Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Today we continue praying the Lord’s Prayer.  We will focus on the phrase “Give us today our daily bread.” First, the whole prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,
    Hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come.
    Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
      Give us today our daily bread.
    And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
    Save us from the time of trial,
    And deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever,
Amen.

Our Father in Heaven,

“Give us today our daily bread.” The United Nations says the world’s store of cereal grains is only 3-4 months supply.* That means the world is just three months from famine. In that narrow window, our daily bread depends on turning seasons, a shining sun, falling rain, and a dry harvest.

After harvest, our daily bread needs trucks to carry the grain to storage, mills to grind flour, cooks to bake bread, and grocery stores to sell it. And we need jobs or welfare cheques or food stamps to buy the bread, and a safe place to sit and eat it. This is our daily bread, “fruit of the earth and work of human hands.”**

Our Father, where are you in these cycles?  Are you a distant God who watches impassively as the seasons turn and the wheels of commerce run? Or, are you active in the process? Does it cause you grief as we subject the world to global warming, as we over fertilize and poison the planet, as we burn fossil fuels to make our bread? Does it give you joy when we eat in peace with family and friends?

Our Father, when we pray “Give us today our daily bread”:
– We ask you to participate with us in all parts of food production.
– We ask you to help us create a just and stable society where every person has enough food.
– We ask that if war or famine or weather interrupts the food supply, that you will be our refuge and strength.

We remember what Jesus said in Matthew’s gospel: “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). He also said, “I am the bread of life. Anyone who comes to me will never be hungry” (John 6:35).  Our Father, we pray to you because we have felt the hunger Jesus talks about. He has taught us that we are hungry for the bread of heaven.

But who will teach us where to find the bread of heaven? We are moderns looking for the scientific explanations, analyzing the chemical properties of bread, studying the biology of digestion. But  Jesus points us to the mystery of things, saying, “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25). At the Last Supper Jesus gave bread to his disciples and said, “This is my body, broken for you.”  We ask you to give us the bread that lives in the mystery of Jesus’ broken body.

Our Father, give us today our daily bread. Provide the bread that feeds our life on earth, and provide in Jesus the bread of eternal life.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me.”

*UN Food and Agricultural Organization  UN Food & Agricultural Organization

** Liturgy of the Eucharist.  See Litury Eucharist

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me.”

Today we come to a famous story in the book of Genesis (chapter 32) in the Bible: the story of Jacob wrestling all night with an angel. Whole books have been written on this story. So we won’t develop a scholarly interpretation, we will use it to encourage our prayers. Here’s the story.

God had made big promises to Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather.  These promises were passed to Isaac, Jacob’s father, who was supposed to pass them on to Esau, Jacob’s older brother. Jacob felt left out. He wanted in on the promises. So once when Esau was hungry, Jacob convinced him to sell the promises for a bowl of stew. Later, when their father Isaac was preparing to pass the promises to Esau, Jacob disguised himself as his brother and tricked Isaac into passing the promises to him.

When Esau discovered Jacob’s trickery, he threatened to kill him. So Jacob moved out of the country to live with his uncle Laban.

Living with uncle Laban, Jacob became a rich man with 2 wives, 2 concubines, 11 sons, at least one daughter, and lots of sheep and cattle and goats. When Jacob wore out his welcome with Laban, he headed home to Canaan. While travelling, he heard that Esau, the brother he ripped off many years ago, was coming with 400 armed men to meet his slow caravan of women and children and livestock. Jacob got scared and thought, “Genocide! If Esau is as angry as he was a few years ago, he will kill us all.” What to do?

Jacob decided to pray. He said, “Uh, God, I’d like to remind you about the promises that got passed on to me. One was that I would have lots of descendants. But now, it looks like Esau wants to wipe us out. God, you’d better intervene in this mess and prevent Esau from killing me, and make sure that you keep your promises.”

