I like to take some time during the day (whether it be in the morning, afternoon or late at night when all is quiet and the rest of the family has gone to bed) to contemplate and talk to my God.
Some people are very regimented about the time they talk to God. I once attended a church where EVERYONE had to have "quiet times" in the morning...it was expected. I remembered thinking that was quite odd. We are all individuals...all different "parts of the body" who love God...would you tell a hand to act like a foot? This only happens if a person cannot use their hand, right? Should praising your God and loving your God be done the very same way by every single person on the face of the planet? There is a term for this kind of thinking -- it's called "legalism." So, not EVERYONE is going to spend their time with God in the morning, just like not everyone prays the same way. Yet, there is one prayer, "The Lord's Prayer" (found in the Bible in the two books of Matthew and Luke), that some would say is a prayer we can all say the same way. Well, even this is not true if you look at the context of what Jesus was saying to do with this prayer He gave to His disciples. When asked how they should pray, the Lord gave them a "template," if you will...not a prayer to be said in a rote way. We are to offer our own prayers up to God, but this template helps us to focus on what is important. The prayer goes like this:
"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen."
If the Lord's Prayer had a shape and a form, I believe it would be in the shape of an hour glass. In the beginning, Jesus tells us to address "Our Father" who is in Heaven. Then we go on to address His name...his Holy name...a name that is above all others. There is much depth in this one line alone. This line is the top of the hour glass picture I have in mind. It is the most important part of the prayer...to address the Lord, your God, with reverence.
What does it mean to be "hallowed?" This means "holy." What does "holy" mean? It means something or someone to be honored, to be held above, to be kept clean in your mind and in the case of our God, it means so much more than the English language (or any other human language) can even express!
To understand why God's name should be hallowed, we first need to understand that the Jews (God's chosen people) had different naming customs than we do today. To a Jew, a person's name was more than just a way to identify them physically; their name also reflected their nature. Jews named their children in a way that expressed the child's mission in life. Because of this custom, the Jewish people had about 16 different names for God in the Hebrew Old Testament (and maybe more). Each name reflected a different aspect of God's character, so God's names were considered by the Jews to be just as holy as God Himself. In fact, God's names were and are so holy to many Jewish people, that they never write His full name for fear of bringing disrespect to it and to God. My own ancestors had a similar custom (Native Americans), which I have always found interesting. A Native American baby can start out with one name and end up with many new ones along the way in life, reflecting their talents, their characteristics, or the goals they believed God (a.k.a. "The Great Spirit") had put in their lives on their life journey. I, myself, have a few names that were given to me by different family members but those names never showed up on my birth certificate. :)
In the Lord's prayer, the phrase, "Hallowed be Your name" is appropriate, because not only is God holy, but His name is holy too. We should never treat God's name with disrespect as some do when they curse and use God's name in vain. We should give the same respect and honor to God's name that we give to God because He and His name are one in the same.
"Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done" is still at the top of the hour glass...for God's plans for us are part of why we pray. As we pray, we must always keep God's will in mind. Are we praying for selfish reasons? Are we praying against what God would tell us to do when He says to "love one another?" If we pray for our neighbor to die, because he wakes us up every morning with his loud car at 5:00 am when we are trying to sleep, do you think death for a loud neighbor would be God's will??? Probably not. So instead we can pray for God's will...for us to be kind, gentle, peaceful, patient, not easily angered, etc., etc. When "God's Kingdom Comes," this is how it will be. What God calls "the fruits of the spirit" will actually exist in everyone who is called to God's Kingdom. So, we must be diligent and pray for these things so it can be like this "on earth, as it is in Heaven."
Now in my view, the hour glass picture outline starts to swerve inward a bit...getting closer to the middle of the hour glass, in this part of the prayer that says:
"...give us this day our daily bread." This part is focusing on our needs. What is it that you need to survive here on earth? But does this contradict with what Jesus says in Matthew 4:4 when He proclaims that, "Man cannot live on bread alone, but with every word that God speaks."? As a matter-of-fact, it fits quite nicely into this prayer and does not contradict at all! Notice He says that man cannot live on bread ALONE. This means, there is a spiritual element that is very, very important! God recognizes that we are currently mortal beings, in a sense. We must feed our bodies for nourishment so that the flesh does not die. However even more importantly, we must feed on God's word to feed the spirit. Our daily bread in this sense, means asking God to take care of our physical needs, but even more importantly, to help us take care of our spiritual needs. By feeding the spirit, by studying out God's word, we can TRULY live! In doing this, even after death, we live on in the Kingdom of God.
