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Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
We are called to pray, not to change God's mind, but so that our hearts can be changed. In prayer our hearts are trained to desire what God desires. Even though God knows what we need he does not always give it to us without involving us. He desires that we share in the dignity of being causes (albeit secondary ones) in the effects of our prayer. It is this dignity, this necessary involvement without which much might be lost, that our hearts find stakes and meaning in desiring and asking. If our prayers were simply wishes without any real effect they would not help us be trained to have hearts like God's heart.
Our Father who art in heaven,
Our prayer, like our creeds after it, begin with the fact that God is Father. This is so fundamental that without it nothing that follows is clear. God is indeed all-mighty. He is indeed the heavenly King. But before we hear and speak those truths he reminds us that he is Father. His being is an eternal Act of life-giving love. It is only in that context that we speak of his power. It is only knowing it that we can hallow his name in the way he desires.
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
This is the Kingdom of our Father who knows our needs. It is not the kingdom of some despotic absolute monarch. Love of the foundation of this Kingdom. Love is the driving force behind the will to be done.
on earth as it is in heaven.
More than anything, it is the goodness and love of the Father's will that makes heaven so perfectly desirable. Here on earth when that will is done earth itself becomes more and more transformed into the image of heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
We do not simply pray that our needs are met. It is more specific. We pray that we can rely on God for everything we need, spiritually and physically. We ask that it be given rather than that we simply get it. We pray for today only, because we have confidence in God for tomorrow. It is an interesting balance where, again, our desires have a part to play. We do not just ignore our daily bread, trusting in God who, after all, knows what we need. He makes us instrumental causes of the things we need day to day. In doing so, he shows that it is right that we desire them. But in asking us to concern our prayer only about "this day" we must still do this within a posture of ultimate trust in God. We are called to responsibility only where he shows us, and the ability to leave the rest in his hands.
If you forgive others their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
We see clearly in the petition for forgiveness how prayer is meant to shape our own hearts. We learn from Jesus to care about our own forgiveness and that of others from the perspective of the Father. Our very ability to truly desire to be forgiven, the test that this desire is real, is that it is not limited to ourselves alone, but part of a larger desire to see all things reconciled to God. It isn't just that we desire to be excused for the mistakes we made. Rather, we desire, with our brothers and sisters, to be united in the Father's house. This is why the Father can't honor petitions for forgiveness that are selfish, like that of the unjust steward (see Luke 16:1-13).
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.’
We pray to be spared temptation. But we are meant to care about it. The reason, perhaps, it is not working as well as we would like as because the holiness of God does not yet matter to us as much as it should. And without this perspective we can't correctly identify the evil about which we really ought to be concerned.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (see Matthew 10:28)
When our desires come into line with God's desires our prayers become powerful.
Beloved, if [our] hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God
and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him (see 1 John 3:21-22).
The reason there are fewing prophets appearing like fire as Elijah does, the reason there are few with a twofold portion of that spirit, is because most of us can't be bothered to desire it that much. Our prayers may not lack desire entirely, but they often fall back into being simply many words. Nor is this desire something that we can simply stir up in ourselves. It is a given that is given as we open our eyes to its necessity. When we feel an emptiness let us pause and realize that this emptiness itself is the beginning, the space that the desire is meant to form and fill. Approaching the words of the Our Father with slow and deliberate attention is a perfect place to start.
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory.
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