Thoughts for the Day

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him. 'Lord, teach us how to pray, as John taught his disciples.' He said to them, 'When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.'

(New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Many books have been written on The Lord's Prayer, so I will only look at a few things today. Firstly, notice that this prayer appears in two Gospels, Matthew and Luke. They are slightly different, but both address God as 'Father'. We may have become so used to saying this prayer that perhaps we have forgotten how odd it is to address God - the maker of the universe - as our 'Father'. Yet Jesus taught us that God cares for us as a loving father cares for his children. That is how close God wants us to be to Him.

Secondly, when we say this prayer we ask for God's kingdom of love and peace to be complete. It is partly here, but not completely. Where we find love, and justice and peace, we can say that God's kingdom is present, but as we all know there is also much evil in our world, so God's work, and our work, is not yet finished.

Lastly, we ask God not to 'bring us to the time of trial'. These last few months have been a trial for all of us. The question for each of us is, will we come out of this as stronger Christians who are closer to our Heavenly Father?

Wednesday 10th June, follow up thoughts

Say this prayer from St Luke's Gospel slowly, pausing at the end of each phrase to give it due weight and thought:

Father, hallowed be your name. (pause)
Your kingdom come. (pause)
Give us each day our daily bread. (pause)
And forgive us our sins, (pause)
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. (pause)
And do not bring us to the time of trial.' (pause)
Amen.