Learning the Plays

The Lord’s Prayer has been a magnet for my spiritual life for many years. There was a time when I was “into” all sorts of fringe spiritual stuff — Jungian psychology, New Age healing practices, exploring other religions, the daily use of runes — you name it. Fortunately, I retained enough of a connection to my Christian roots to have a daily “quiet time,” which included reading Scripture and praying. I usually ended my devotions by reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

One day it hit me like a ton of bricks. As I was saying the Lord’s Prayer, I “knew” that this was one powerful prayer. I couldn’t tell you why. I just had a hunch that if a one were to tap into the power that was behind and within this 2000 year old prayer, it would be life-transforming.

And then I forgot about it.

A few months later Sharon and I were at a retreat at a local Benedictine monastery. As I was perusing the books in the monastery library, my eyes lit on a tiny paperback entitled, Abba: Meditations Based on the Lord’s Prayer, by Evelyn Underhill. Remembering my experience a few months earlier, I decided to check it out. It was so breath-taking that I found myself pausing after every sentence, every paragraph. In the course of a week, I managed to make it through only about 60 pages. That same week Sharon had a dream in which she saw the name of an obscure medieval Christian mystic who she knew nothing about. After Sharon found and read a book by this person, our respective experiences convinced us that God was calling us back to a more central New Testament Christian faith, to Jesus Christ himself.

Now you understand a little more about my fascination with the Lord’s Prayer, and why it is that periodically I feel compelled to dive into it again to see if there are more pearls I can bring to the surface of my daily walk with Christ.

The Didache, a document written within a generation of the apostles, counseled Christians to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. Telford Work, author of Ain’t Too Proud to Beg: Living through the Lord’s Prayer (an interesting title in light of yesterday’s post), compares reciting the Lord’s Prayer to a halftime activity.

It presupposes a game already in progress, a life already in play. Our team withdraws from field and fans to a place and a time for refreshment and renewal. We focus back on the coach’s training and learn new lessons from our prior experiences. We may want to build on our successes: “Hallowed be your name.” We may be celebrating a good first half but worried about giving back our gains in the second: “Deliver us from evil.” Or we may be smarting from setbacks and wondering how to come back: “Forgive us our sins.” Or we may just be disoriented and bewildered: “Your Kingdom come, your will be done.” Teammates gather, speak, listen, console, and reflect so that the past can orient them toward their future. An observer who misunderstands the game might think halftime is just a break, a diversion, a way to sell concessions, a lot of talk. But this little breather, used wisely, is a precious resource for transfiguring the whole game.

One of our challenges when saying the Lord’s Prayer is how quickly it flies by, especially when we’re reciting it in a group. To continue the sports analogy, it’s not unlike memorizing and practicing the plays in a playbook. At first, each play seems complicated and is difficult to remember, especially given the number of plays there are to learn. It may take weeks or months to know the plays well enough to feel comfortable with them on the court or field. But eventually one gets to the point where all a coach or player has to do is give a hand signal, and instantly you know what it’s about and what your role is.

Of course, this analogy only works if we practice the Lord’s Prayer in addition to reciting it. I pray that this series of posts will help us do exactly that.

A question for each of us to think about: what do you believe about the Lord’s Prayer?

Explore posts in the same categories: Lord's Prayer, Prayer