7 October 2015 - pray like you mean it

We often feel like we don't know what to say in prayer. Yet Jesus tells us:

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

One amazing thing about the Our Father is that we can know for sure that we are praying as we should when we pray it sincerely. And if we are praying as we should we are living as we should. Time with God is, after all, the better part. How wonderful then to not need to question our place in the universe. How wonderful to know that we are exactly where we are meant to be doing exactly what we are made to do.

Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.

The LORD does not need us to bring his kingdom. In fact, everything necessary for the victory of the kingdom is done by Jesus

The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever" (cf. Rev. 11:15).

And yet he allows us to be "co-workers for the kingdom of God" (cf. Col. 4:11) by our various works of mercy, especially prayer. He allows us to become windows to let his light shine into the world. He allows us to become lenses to focus the light of the kingdom to enlighten a world in darkness. We do so with thanks, knowing that we do not deserve this privileged place in which we find ourselves where merely to say and to will the words, "your Kingdom come" is that for which we are made, among the highest expressions of love, "giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light" (cf. Col. 1:12).

This works when our hearts are in it. We do risk that we can know that the LORD's name should be hallowed and yet, like Jonah, wish that the LORD was a little less holy, a little more like us.

I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God,
slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish.
And now, LORD, please take my life from me;
for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Imagine the blessings of God's mercy working through us to save an entire people. Yet Jonah misses all of the blessings this entails because he refuses to pray that the Father's will be done. He would prefer so much that his own will for Nineveh be done that he can barely stand to live when it is not. But the LORD is merciful to all. He is not content to work through Jonah and yet not reach his heart. He wants help Jonah to understand his own merciful heart.

And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city,
in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left,
not to mention the many cattle?”

This is reassuring for us as well. We often pray the Our Father without putting our hearts into it. But if we understand God's merciful heart for the world, the depths of the love he has for everyone, we do put our hearts into it. We find ourselves able to give our full attention to it. We experience the joy of being exactly where we are meant to be doing what we are meant to do.

All the nations you have made shall come
and worship you, O Lord,
and glorify your name.
For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds;
you alone are God.