Today, as a subset of our overarching series through the Sermon on the Mount, we launch a mini-series on what is often called The Lord’s Prayer. It’s the prayer Jesus gave as a model for his disciples as they were learning how to pray. When I was learning to ride a bike, I had training wheels. They helped me find my balance and rhythm until I learned to ride on my own. In many ways, that’s why Jesus gave us The Lord’s Prayer: to help us find our balance and rhythm so that we might eventually learn to pray on our own. And yet when it comes to prayer, we are never on our own.
I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis’ remarks on prayer in Mere Christianity:
An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers.
What a beautiful way of describing the life of prayer! Our prayers are to the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit. The entire Triune God is involved in the very simplest prayers we utter as children of God. What a privilege, honor, and magnificent invitation we’ve received from our God who loves us and delights to hear our prayers!
So let’s lean in and learn from Jesus how to pray as those who are loved, more than we know!
