. He waits for us to struggle through life and come to that end when, at last, He will pull us up to the heavens in some way or form so we can be in the Kingdom which is only God’s. And so, the prayer remembers this and that only God has the power to love us with a kind of love no one else can give. And He has the power to make us who He wants us to be and to lead us out of temptation info that mood of righteousness and goodness that we need to celebrate in our hearts. 

And because as we say this prayer, we praise our God above all who owns the kingdom, and the power, and all the glory no matter where He is nor for any limit of time, since “time” surely has no restriction to God, thus we have a map of how to pray and prepare ourselves when we have any doubts. Jesus gave this strict prayer to his followers. Try to say it three times a day. And I’d recommend, as I do, to say three Hail Mary’s as well, no matter what your faith, since Jesus’ Holy mother, we are told, prays for us sinners now and in the hour of death. Amen.

 ~ Rev

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