The Lord's Prayer

James Tissot - The Lord's Prayer - Brooklyn Museum

A few nights ago I had a great desire to pray the Lord’s prayer before retiring to my bed. As I recited this holy prayer multiple times and thought upon each phrase I grew in the realization that His prayer is a perfect prayer.   It addresses all that we need each day.  My normal prayer pattern is to pray from my own mind and heart and I value the knowledge that I can speak openly to and before God.  But, as I uttered the Savior’s own prayer to “Our” Father in Heaven I realized what power resides in these words and that this was the perfect pattern for my own prayers.

Our Father which are in Heaven – We have a Father (God) in Heaven.  He is also the Father of our Savior Jesus Christ.  He “our” Father.  If we have the same Father, then Jesus is "our" Brother.  A Father watches over, teaches, guides, disciplines, blesses his children.  A Heavenly Father does the same for the entire world.  He dwells in Heaven, not upon the earth.  He is over all the earth.   Just as we speak with and petition our earthly Father for our needs so we may do so with our Heavenly Father.

Hallowed be Thy name – Our Father’s name is holy and sacred.  It is a name of power.  We do not take that holy name in vain.  We use the name of God, our Father with great care.  We invoke it when we are about his holy work and when we are in need of his holy power.  How profane to let his holy and sacred name roll off our lips as an expletive or loosely used in our common expressions.  When we use His name in prayer or as we perform His work we do it with reverence and with real intent and not "in vain" with careless habit.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven – Our desire is to bring the kingdom of God to the earth.  As the institutions of men bow to the kingdom of God we will receive the healing of the nations. We acknowledge the inadequacies of our own will and humble ourselves before God.  We seek to do His will in our lives. We seek the will of God in our public arena and earthly kingdoms.

Give us this day our daily bread – We have needs for each day.  We address those needs with God our Father each morning seeking his will.  We ask for temporal and spiritual bread.  We ask each day because just as Our Father clothes the lilies of the field, he will also cloth and feed us as we “seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  (Matthew 6:33)

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors – We have all trespassed against both God and our fellowmen. We do so every day.  One purpose for daily prayer is to repent of our sins and seek forgiveness.  We do so to retain a remission of our sins.  We are seeking sanctification and the only way we can do this is through the power of the holy atonement of Jesus Christ for those sins. We are first and foremost indebted to our Savior for a debt he has incurred for us that can never be repaid.  To receive this forgiveness, we must abide by the conditions He has set and one of those conditions is that we forgive our brothers and sisters who have trespassed against us.  He will supply the strength and the charity needed if we but ask.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil – The JST rephrases this line slightly to read “Suffer us not to be lead into temptation...” God does not lead us into temptation. We general do a good job of leading ourselves into temptation along with the help of the adversary of our soul.  The Savior, who overcame Satan, can deliver us from evil and keep us from evil.  

For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever - “But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever. (Pearl of Great Price | Moses 4:2).  Just as the Savior gives all honor and glory to the Father, so do we.  The great temptation is to take the glory unto ourselves “wherefore give me thine honor.” (Pearl of Great Price | Moses 4:1) as is Satan’s desire. We all struggle with the desire to vaunt ourselves, to credit ourselves, to embellish ourselves.  What a relief to “give it all up” and seek the Lord’s will in our lives and give Him the glory. 

 Amen - or in other words "So be it!"

Our Journeys in the Wilderness

 "Lehi’s Exodus/Into the Wilderness - Tandy Iverson

Lehi's family is a type for the spiritual journey of the Lord's people at large.  Lehi's journey into the wilderness with his family typifies a repeated process both for us individually and as a group of the House of Israel being led along the covenant path.

1 - Lehi must take his family and leave the comforts of home (aka - the world, spiritual and physical Babylon etc.)

2 - Lehi's family journey in the wilderness.  Their travels are difficult and stringent and full of dire circumstances.  Through their suffering, Lehi's family has the opportunity to learn to rely on the Lord. There are many refining purposes to this suffering.  One, it divides the sheep from the goats,  Second, it builds crucial faith in the Lord which is necessary to make the journey and eventually inherit the promised land.  Third, travelers in the wilderness need to learn to not rely upon the arm of flesh.  The Lord explains to them in 1 Ne. 17:13 that one purpose of their sorrows and tribulation is "...and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led."  They need to learn that the Lord is the one and only true deliverer.

3 - Lehi and his family find respite in the Land of Bountiful.    Can you imagine the joy and celebration that ensued upon entering into the Land of Bountiful.  Greenery! Food!  Respite!  This was opposite of their circumstance in the last 8 years. Here they set up their tents and replenished themselves.  I wonder if they thought this was the land of plenty they had been promised.  Perhaps they thought their journey was over. This was not to be. The Lord had other plans! 

4 - Nephi builds a ship and Lehi's family crosses the ocean.  While the journey in the wilderness was meant to cleanse and refine Lehi's family from the previous wicked world in which they lived, a world they were being separated from - a repentance journey of sort - the voyage across the ocean was of a different nature.  This voyage did not at all rely on their own skill set, their typical temporal preparations, their knowledge of the trade routes etc.  Nephi had never built a ship.  They had no idea what was beyond the horizon.  God provided the direct knowledge they needed and supervised their preparations.  The faith they had acquired in their wilderness journey was essential for them to fully trust in the Lord and climb aboard that untested ship build by their prophet brother who had no previous skill in doing so.  They headed out trusting completely in God to get them across who knows how many miles of uncharted waters to a land they had never seen and had no evidence of it's existence.  Kudos to all of them, even Laman and Lemuel, for getting on that boat!  An even greater hats off to another group, the Jaredites, who entered into barges they could not steer themselves!

5 - Lehi's family finally arrives in the Promised Land.   God's promises are sure if we keep his commandments and we are able to do that which is not possible.  We will each have to make a journey that follows this pattern if we are to land ourselves in the Kingdom of God at the last day.  The Saints will repeat this journey personally and individually and as a group of church members and also as members of the House of Israel.  We aren't done yet.  We are sitting in our Land of Bountiful.  We have yet to build the ship and traverse the waters to Zion.  We must be willing and ready to do so both spiritually and physically. 

3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness.

(Book of Mormon | 1 Nephi 17:3)