Hmm. That sounds like an edited version of Jacob’s story. Without the edits, he might have sounded like this: “Dear God, remember that birthright I stole from my brother Esau? And tricked Isaac into passing to me? God, I need you to start delivering on those promises. Now, already. You need to protect me, because I stole those promises fair and square. So it’s YOUR job, God, to save my life from a murderous Esau.”

If I were God, I am pretty sure that’s not a prayer I would answer. Don’t you think prayer should be a little more honest and a little more generous than that?

That night, as Jacob was camped out waiting for Esau, God showed up as an angel, and wrestled all night with him. At the end of the night, when it was not clear who was winning, God said, “What is your name?” “I’m Jacob,” came the answer.

That was an amazing moment, because Jacob finally admitted who he really was: Jacob the cheat, Jacob the liar, Jacob the manipulator, Jacob the thief. But also Jacob who desperately wanted the blessing from God and was prepared to wrestle all night to find it. God responded by changing Jacob’s name to Israel, which started a new phase in Jacob’s relationship to God. Perhaps in answer to Jacob’s prayer, or perhaps just because Esau’s anger had abated with time and success, Esau was glad to see Jacob. He hugged him and offered to help.

Here are our lessons from Jacob’s prayer and wrestling with God.

The first: God was willing to show up in the mess Jacob made of his life and give him a new start with a new name. Don’t you wish God would do that for you?

The second lesson: sometimes prayer is the process of wrestling through who we are and how we present ourselves. Sometimes we wear makeup or a mask, so we look civilized, reasonable, and honest. But part of prayer is letting God wrestle away the image we have created until we see the person we really are: full of envy, fear, distortions, or anger.

And the third lesson: God is big enough to receive and bless us when we tell him who we really are, acknowledging the good and the bad. In the end, God is for us, not against us, in our journey through life.

Dear God, we hardly know who we are, and how can we know you if we keep deceiving ourselves? Come into our lives, wrestle our hearts until we know and speak the truth, and bless us, oh our God.

Thank you for listening. I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with me”.

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

Today, let’s continue praying the Lord’s Prayer.  We will focus on the phrase “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” First, the whole prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
      Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
And deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever,
Amen.

Our Father, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.” We thank you for Jesus, who came from heaven to earth to show us your will.  We learn what your will is by looking at what he did. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, set captives free, made the lame walk and the blind to see. Jesus preached the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven to the homeless and the forsaken and the sick and the outcasts.  May we follow his example of doing your will — caring for the lost in our society, healing the wounds and forgiving the sins of many.

Our Father, teach us to know the difference between our will and your will. Many of the things we desire are things you want for us: healthy families, success at work, a peaceful country, salvation for the world. These are things that would answer the prayer, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.”

But other things you desire are not so evident. Aldous Huxley said that “Your will be done” is prayed by millions who haven’t the slightest intention of letting any will be done except their own.   Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”  I’m glad Jesus carried his cross, but I don’t think I want a cross of my own.  Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit and the meek and those who mourn and the persecuted.” I’m not sure I want to be poor and meek and sad and persecuted.

Our Father, I like it that you are king, and I like it that Jesus and I are sons of the king. But one night when Jesus lived on earth, he prayed, “Father, I’m not really excited about the direction things are taking here. If possible, can you change the plan?  Yet not my will but yours be done.” And it was your will that answered his prayer by sending him to die on the cross. Shall I pray as Jesus did, “Not my will but yours be done?”

But still we pray as Jesus taught us, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.” We rejoice in your will when it brings hope and healing and riches and light.  We submit to your will when it brings a cross and death. With Jesus, may we lose our own will, and find your will on earth.

And with Jesus, may we find at last our resurrection to eternal life.

Our Father, your will be done.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me.”

Today is Book Review Day.  The book I’m reviewing today is  the most famous, the most often read, in fact the very best book on prayer that is available.  If you’re a Christian you probably own this book already. It’s not often published by itself — it usually comes as one book in middle of another book.  Today’s book is the Psalms, a collection of 150 prayers in the middle of the Bible.

