God gives us the words to pray

Today in A Year with the Church Fathers, Tertullian tells us about praying the prayer that Jesus taught us.

It's pretty amazing when you think about it. If you can't read the infograph above, here is the website where you can enlarge it. Jesus's disciples ask Him to teach them to pray. And then He gives them this amazing prayer.

So basically, God Himself is teaching us the best way for us to communicate with Him. Doesn't it make sense that we should take this prayer to heart and pray it daily? Doesn't it stand to reason that we might read it slowly and prayerfully, taking it apart to learn all that it imparts to our lives?

Tertullian tells us that the prayer gives us most of what Christianity teaches just in a few short phrases. The part that comes home to me every time I pray this prayer is "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." This is such a powerful part of the prayer. When we delve into it, we find that we're asking Him to make our lives, and the whole world eventually, to conform to His will. For our lives here and now to look more and more like what Heaven looks like. Does that seem naive to you? Unrealistic? Well, that's straight from God to us. He asks us to have the faith to accept and believe that this world CAN look more like Heaven every day. That we CAN work to bring out His will on earth.

Sound impossible? It would be. But nothing is impossible with God.

God, please write Your prayer deep in our hearts, that we might know You better every day.