I’m old enough now to remember when the Lord’s Prayer was recited every morning in the public schools that I attended. Repeating those words every day influenced how I thought about God, to some extent, but it didn’t really teach me how to pray. If I recited a 10-line poem to my wife every day and that represented the sum total of our communication, I’m not sure we’d still be married! In the same way, just reciting the Lord’s Prayer isn’t how we speak to the God who invites into a relationship. Besides, right before teaching the disciples this prayer, Jesus warned them against mindlessly repeating empty phrases (Matthew 6:7), so it’s clear that mere repetition wasn’t His goal. The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t tell us what to pray so much as it teaches us how to pray. Let me share 3 ways it can do that.

1. Pray is about me pursuing God’s agenda not Him pursuing mine.

The prayer doesn’t begin the way I normally want to begin praying. It talks about who God is and what He wants. Our natural tendency is to begin prayer with ourselves and our requests, but Jesus turns that mindset on its head. “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9) prompts us to reflect on God’s character and how He reveals Himself in the Bible. He’s in heaven where He rules the universe, but He’s also our Father which speaks of the warmth and intimacy of the relationship He wants with us. Praying “hallowed be your name” (v. 9) invites us to yearn for God’s name, i.e. His reputation in the world, to be given the honour that it deserves. The prayer that God’s “kingdom come” and His “will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (v. 10) forces us to reflect on what we understand of God’s purposes, plans and desires and how they might be better reflected in our world and our lives. If you’re going to make a business transaction somewhere, you can keep it as impersonal as you want, tell the person what you want and pay the fee. Relationships don’t work like that though and neither does prayer. Prayer begins with God not me, and it starts with me pursuing His agenda not Him pursuing mine.

2. Prayer is more about today’s needs than tomorrow’s wants.

When Jesus gets to the part in the prayer where He starts asking for stuff for Himself, His requests don’t look much like ours. He starts, “Give us this day our daily bread” (v. 11). Most of the people I’ve heard recite this prayer didn’t have any worry that they were going to go without food that day. Still, this prayer reminds us to focus on today’s needs rather than tomorrow’s wants. We can get so caught up in the race for more that we can lose sight of what we really need, and we can forget to thank God for how much we already have. While the prayer for daily bread invites us to pray about physical needs, the phrases “forgive us our debts” (v. 12) and “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (v. 13) prompt us to pray about our spiritual needs. Without the reminder, we can assume God’s forgiveness and ignore the spiritual dimension of our circumstances. When we learn to pray about today’s needs instead of tomorrow’s wants, it helps us focus on what’s most important and fosters in us both gratitude and spiritual awareness.

3. Prayer is about giving grace the way we’ve received it.

Wrongly understood, prayer can be selfish. If we just focus on ourselves and our wants, we become greedy. Jesus pushes us in a different direction. If we’re truly spending time in the presence of a patient, forgiving God of grace, that ought to change us. That’s why when Jesus urges us to pray that our debts (i.e. our sins) might be forgiven, He adds, “as we also have forgiven our debtors” (v. 12).  We’re not to ask God for grace that we’re not willing to extend to others. Forgiven people forgive. The same principle operates at a more fundamental level in this prayer. You won’t find the words “me” or “my” anywhere in this prayer. They’re replaced with “us” and “our” as Jesus models for us a view of prayer and therefore of life that is fundamentally others-centred. When I ask God about my physical needs, I’m reminded to pray for those of my neighbour. When I pray about temptation, I’m reminded of others who face the same challenges and I intercede with God on their behalf. Prayer teaches us to give even as we receive.

Learn to pray from the Lord’s Prayer. Let the framework of one of the world’s most famous prayers shape how you relate to God and see the world around you. And may you know much blessing as you do!

In awe of Him,

Paul