(John Stuart)
I have to confess that prayer has always been one of the weaker points of my devotional life. Providentially, I was reading some of John Calvin’s writing on prayer at the same time that we covered the Lord’s Prayer in our Gospel of Matthew reading plan this year. In his discussion of prayer, Calvin was concerned to warn about ways in which we can approach prayer improperly before presenting his positive vision of prayer. I think these improper attitudes about prayer can generally be grouped into two opposing categories: attitudes resulting from a lack of godly fear, and ones resulting from a lack of confidence in our standing before God.
In my own prayer life, I can say that I have often found myself alternating between these two extremes. On the one hand, I tend to be forgetful of the gravity of coming before the throne of a holy and awesome God as a man of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean lips (Isa. 6:5). On the other hand, I often forget that because of the saving work of Jesus, I can claim adoption as God’s son and approach his throne in confidence (Rom. 8:15, Heb. 4:16). Although these attitudes are sharply opposed to each other, I think they can both result in decreased frequency of prayer and a tendency to “go through the motions” when we do pray. This has certainly been true for me when I fall deeply into either of these patterns of thinking.
The first line of the Lord’s Prayer has been a present reminder to me that we can call God “daddy” (or “papa” as Pastor Joseph likes to say) and that He dwells high above us in heaven. He is intimately acquainted and near to us and at the same time, He is holy and infinitely above us. In technical theological lingo, we say that God is both transcendent and immanent. The powerful lion Aslan from Narnia who isn’t safe, but who lovingly invites children to feel his soft and warm fur is a helpful illustration of this contrast for me. I won’t claim that I have suddenly shot up through the ranks as a prayer warrior, but since reading through the Lord’s Prayer this year, I can see God at work applying these lessons in my prayer life. I have noticed that when I spend more time meditating on these two aspects of God’s relationship to us, I have found myself more eager to pray and more blessed by my time spent in prayer. I can see that God was using the confluence of my own reading and our corporate reading plan to show me that when we seek to maintain an accurate understanding of who God is and who we are, it leads to having a better relationship with Him.
As an additional note, I am remembering Pastor Matt’s comment in his devotional on this passage that the plural “our” in the first line of the prayer also teaches us important things about the corporate and communal nature of prayer. I am struck by the brilliance of Jesus as a teacher, that he is able to pack so much instruction about prayer into what amounts to just four English words!
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An audio version of each devotion will be posted on our church podcast “Life Together at CRPC,” which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.