Meditation

This was one of the meditations that I wrote and would want to share with you

The Lord’s Prayer

True, whole prayer is nothing but love. – St. Augustine

Scripture Text: Matthew 6: 5-15

Are you weary of praying? Do you feel that your prayers are ineffective? Do you wonder if God is listening? Prayless people cut themselves off from God’s prevailing power. The frequent result is the familiar feeling of being overwhelmed, overrun, beaten down, pushed down.

To pray is to change. Prayer has been the avenue that God has used to transform us. Prayer is the way we consciously realize our relationship with God. Karl Barth, rightly affirmed, “The first and basic act of theological work is prayer.” Not to pray is to deny our Christian faith.

At the heart of Jesus’ own life were the moments when he withdrew from the crowds in order to be alone with his Father. He wanted us to enter into that same experience of knowing God as our Father. So the prayer he teaches us starts in that way: ‘Our Father’. Knowing God as our Father includes bringing him our personal and intimate needs and belongings. Each of us can think of God as ‘my Father’.

The Lord’s Prayer is an expression of faith, not only in what it says, but in what it assumes. The assumption is that we, human beings are not self-sufficient. It is not a sign of weakness to pray but a sign of genuine humanity. Prayer is not merely for emergencies, but is thankful praise that acknowledges our true dependence on God.

Thank God that the Lord’s Prayer does not belong to any one denomination. It is his gift to all of us and shared by all of us. To pray ‘Our Father’ helps to remind us that we belong to the people of God.

Reflection

Read the Lord’s Prayer and reflect on its importance of it in your daily life. Determine to make it of greater use throughout the day.

[P.Sakthivel]