The Psalms are not meant to be read straight through the way you read a modern novel.  They are meant to be prayed. When our daughter was 10 or 12, she asked what I was reading.  “The Psalms,” I said. “Oh, the Psalms,” she replied. “They’re all the same: ‘Help me Lord, my life is falling apart, I’m depressed, come rescue me.’ and then, ‘Oh, thank you Lord, you saved me.’” I said, “What a wonderful summary of the Psalms.  That’s why I love them. I think you’re just too young to appreciate them.”

The most amazing thing about the Psalms? If you’re not very good at praying, they give you words to pray with. They’re a gift for people who try to pray.  

Another amazing thing about the Psalms is the stuff people bring to God when they pray.  Here are some examples:

Emotions are big in the Psalms.  People speak to God
– about great joy and deep sorrow,
– about large hopes and crushing disappointments,
– about desperate loneliness and exuberant friendships,
– about debilitating depression and unrestrained happiness,
– about vicious hatred and deep deep love.

Relationships are big in the Psalms.  The pray-ers have friends who love and support them, enemies who hate and attack.  Sometimes friends become enemies. The only constant friend is God, but often the one praying is not sure if God is friend or enemy today.

Good and evil are big in the the Psalms.  The pray-ers often complain about the violence and injustice in the world. But they also confront the evil that lives in the human heart — in our own hearts — and they bring the evil to God.

One of the most important things the Psalms teach: We don’t have to get better to come to God.  We don’t have to dress up or pretend our lives are together. We can come to God and say our prayers just as we are, in any state of anger or depression or joy.

In the Psalms, God presents himself in many different ways.
– he is king and ruler and judge of the world in Psalm 2
– he is our rock and fortress and saviour in Psalm 18
– he is the creator of a beautiful universe in Psalm 19
– he is the gentle shepherd in Psalm 23
– he is the one who hears our cries of pain and distress in Psalm 42
– he is  the gardener tending a vine in Psalm 80
– he is the mother bird sheltering us under her wings in Psalm 91

In all of our need, all of our pain, all of our joy, God is there for us in the Psalms.

Author Eugene Peterson describes the Psalms in this way:
“Prayers are tools,
not for doing or getting,
but for being
and becoming….
[Prayers] are the tools…God uses to work his will in our bodies and souls.
Prayers are [the] tools…we use to collaborate with his work in us. . . .
The Psalms are the best tools….” (Eugene Peterson, “Answering God”, pp. 2-3) 

Dear God, today we need a teacher in the way of prayer.  So we pray to you with the Psalmist, “Show us your ways, Oh Lord, teach us your paths” (Ps 25). “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps 90).   

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me.”

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Today we continue praying the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s focus on the phrase, “Your kingdom come.” First, the whole prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
And deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever,
Amen.

Our Father in Heaven,
“Your kingdom come.”

We pray to you as king, which seems rather odd in our modern world
where democracies elect presidents,
where dictators appoint themselves to rule,
where Big Brother watches us on security cameras and cell phones,
and where Kings and Queens are invested with great pomp and little power.
But you don’t call yourself dictator or president or Big Brother. You call yourself King — undisputed ruler over all that exists, because you created everything and you sustain it all.

If you are king, then why must we pray for your kingdom to come? Is it not already here? Where are you not already king?

We confess that you are not king in our lives, because we reserve control for ourselves. We cling to that bit of money, that bit of power, that bit of self-expression that is so important to us. Beside your big kingdom, we build little kingdoms of our own design. We pray your kingdom come, oh God, overruling our self-styled kingdoms and plans.

We confess that you are not king in our choice of entertainment. We amuse ourselves with relationship-destroying behaviour in movies, TV programs, video games and music. Your kingdom come, O God, that we may build and honor the life you give.

We confess that you are not king in our homes. Free us from being petty tyrants who rule by fear and manipulation. Free us from eating too much and exercising too little. May your kingdom come to our homes, that they may be places of health and relationship and life.

