The Lord's Prayer, Introduction

Since Jesus taught this prayer, it must indicate something of God's will for us.


Isaiah 64:1-9 can be used as a nice meditation that has something of the same tone as the Lord's Prayer, particiularly its emphasis on praise and God's fatherhood.


The Lord's Prayer appears in two contexts in the New Testament:

Matthew 6 - Here it is nested in a passage about not practicing piety to be seen by people, about Christian priorities, and about forgiveness.

Luke 11 - Jesus teaches the prayer in response to a question from the disciples, and it is followed by a discussion of God's love and willingness to respond to our prayers.


The phrase "For Thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory" was added to the prayer by the early church. It is based on David's prayer found in I Chronicles 29:10-13.

Spiritual Activity

To know God’s will involves being faithful to God’s commanded principles as given to us in scripture. What commanded principles do you follow? Do you make disciples, feed God’s sheep, love God, love your neighbor…?

The principles you follow shape who you are as a Christian. They are your “career” in life.

Today’s society trains us to seek a career choice and to allow that to be our identity. When we ask the question, “what is God’s will for my life,” I think what we are really asking is, “what work/career am I supposed to be doing?” To look at this from a different direction, let’s reframe the question. Let’s ask, “what is God’s will,” or “where is God working?” Instead of feeling the pressure to understand a specific will for one’s life, one should follow God’s commanded principles (however they manifest in one’s life) and then look to notice where God is working around us.

How do we notice where God is working? This is a question that is still there for discussion. What do you think? Where do you see God working around you, or in you, or through you? I think it is valid and important to name what you observe.

Dreams

The following is a quotation from an article about Harriet Tubman, the famous conductor of the Underground Railroad. The entire article can be accessed on-line. It appears in the February 2004 issue of Guideposts Magazine.

Once, as a teenager, she intervened to help a slave being attacked by her master, who was so furious that he hurled a heavy lead weight at Harriet's head. . . For days she lay unconscious, without any medical care - only her family's prayers. Wavering between life and death, Harriet had the first of what would be many vivid dreams - dreams she believed came from God.

"I was flying over fields and towns and rivers and mountains, looking down upon them like a bird, and reaching at least a great fence, or sometimes a river, over which I tried to fly. It 'peared like I wouldn't have the strength, and just as I was sinkin' down, there would be ladies all drest in white over there, and they would put out their arms and pull me 'cross."

Harriet took the Underground Railroad almost 150 miles to Philadelphia. For the first time she was a free woman. But she coudn't forget the family and friends she'd left behind. One night in 1851 she had a dream. God told her to go back down South and set her family free. "Oh, Lord, I can't - don't ask me -take somebody else," she pleaded. Bur God insisted, "It's you I want, Harriet."


The following is a quotation from an article about General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, an important peace negotiator in Sudan. The entire article can be read on-line. It appears in the Christian Science Moniter under Special Projects: Africa's Peace Seekers.

On those dark nights, he'd begin to find solace in things like the biblical story of Joseph, who spent years in servitude and prison before achieving great things.

"Even when he was in prison and forgotten," Sumbeiywo says, "he still didn't give up."Joseph was also amazingly humble, Sumbeiywo says, "Look at Joseph's language: He says, 'I don't have solutions, but God does.'

"On his knees, Sumbeiywo would ask God for direction. After drifting off to sleep, he'd awake with a start - and a "vision" or "insight," as Page describes it - about how to proceed. In those early morning hours, he'd write out solutions to the impasse of the previous day. "So many parts" of what became the final agreement," he says, "were written during those nights."

And many times that inspiration gave him the stamina to press on, despite the vitriol spewed at him.