This picture of living on something other than food to feed our fleshly needs is also painted in John 4:14 when Jesus meets a woman at the well. He asks her for a drink of water. She is a Samaritan women, and Jesus, a Jew. Jews at this time historically, did not associate with Samaritans...this was taboo. The woman was puzzled that this Jewish man would ask her for a drink from the well. So she asked him how he could ask HER for a drink?
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus then told her to go and call her husband and come back. 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” The woman left her water jar and ran back to her village to tell everyone to come and meet this man. She said, "come see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this me the Messiah?"
I believe this woman probably began to think more deeply every time she went back to that well. Every time she placed food to her lips, I believe she thought of that encounter with Jesus. I get chills thinking about it! And even in all her sins and transgressions, Jesus LOVED her.
This leads me to the next part of the Lord's Prayer:
"And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
Jesus died on the cross for US so that we can be seen by God as perfect and clean. Without the sacrifice of Jesus, without the blood of the sacrificial lamb, this could not be so. Forgiveness was a very new concept in the days of Jesus. "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," was the old way. This is why today, I believe, wars in the Middle East will never end. Some wars began so long ago based on the "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" belief, that the people fighting those wars don't even remember how they began. Something as small as a neighbor taking the other neighbor's sheep by mistake because it go mixed up with HIS sheep when they were out to pasture, could had been the start of a war that today has killed THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of people. Those same people who used to be brothers and lived in peace next to each other -- whose families new each other -- some even marrying each other -- now hate one another and don't even know why.
As Jesus hung on the cross, feeling the same kind of pain we feel in the flesh as mortals who are cut or bruised or beaten, He knew God could had sent 10,000 angels to take Him out of His misery. He did not have to suffer. He did not HAVE to be shamed, laughed at, ridiculed, struck and beaten, spit upon, and made a mockery of with a sign that read, "King of the Jews" above His head, but he chose to do so -- for you--for me. He knew His Father, God, burned with anger against those who did this to His son. Jesus looked to the Heavens and said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 22:34).
You might see something someone did to you as horrible -- as unforgivable. Have you ever been crucified and hung on a cross? Even then, Jesus forgave those who "trespassed" against him.
Now, the shape of the hour glass begins to come back out to the bigger, deeper, things outside of human life and focuses again on things we might not completely understand, such as spiritual warfare. The next line is:
"and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
Those who hung Jesus on the cross and laughed as they did it, they were NOT delivered from evil. We might look at them and say how horrible they were. The bible tells us that in 1 Peter 5:8, "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." There is truly a spiritual battle going on all around us as we go about our day, and most of us have no idea.
We might look at the Germans who chose the side of Hitler and his Nazis as evil...we might look at those today who kill innocent men, women and children by the blade of their sword as evil...we might look at murderers and those who hurt children as evil, too. But God wants you to know, that your heart is just as susceptible to the evils of this world, as those you might see as crazy. If you are not careful, you, too, could act on a thought that starts as just a small flicker in your heart or mind. If you allow evil thoughts to expand and penetrate or fester, you might find yourself doing things you NEVER imagined you would do. This is why it is important to guard your heart and pray. Not only should we ask God to "deliver us from evil" that others might do, we must also consider that our own hearts can become tainted with hatred or jealousy or greed. We might not see these things as pure "evil," but they can be if you allow them to grow.
And now the shape of the hour glass goes out even further to start forming the base when it says:
"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever." Amen
The beginning of the Lord's Prayer starts with the idea of God and His Kingdom and Heavenly realms...and it ends with the idea of God, the Kingdom and Heavenly realms. To me this tells us what is most important as we pray. We start our prayers praying reverently to our God and acknowledging who He is, while also acknowledging that He is our FATHER. Not only is He most powerful, but He is YOUR FATHER...your "Abba" (which is an affectionate word for "Papa"...or "Daddy."). It has a double meaning to me, really. I acknowledge that my God is powerful and I must speak His name reverently, but also that I can go to Him with ANY problem and "sit in his lap," like His beloved child -- feeling his Big Daddy arms around me and knowing I am safe there in His presence. His power is a power my enemies fear, but a power I can sit in comfortably knowing that I am safe. And this, in the end, is what this last line says to me.
It is a line to let you know that you, a child of God, are safe when you trust in God for ALL your provisions and ALL your life, by letting His will be done. And if you truly have "your daily bread," live in His word, practice His word by loving others as yourself, and growing to be more like Jesus, you will truly have everlasting life...for His Kingdom is "the Power and the Glory Forever and Ever, Amen." And you are a part of it.
May your prayers reflect the picture of the hour glass...may your LIFE reflect the picture of the hour glass, by always keeping the Lord your God in reverence at the top, living your life with God's help in the middle, and knowing at the base that He is most powerful and will protect you in the end...into eternity.
God bless you, friends. Have a beautiful day. Now, mine can begin.
Ro
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