The Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:5-13 (NIV)

“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.

Unfortunately, as Christians, “The Lord’s Prayer” often falls into the category of vain repetition for us. Therefore, we sometimes forget of the importance of the prayer and assume this Matthew passage is just about Jesus revealing the selfishness of the religious leaders of his day. Jesus does indeed exposes the self-righteous and self-centered practices of these religious leaders in this passage, but we need to be reminded of why Jesus also explains how we ought to pray.

We are accustomed to thinking of prayer as a good strategy for getting what we want. Often times praying calls up the imagery of a genie granting our dreams, desires, and needs, and we believe that invoking Jesus’ name would make our prayers true (“in Jesus’ name”). However, all prayer-including The Lord’s Prayer-is not for getting what we want, but rather for bending our wants towards what God wants.

The Danish philosopher and Christian thinker Soren Kierkegaard said it best, “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” In other words, prayer is an active process for us to bend our lives towards God in a way that is not of our natural inclination.

“[…]that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19 (NIV)

• How much is prayer a part of your interaction with others? How much do you think it should be?
• How would we make prayer more central to our shared lives?
• What are some ways that can help bend our lives to God through prayer?