Speaking to the Soul – October 23

May your name be kept holy

Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.. Matthew 6:9

So begins the Lord’s Prayer. I find everything about this prayer interesting. First of all, I find it surprising how short it is! When I hear people praying, they often speak for a good few minutes. I’m not criticising that, but the prayer Jesus gave to his disciples is all over in about 30 seconds. I also find it interesting that Jesus only gave his disciples one prayer. I have a number of books on prayer on my shelves and I would have thought that Jesus might have come up with a range of prayers that could be prayed at different times. But he didn’t. That tells me that this prayer is incredibly important, and we would do well to use it as a model that shapes and inspires all our prayers.

The prayer begins by addressing God as Father. That was a very significant title to use because it emphasises the fact that Christian faith is all about relationship. We come in our prayers not to a remote celestial being but to someone who looks at us as his children. Human fathers vary in quality and some are complete failures in the role. But when we come to our Heavenly Father, we know that we have come into the presence of someone who loves us completely. As King David put it in Psalm 103:13-14: “The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.

For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.” When we address God as Father we are immediately recognising the fact that we belong to a family. We have brothers and sisters stretching back through the centuries and in every part of the world today. It is impossible to feel lonely when we pray the Lord’s Prayer!

As we begin this wonderful prayer may we recognise that God is so great that he needs to be deeply respected. Many of us were brought up to pray “hallowed be thy name”. We are saying that because God is so holy, powerful and gracious we want the whole world to recognise who he is. And, in order for that to happen, we need to make sure that everything that we say and do shows our own respect and reverence for him.

QUESTION
In what ways will you seek to show your respect for God today?

PRAYER
Loving Father, thank you for the liberty that we have to come into your presence. Help us to treasure every opportunity we have for praying to you. Amen