Daily Bread
The other day I was praying in my car, and it for lack of better words, I fell back on "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." I realized that even though growing up I felt like there was a lot of emphasis on being able to come up with your own prayers, the Lord's Prayer is the main prayer for a reason. Of course, Jesus generally knows what he's talking about.
Anyway, sometimes those old prayers come in handy when you don't know what else to say, and they can strike you as so true when something hits you in a new light. I was a little overwhelmed by the idea of truly telling God to do God's will in my life. What if God's will is really hard? I sort of instinctively continued praying "Give us this day our daily bread." I was impressed with how appropriate the order of the prayer is. When faced with the prospect of anything God wants coming to pass, all I can do is pray that God will give me what I need one day at a time.
Growing up seeing so many churches where people seemed to be mindlessly repeating prayers and liturgy sort of gave me a prejudice against that stuff for awhile. I think the pendulum may have swung too far away from traditional prayers and readings. If a person learns and understands the Lord's Prayer as a child, they can fall back on it in times when they don't know what else to say, like I did the other day. Similarly, the Apostle's Creed isn't just an empty list of ideas, but a quick reference of the basic beliefs of Christianity. That's why it was created.
Apparently, even though the Church made a lot of mistakes over the years, there are actually reasons behind a lot of stuff we do. Maybe we should learn what those reasons are.
Anyway, sometimes those old prayers come in handy when you don't know what else to say, and they can strike you as so true when something hits you in a new light. I was a little overwhelmed by the idea of truly telling God to do God's will in my life. What if God's will is really hard? I sort of instinctively continued praying "Give us this day our daily bread." I was impressed with how appropriate the order of the prayer is. When faced with the prospect of anything God wants coming to pass, all I can do is pray that God will give me what I need one day at a time.
Growing up seeing so many churches where people seemed to be mindlessly repeating prayers and liturgy sort of gave me a prejudice against that stuff for awhile. I think the pendulum may have swung too far away from traditional prayers and readings. If a person learns and understands the Lord's Prayer as a child, they can fall back on it in times when they don't know what else to say, like I did the other day. Similarly, the Apostle's Creed isn't just an empty list of ideas, but a quick reference of the basic beliefs of Christianity. That's why it was created.
Apparently, even though the Church made a lot of mistakes over the years, there are actually reasons behind a lot of stuff we do. Maybe we should learn what those reasons are.
posted by Unknown at 10:42 PM
2 Comments:
I like something you implied (I think), that you can read different things into them based on your era or situation or just your mood. There's a lot of "food for thought," especially with something like the Lord's Prayer because it's so simple. Whereas your own prayers aren't going to be full of history and theological nuance (unless, you know, you're a prophet :D ).
Tru dat.
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