Regaining My Footing: The Lord's Prayer

After my dad died, I really struggled with the concept of prayer. Lots of people had prayed – and felt really confident that God’s plan was healing – and yet he died. I spent years reading about prayer, talking with others, and regaining my footing in this area. The Lord’s Prayer was huge to me during this time. I didn’t know what I was supposed to pray or how prayer worked, but I knew Jesus said, “Pray like this.” So I did.

Jesus offered this prayer to his disciples as sort of a model. There’s nothing magical in the recitation of it, but in it we see foundational principles in how to pray, and why. Some have claimed we see the whole of the gospel message revealed in this prayer. Perhaps that is so. At the very least, this prayer offers some answers to the questions I raised earlier.


Our Father, Who Is In Heaven…[1]

“Our Father” starts us off with good theology. God is not a deistic God, aloof and uncaring. God is not a pantheistic God that is just part of nature. God is not the Force. God is person[2] who is relational, immediate, accessible God.[3]

“Our Father” reminds us that he’s our father. Not mine; ours. We cannot forget when we pray this that we are raised from death into new life in a family, a Christian community. In this, we are recognizing that while God is for us, He is for all of us. I cannot be content to simply think of God in terms of “me and God.” It must be “us and God.”

“Our Father” reminds us of our status as Christians. We are meant to  approach God as a child approaches his father. “Abba” is often described as ‘daddy,’ but it’s more than that. It’s conveys the idea of a nickname, the word that children say before they can fully pronounce the word.[4] It’s the best, unquenchable expression of a deep, gut-level, unrestrained cry of joy when daddy walks into the room; it’s the instinctive wail of his title when a child in pain believes only daddy will make it better. It’s a word that is used only in a relationship of safety, trust, and love.