Thoughts Along The Journey

I grew up calling it: “The Lord’s Prayer”.  However, in French it is more often referred to as “The Our Father”.   I like that title because it puts the focus on where it should be in prayer, on God.

It seems only natural that out of the overflow of the Gospel would surge the desire to spend time with God our Father who has redeemed us by the work of Christ and applies forgiveness and righteousness to our hearts by the work of His Spirit.  It seems only natural that we would long to talk with Him, think about Him, and seek to discover how to make everything revolve around Him.

The reality is that often we are very weak when it comes to engaging God our Father in prayer.  A.W. Tozer wrote: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”  The trouble is that what often comes into our minds when we think about God is us, and what we need from Him.  Maybe that is not your problem, but the largest segment of my prayer time often seems to be my prayer requests, what it is I am asking for from God.

Prayer is about centring ourselves anew on God.  It’s about basking in what it means to know God as “our Father” (Matthew 6) in its “breadth and length and height and depth”.

I’m trying to figure out more and more what that looks like as I talk with Him.  If nothing else, I certainly need to slow down and consider what it means that God is my Father and what expression of praise, of worship should spring from my heart as a result.

Filed under: Core Values, Prayer, Worship |