“Hey, can you teach me how to do that?”
“How to do what?” the chaplain asked.
“Can you teach me to pray like that?”
The chaplain shared that prayer is simply an honest conversation with God. “Just figure out what’s going on in your heart,” he said. “Then you talk to God about it.”
Jesus’s disciples had a similar request: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). So Jesus gave them an example to follow that we now call The Lord’s Prayer.
“Father.”We come to God on the basis of family relationship with Him.
“Hallowed be your name.”By praying this, we acknowledge that we might possibly misuse God’s name for our selfish purposes. We don’t want to do that.
“Your kingdom come.”We ask God to bring His peace and justice to the world. We recognize that we’re not in charge. He is. We want His will done on earth as it is in heaven.
“Give us each day our daily bread.”This is simply a request for the essentials, not the luxuries we covet.
“Forgive us our sins.”Here is our biggest need. We all do wrong things out of selfish motives, and we all need forgiveness.
“For we also forgive everyone who sins against us.”This is the flip side of the forgiveness coin, and it implies an obligation to forgive others. We may need to ask God to help us give up our spirit of bitterness and our desire for revenge.
“And lead us not into temptation.”There’s an enemy who seeks to destroy us. “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Without God’s help, we’re no match for the daily temptations we face.
It’s fine to recite this prayer, but it isn’t something we should do merely for good luck. In prayer, God wants us to share our deepest fears and heartfelt desires with Him.
And what are our deepest fears and desires? Often a crisis will clarify them. Without Christ, we’re incapable of coping in a healthy way and may retreat into destructive habits. We want to know that life holds deeper meaning than what it seems to. The simple truth is we need God to make sense of life!
Perhaps you’ve never had an honest conversation with God. This may be the first time you’ve simply prayed, “Lord, I need You in my life. I need Your help and forgiveness.” When we pray that honest prayer, we gain this confidence: “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Paul wrote, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8). He added, “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (v. 9). His conclusion: “Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (v. 11).Friends of God! When we put our faith in Jesus, He gives us His Spirit to live in us and guide us (John 16:13; Romans 8:9-11; 2 Timothy 1:14). In essence, He’s with us every moment of every day. Our prayer is that you know His peace and that you find opportunities to share it with others.