We confess that you are not king in our churches. These are human institutions
where we argue about styles of music and length of sermons;
where we want others to honour us;
where the church leaders vie for power and influence;
where we gossip and criticize and say all manner of evil against each other.
May your kingdom come to our churches, that our service will be done in love for you and others.

We confess that you are not king in our nation and in our world of nations. Our world is full of racial injustice, economic injustice, political corruption, and moral bankruptcy. Our greed causes devastating climate change. Bring your kingdom, O God, to our world, to politics and economics, to education and law-courts, to business and employment and morality and climate.

We remember Paul’s words, “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). Be in us that righteousness, peace, and joy, making our lives part of your kingdom, making them springs of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

Today, we continue praying the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s focus on the phrase “Hallowed be your name.”   First, here’s the whole prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,
    Hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come.
    Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
      Give us today our daily bread.
    And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
    Save us from the time of trial,
    And deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever,
Amen.

Our Father in Heaven,

“Hallowed be your name.” Hallowed comes from the word holy, which means “set apart,” or “special.” So we set your name apart from the common things of daily life, and we treat your name as something special.

We set your name apart from our tools: the lawn mower, the snow shovel, the pickup truck, the computer. You are more than all of these. You are not an appliance we use to fix our broken lives. You are not a cleaning service we call on when we have sinned. You are not a gun to point at our enemies. You are God over all. You have your plans. You have your way of making things happen. This is why we set you apart, and we pray that as you  carry out your plans, you will hear us call on you, and will invite us to participate in your activites.

We set your name apart in the words we use. Often we hear your name as a swear word or an exclamation mark, like “oh my God,” or “Jesus Christ.”  Help us to separate your name from the dirt of our lives, to give your name a place of honor. Help us quiet our confusions, our mixed emotions, and the angers that control us. Help us to hold to your name in the quiet centre of our hearts, away from the turmoil that swirls around and within us.

We set your name apart in our relationships. You have put your image in each of us. You know the damage we do by ignoring your image in others and treating them as objects. Hallowed be your name in our relationships.

Forgive us for dumping on our children instead of correcting them quietly and peaceably. Hallowed be your name in our children.  

Forgive us for treating our partners unkindly, instead of treating them as holy people, fellow travellers on our journey through life.  Hallowed be your name in our partners.

Forgive us for speaking ill of parents and bosses and politicians. They too are made in your image. Despite what evil they have done, the light of your image shines in their life and activity. Hallowed be your name in all earthly authority and life.

Help us, we pray, to set your name apart in the books we read, the movies we watch, and the computer games we play. How often our entertainments are filled with violence and sex and crime and injustice. We set your name apart from these because you value peace and purity and justice.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Make your name special in our lives, so we can make it special in our world.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today, in the book of Genesis in the Bible, we come to the second time the word “Pray” is used. It’s in another story — this time, a romance.  

Here’s the story. Early in his life, Abraham responded to God’s call and moved from his home in Mesopotamia to present-day Israel and Palestine. Abraham decided his son Isaac needed a wife, but the local women in Canaan didn’t meet his approval. His solution? Send a servant back to Mesopotamia. “Find my son a wife,” said Abraham. The servant loaded 10 camels with stuff for the journey and gifts for the relatives, and set out to find a bride.  

When the servant arrived, he parked his 10 camels beside the local watering hole. “What now,” he wondered

So he prayed and made a suggestion to God. He said, “When a lady comes to the spring for water, I’ll ask for a drink. If she gives me a drink and offers to water the camels too, I’ll take that as a sign she’s the right one for Isaac.”

As the servant waited at the spring with his camels, along came Rebekah. And she had all the right qualifications: a relative of Abraham, beautiful, and single. The servant watched her fill her water jar, and asked for a drink. ”Sure,” she said, “Have a drink. And I’ll  water your camels too.”

