The Lord's Prayer - Part One

In our look at prayer, we are going to take a look at The Lord's Prayer.

However, we will go through this slow and easy.

Remember, we are trying to answer: what exactly IS prayer? What's it for?  What's it look like?

To find out we are looking at the prayer that Jesus gave us as a model: The Lord's Prayer.

It starts: Our Father, who art in heaven...hallowed be thy name...thy kingdom come, thy will be done...on earth as it is in heaven.

For the moment we will start there.

What have we said so far?

For one, we addressed who we are praying to: God.

But then we say, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done."

No doubt, at least in this case, we are admitting that God's kingdom IS coming, and his ultimate will, WILL BE done.

That's a pretty heavy admission!  Humbling too!

Not OUR will, not OUR kingdom - but God's...and it's coming!

Where?

On Earth - as it IS in Heaven.

I have always glossed over this part in the prayer, just rambled it off in order to get through the prayer.  However, now, I realize how heavy of a statement this is, and right at the BEGINNING!

We haven't prayed for anything yet - all we have done is ACKNOWLEDGE what is going to happen...someday.

So the question is: what does this mean in regards to OUR prayers?

I would take it to mean that somewhere (perhaps the beginning) we are to acknowledge that God's will, no matter what, when all is said and done WILL BE done.

And we should take A LOT of comfort in that.

A LOT.

The first part of our prayer is GREAT NEWS!

God will be done!