Ray Pritchard - And when you pray : the deeper meaning of the Lords prayer

And When You

RAY

The Deeper Meaning of the Lord's Prayer

Ray Pritchard

2002 by RayPritchard All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to

Ken Aycock

Jeff Hargett

Butch Henderson

Ricky Kirkpatrick

Neil Jones

Paul Lynch

Jeff McAllister

Phil Newton

Rick Suddith

Bruce Thorn

Friends for life

Matthew 6:9-13

This, then, is how you shouldpray:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed he your name,

your kingdom come,

your will b e done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into tem ptation,

but deliver us from the evil one,

For yours is the kingdom and the power

and the glory forever.

Amen.

T his is not abook about prayer. It may look likea book about prayer but it isn't, and if that's what you are looking for, y ou might be happier if you looked somewhere else. I knowthat's an odd way to introduce a book I hope you'll buy and read and maybe evenbuy another copy for a friend. But I believe in truth in advertising, so I haveto tell you that this isn't a book abou t how to prayor about the specifics or mechanics of prayer. There are many fine books onthose topics, but this isn't one of them. As much as I appreciate those books,I don't feel qualified to write a book like that.

So what is thisbook all about? This is a book about the great est prayer in the Biblethe Lord's Prayer. Jesus gave usthis prayer as an invitation to take a personal journey to the heart of God. Ifyou have longed to know God and to touch the heart of your Heavenly Father,this is the praye r for you.

I am a bitembarrassed to admit that for many years I did not take the Lord's Prayerseriously. I suppose it is partly because I did not grow upin a church where the Lord's Prayer was a cen tralpart of our worship. But there is a deeper proble m.Most of us have known the Lord's Prayer since childhood, but we have neverexamined it closely for ourselves. Consequently, we have either ignored italtogether (as in my case), or we have repeated it without understanding (as inthe case of many others ). That's a great loss,because the Lord's Prayer is the central prayer of the Christian faith. It isthe only prayer our Lord ever taught his dis ciplesto pray. Everything we need to pray about can be found in that prayer. If it'snot in there somewhere, then we probably don't needto be praying about it.

I hope this bookleads you back to the Lord's Prayer and, through that prayer, back to the heartof God. The subtitle says that we are going to examine "the deepermeaning" of the Lord's Prayer. My goal is not togive you an exhaustive explanation of each phrase. Instead, I want us todiscover together how practi cal and down-to-earththis prayer is. It is timeless in that it has a message for every generation.It is contemporary in that it speaks forcefu lly tolife in the twenty-first century. Every phrase, and even every word, matters.There is nothing extra, no window dressing, no fluffy phrases thrown in to makethe prayer sound pious. This is Christian prayer, stripped down to its bareessence, as tau ght by Jesus Christ. It can be recitedin less than a minute. The words are plain, unadorned, and majestic in theirsimplic ity. Here is a prayer suited for the smallestchild yet challenging to the greatest minds. We will never come to the end ofall that the Lord's Prayer has to teach us.

There are anumber of ways to use this book. I think you'll benefit most if you study itwith a friend or in a small group. As iron sharpens iron, your friends willhave insights you may miss, and you may discover truth theydon't see. Even if you read this by yourself, please take time to think aboutthe questions at the beginning and end of each chapter. Don't feel that youhave to hurry through the book. Take time to read each chapter, and then taketime to pray. You'l l probably gain more if you don'ttry to read it all at one time. The Lord's Prayer is more suited to a leisurelystroll than to a hundred-yard dash. Feel free to under linethe text and to jot down questions in the margin. This is your book, and I wantit to help you.

Once again Ihave found great encouragement from Len Goss of Broadman & HolmanPublishers. I owe special thanks to David and ClarLyn Morris. This is the thirdtime they loaned me their cottage on the Fox River so I could have a quietplace to write. And I am especially grateful to mywife, Marlene, and to my three boys, Josh, Mark, and Nick, for giving meeverything that makes life worth living.

It's time to getstarted on our journey to the heart of God. Let's step back twenty centuriesand l isten in as Jesus teaches his disciples how topray.

INVITATION TO THE HEART OF GOD

"This, then, is how you should pray."

Matthew 6:9

B efore we begin: How old were you when you first learned the Lord's Prayer?How often do you pray the Lor d's Prayer? Why doesthis prayer (of all the prayers in the Bible) matter so much?

C ome with me to Stuttgart, Germany, in the last terrible days of World War II. Beforeus is the famous Church of the Hospitallers. The pastor is a noted youngtheologian na med Helmut Thielicke. Bombs fall day andnight as the final German resistance crumbles. Slowly, relent lessly, the mighty Russian army approaches from the east.In the west the Allies gain more ground every day. It is only a matter of daysuntil the "thous and year" Reich falls tothe ground.

Through the longyears of the war, Pastor Helmut Thielicke preached the gospel to hiscongregation. Now the end is in sight. What will he say to his people amid thecarnage, the death, the destruction, the killing, the gore,the violence, the collapse of society, the fall of Hitler, and the Alliedoccupation? What does a man say in a moment like that? Where does he go to findthe truth his people need to hear? The pastor preached a series of sermons thatbecame so famous they were put in a book (latertranslated into English and published in America). The sermon series hepreached as the war drew to its tragic climax was based on the Lord's Prayer.

I don't know howthat strikes you, but it seem s unusual to me. Odd.Esoteric. When the bombs are falling on every hand, why would a man talk aboutsomething theoretical like the Lord's Prayer? Why wouldn't he talk aboutsomething practical? I do not mean that as some sort of critical comment, forI, t oo, am a pastor, and week by week I must bringthe Word of the Living God to my own people. And certainly I have never been inthat sort of situation. But very few pastors would decide to preach on theLord's Prayer when the world is falling apart. Should thatnot be reserved for a more tranquil time?

Looking back onhis experience, Thielicke commented that he could see the fear and desperationon the faces of his hearers. They lived in constant tension, not knowing whenthe Allied planes would return, brin ging with themmore bombs, more destruction, still more death, and the end of the world theyhad built and believed in, even when they didn't accept every part of it. He spoke ofthe "torment of doubt and despair" of the people as they reached outfor hope .

All that thepreacher read in those faces and also what filled him to the brim, since he toowas a participant, is doubtless reflected in these sermons. And the Lord'sPrayer was able to contain it all. There was not a single question that wecould not have brought to it and not a one that wouldhave been suddenly transformed if it were put in the form of a prayer.

I was greatly struck by one sentence, "The Lord'sPrayer was able to contain it all."

A PRAYER FOR ALL SEASONS