You’re Not My Dad!
Sam is a Youth Worker based in Erdington.
Matthew 6:9-13 (NIV)
This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.’
As a child, I remember becoming impatient as we waited and waited for a table in a crowded restaurant foyer. I finally gave up and began to use the towering legs around me as an obstacle course, running through and around them as if I were in a huge game of 'stuck in the mud.' I eventually got lost, and then my parents started calling me. I locked onto my dad's jeans and started sprinting towards them. Everything went into slow motion with the jeans getting closer and closer. I finally reached him and clung to his leg. I’m safe. I slowly looked up to see his face only to see... a complete stranger staring down at me.
When we take our focus off God, we end up hugging other things. When we get lost, we tend to blame God until we realise that we’re the ones who took our eyes off our Father. How often do we get annoyed, anxious, angry? How often do we have a fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of the future, fear of man, fear of disappointment, and fear of loneliness?
I believe that the power of the Holy Spirit can do something in your and my life today so that our fear will disappear. But, for that to happen, we need to change our perspective.
Jesus teaches this prayer in Matthew 6 in answer to the disciples' question about how to pray. It’s Christ’s blueprint for praying from the heart. This prayer shows us how to overcome our insecurities, doubts, fears and trials through focusing our perspective on how great God's love, holiness and power are.
We'll explore over the next few days how this passage shows us how we can live it out.
Prayer - Lord, thank you for your desire to have a relationship with me, that you care about me so deeply. Help me to put you first in everything that I do today.