The Lord's Prayer

Mt 6: 7-15 

How We Should Pray

⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹ “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰ your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one.’

¹⁴ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Jesus advises us to cut out the babbling in our prayers and to make them simple and direct.  The Lord's Prayer is the prime example:  three petitions directed toward God; four directed toward our needs.  If we want to multiply words, we might pray this prayer slowly and often during the day. We've been saying it since our youth, and, no doubt, we rattle it off without paying adequate attention to it. Time to change that.  Perhaps for Lent we might pray it with the attention it deserves, since Jesus himself gave it to us.

Bro. Rene