Wow. Mission accomplished. Prayer answered. The servant knew he’d found the bride, so he pulled out a gold nose ring and gold bracelets, put them on Rebekah and sent her home.  When her brother Laban saw her decked out in all that gold, he got excited and hurried to the spring to invite the servant and his camels home. The servant told his story, gave his gifts, and took Rebekah home, where she married Isaac.  

So . . . What’s to be learned from the servant’s prayer?

1. A question. Is this a good way to pray? To tell God we need a sign to help us make a decision? Maybe yes, maybe no. Sometimes God gives people a sign when they ask, but often he doesn’t. Have you ever prayed for sign, but all you got was silence? Did you ever get something that was kind of close to the sign you wanted, but not spot on? And it left you confused and indecisive? Often the best sign is to talk to someone wise and compassionate, who will hear our troubled story and help us understand our choices. You don’t want someone like Rebekah’s brother Laban, whose main opinion seems to be, “Gold nose ring and gold bracelets? Go with the gold, girl!”
2. And finally, we see that once again God shows up in the complexities of human experience to help His people.  

Pray with me: “Dear God, I need a sign but I am so confused. I’m not sure I would understand a sign if You gave it to me. Change my heart and walk with me on my journey, that I may find my way to You.”

Until next time, I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with me”.

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

Today, we continue praying the Lord’s Prayer.  We will focus on the word “heaven” from the phrase, “Our father in heaven.”   First, the whole prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,
    Hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come.
    Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
      Give us today our daily bread.
    And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
    Save us from the time of trial,
    And deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever,
Amen.

Our Father in Heaven,

Today we address you as our Father who lives in heaven.  But as Solomon prayed at the dedication of the temple, “Will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you…” (1 Kings 8:27, ESV)

When we pray to you in heaven, we remember that “In the beginning, you created the heavens and the earth.” Your scope of activity is not limited like ours, to a short time on a small planet in a big universe. You made time and space, and you sustain it all. We are less than a heartbeat in the ages of time, less than a grain of sand on the shore of the oceans.

We take our place under the heavens, under the heaven in which you dwell.  Here we are servants of time, as it marches us onward to death. But we feel that you have put eternity in our hearts.

We are servants of place, which limits where we go and how we get there. But we feel you have called us out of this place into the Kingdom of Heaven, where you are the ruler and where you are not ruled by place.

We are servants of the world, for here we labor and eat and sleep and sorrow. But we hear you call us to heaven where you will wipe away every tear, where death is no more, where the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be our shepherd, where he will guide us to springs of living water.

Oh Lord, we hear your call from afar. We look beyond our meagre, scrabbling lives to the heaven where you dwell, to the wider life to which you have invited us. A life where righteousness trumps politics, where love is more important than money, where being is valued above image, where truth is honored above lies.  

Our Father in heaven, we ask you make us good citizens here on earth for the few years we spend here, and we ask you to prepare us to be good citizens of your eternal country.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me.”

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me.”

Occasionally on this channel, I will review books about prayer. I want to tell you about some of the books that have been the most help to me on my journey into prayer.  But today, instead of reviewing a book about prayer, I want to WARN you about the danger of trying to develop your prayer life by reading lots of good books. What’s the danger? If you read each of the books I review in the next few months, your head will be packed with information about prayer.  But where will your prayer life be?

Here’s how Ian Rankin, a Scottish author of mystery novels, describes the reading habits of his detective John Rebus: “Rebus collected unread books. Once upon a time, he had actually read the books that he bought, but these days he seemed to have so little time. Also, he was more discriminating than he had been then…  These days, a book he disliked was unlikely to last 10 pages of his concentration. His books for reading tended to congregate in the bedroom, lying in coordinated rows on the floor like patients in a doctor’s waiting-room. One of these days he would take a holiday. . . and would take with him all of these waiting-to-be-read-or-reread books, all of that knowledge that could be his for the breaking open of a cover.” (“Naughts and Crosses”, pp. 38-39).

