Lent Day 7: A Model for Prayer

In teaching us The Lord’s Prayer as a model for prayer, Jesus confirmed that we are to seek the righteousness of God first in life and in our conversations with God, and the rest would/could be added unto it. In devoting the first half of the six points in the prayer to honoring God the Father, we can guess that it’s a good idea to devote the first half of our prayer time to praising/magnifying God and the latter half to personal needs; seeking His mercies of provision, pardon, protection and defense, in addition to particular needs.

Using that model loosely:

Part 1:

1. We praise, glorify, magnify God’s name in adoration. We give glory before expecting mercy and grace. We confirm that glorifying God should be the beginning and the goal of all our prayers.
2. We express our hope to be in His heavenly kingdom someday and desire His Kingship right now in our hearts as we journey towards heaven. We ask for the grace to practice living as subjects of His kingdom right here on earth, in total obedience to His word and authority. We pray for His personal desire that the gospel of salvation will be shared with the world and ask for the grace and means to carry out that Great Commission, starting with those that we know.
3. We submit to His kingship and leading in all our aspirations, words and actions. We decide to fight our fleshly will and satan’s will. We pray for grace to know His will and courage to make the right choices and do His will always.

Part 2:

1. We seek blessings for the day’s needs, and ability to meet them from honest gain. We ask humbly only about today, with a poor and dependent spirit that recognizes that the possibility of tomorrow is in His hands. Asking everyday keeps us humble and grounded, never presuming about tomorrow. If we must feed our bodies tomorrow, we shall come to Him in prayer again so that we are also feeding our souls. We ask for ‘our’ bread, not my bread, to remind us to share our blessings with those in need.
2. We ask for forgiveness daily because we sin daily. We ask that He shows us mercy exactly the way we have shown others mercy, no more, no less. We keep in mind the gravity of the condition attached to that petition, and ask for grace to forgive if we are finding it too difficult. We recognize Jesus as the Prince of peace who paid with His life to reconcile us to His father and to each other, giving the greatest example of forgiveness with his dying breath.
3. Having asked for and presumably receiving that conditional forgiveness, we seek His help with resisting any new temptation and sin. We cannot battle the constant attempts of satan to lure us by ourselves, we need divine help. Neither can we battle the attacks of his agents and all evil men alone. We cast ourselves under divine protection and power.

 

We should then conclude in submission with the closing argument that all authority on heaven and on earth belongs to God, and the earth is His footstool. He can and will do whatsoever He wants, we can only trust that His plans for us and the answers He gives will always be for the good of our souls and the glory of His name. In submission, we gain peace of mind, because we will not displease Him, and we will then not be displeased with His answer.