Greeting O Favoured Ones,

I hope all is well, and that you are experiencing some inner peace and calm.

Today we conclude our little wander through the themes of the Lord’s Prayer. We have looked at Worship, intercession and today we briefly unpack Petition. It is no accident that Jesus puts them in that order.

We only have to look at children to realise that asking for things for ourselves comes naturally to human beings. As adults we learn a degree of propriety, but our basic nature does not change.

Just as parents love to provide for their children, so God loves to provide for us. 
There is nothing wrong with asking God for what we need, although there is a discussion to have between needs, desires and wants!

Talking to God about our daily lives, (like talking to our partner if we have one,) is one of the essential  building blocks of our relationship.

The Lord’s Prayer encourages us to ask for three things, 
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us our sins
Lead us not in to temptation

Our Daily Bread, could be just Help to get what we need to survive, for the preservation of human life. Not asking for more than we need, not being greedy, and not being individualistic. Remember it is Us and We. (ie all who need it)
But Daily is quite difficult to precisely translate (epiousiios. Look at me remembering my New Testament Greek from Uni) It could mean ‘For the current day’ or it could mean ‘the following day’. So some commentators have suggested it means give us tomorrow’s bread today, ie the bread of the heavenly banquet, a foretaste of the kingdom for which we have just prayed. Seen by many as the Eucharist. This indicates that God provides for us both physically and spiritually.

Asking God for what we need does not dent that most of us have to earn our own living, to provide for ourselves and take care of the needs of others. So this prayer is an expression of our dependence upon him, and a reminder that often we are the means by which he answers our own prayers.

Forgive us…as we forgive
Forgiveness is as indispensible to the life and health of the soul as food and drink are to the body. It is the foundation of all relationships.

As we forgive those who sin against us is a difficult phrase. It does not imply that our forgiveness of others earns us the right to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gracious (unearned and undeserved) gift freely available because of Jesus.
A forgiving spirit is a sign of a truly penitent heart.
For me, the commentators make this complicated when in fact it is simple. They two parts of the sentence are not co dependent. I ask God for forgiveness. He gives it. I seek the gift of being able to forgive others. He gives it.

‘Lead us not in to temptation’. Well God does not lead us into temptation, so some translations read ‘Do not bring us to the time of trial’, an sort of testing where we question the will or presence of God. For me it means ‘Please keep us from situations where we may doubt you’.

‘Deliver us from evil’. A recognition of our human weakness in the face of temptation and evil.

The scriptures talk of a spiritual battle, and whatever our thoughts on that, the Lord’s Prayer gives us the strength to overcome it.

In this simple God given prayer we have a pattern of worship and adoration, that brings us in to an intimate relationship with God, whereby we call him Abba, but we don’t lose sight of his ‘Otherness’, his Holiness, His Majesty and Awe.
We find ourselves taking the needs of the world to God in prayer, looking beyond the narrow confines of church, family and friends, and embracing the whole world, and all that is in it.
We build on our relationships with others and with God through mutual forgiveness and as we share the thoughts about our daily needs, and become aware that we are often the means by which he answers our prayers. 
It is truly beautiful.

Bless you, Bless you, Bless you.

As ever,

Fr Marcus