Maybe you too have lots of good books around your house — dusty and unread. And maybe that’s a sign you don’t need more books — you could spend some time praying instead.

If you want to try some of the books I review, but don’t want to buy them, here’s how to keep costs down. Borrow from the library.  The Edmonton library where I live has lots and lots of books on prayer. If they don’t have the book I want, they can usually get it with an interlibrary loan. Many churches have libraries. Can’t find any other source? Talk to friends. They probably have books they’ve borrowed and haven’t returned!

Another option: check Amazon.com or Indigo.com.  They have a feature where you can look inside a book. Usually, you can read the first 10 pages.  Inspector Rebus would approve.

Finally, after my stern warnings about not building a library you don’t use, here are some comforting words from author Lauren Winner: (“Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis,”  p. 75)

“Because it is easier to read about prayer than to pray, I have shelves full of books: meditations on the Lord’s Prayer by a dozen authors; scholarly accounts of prayer in the twelfth century, the eighteenth century; Hasidic wisdom on prayer; manuals for knitting a prayer rug, a prayer shawl, a prayer blanket, a prayer tree. (I don’t, alas, know how to knit.) Sometimes I think all this reading gets in the way, that the books become excuses, something to do in lieu of praying.  Other days, I know that to read about prayer is at least to indulge my desire, to acknowledge that I want this thing, that I long for it, even if this afternoon the closest I can get is reading voyeurism, greedy spying on other people at prayer.”

I’m Daniel on the channel Pray with Me, encouraging you keep alive that desire for prayer, even if the best you can do right now is to listen to other people talk about praying.

Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

Today we start praying through the Lord’s Prayer, in the manner suggested by Martin Luther, where we pray one phrase at a time.  I’ll start by saying the whole prayer, then today I will pray around the first two words from the prayer, “Our Father.”

Our Father in Heaven,
    Hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come.
    Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
      Give us today our daily bread.
    And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
    Save us from the time of trial,
    And deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever,
Amen.

Our Father,

We have not seen you. We feel we hardly know you, but we call you by the name Father.  You are our Father because you made us, and we have inherited some of your genes, for we are made in the image of God.

We call you Father because you have cared for us.  You made us from the dust of the earth, and breathed into us the breath of life, and we became living beings.  Our every breath reminds us that you still breathe into us. Each time we wash dirt from our hands, we remember it is your grace that keeps us from turning back to dust.

When we call you Father, it reminds us of our earthly fathers.  For many of us, this triggers the fear and rejection and family dysfunction we grew up in.  
Some of us have never known our fathers, for they abandoned us before we were born.  
Some of us had fathers addicted to alcohol or drugs or violence or sex. They abused and mistreated us.  
Some of us had fathers who had post traumatic stress syndrome. They left us a legacy of fear and depression and mistrust and instability.  
Some of us had fathers who provided clothes and food and schooling, but never gave affection or a sense of belonging or love.

So when we call you Father, which of these Father-names belongs to You?

We come to you in Jesus’ name, because he taught us that you are not like the fathers we have known.  As a father has compassion on his children, so you have compassion on those who know you. Moses said, “In the wilderness, you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his child.”  Jesus said, “How much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?” Jesus also said that not even one sparrow will fall to the ground outside the Father’s care.

When we pray, “Our Father”, we set aside the dysfunction and fear we learned in our birth family, and we present to you our deep longing for a father who will
know us
and love us
and teach us to grow up and make us wise.  

Our Father,
take our broken lives,
take these wandering paths,
take these lost minds and mixed up emotions.
Carry us through this wilderness of life, as a true father carries his children.

Oh you who were Father to Jesus in the days of his life on earth, we hear his invitation for us to call you Father as he did.  And we share his confidence that you will do us good and not harm, that you will lead us safely through our joys and trials on earth until at last we join your one glad family in the city of God.

Amen

I’m Daniel on the channel Pray with Me.