A missionary was wandering the African veldt when he looked up to see a lion stalking him.  He stopped dead still, frozen with fear.  The lion started to trot towards him and then break into a run.  Petrified the missionary turned to prayer.  "Lord, please make this lion a Christian beast!" At that moment, to the missionary’s astonishment, the lion fell to its knees, put its front paws together and bowed his head.  Amazed at this miraculous answer to prayer the missionary crept up to the lion to try and hear its prayer, and heard "For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.

Well, there’s an example of answered prayer.  But I suspect the missionary wished he had been a little more specific in his request.

And don’t you feel like that missionary sometimes?  You just wish you knew what to pray.  You know you SHOULD pray and you feel pretty guilty that you don’t pray as much as you think you should.  Sometimes you actually feel like you want to, maybe you’ve set aside some time to pray, you’ve gone to a quiet place, you’ve cleared your mind of all distractions, but you don’t really know what to say to God.  What should I pray about?

Well, if you feel a bit sheepish about prayer, then take heart.  So did Jesus’ disciples in today’s Gospel reading.  One of the Twelve actually voices his ignorance about prayer.  He asks, “Lord, teach us to pray”.  If the Twelve needed help to pray, then how much more do we?  Notice that Jesus didn’t tell them off for asking.  Instead he gave them a clear and concise answer.  And the answer is what we now call the Lord’s Prayer.  Not a prayer as such, because it seems that Jesus was giving us a template for prayer – a summary of what a good personal prayer life should be like.  The LP, then, is a plan and a structure for a prayer-time, rather than the exact words we should use – even though the Christian church has turned it into exactly that.

How we should pray, according to Jesus, in 6 points – all beginning with the same letter – the letter P.

1.    Paternity.  A good starting point when we pray is to recognise that is our Father in heaven who has our best interests at heart.  God is on your side.  He loves you and wants the best for you.  Let me say that I am aware of the fact that ‘Father’ can be a poor image of God for many people.  A person who has had a father abuse them, or desert them, or badly failed them in some way will understandably struggle with this word for God.  But Jesus’ point is that God is our perfect parent in a way that our natural mum and dad were not.  Everything we wanted from a father – that is what God is, and more.  Much more than we could ever imagine.  It’s a wonderful start to prayer, because if we truly believe that we’re praying to our Father in heaven then we’ll have confidence to pray for whatever we need knowing he’s not going to be mean to us.  We will be motivated to pray.  Who wants to pray to a god they think doesn’t like them or will punish them?  No one.  But to pray to a God who is their loving Father?  Well, that’s much more appealing, isn’t it?

A little boy was standing on the banks of the Mississippi River waving and shouting at a steamboat that was going by. He was beckoning the steamboat to come to shore. A stranger came by and said, "That's foolish young man. The boat will never come ashore because of your request. The captain is too busy to notice you waving and shouting." Just then the boat turned and headed for shore. The little boy grinned and said to the stranger, "The captain is my daddy."

God is the perfect father, with limitless patience, infinite love, good ears and great eyesight.  At every turn in life he has your best interests at heart.  He is motivated and fired with a passion for you.  Why would we not want to pray to him?

2.    Praise.  This is the phrase ‘hallowed be your name’.  In other words when we pray our first duty is to give God the glory he deserves.  It’s so easy, when we pray to just bombard God with our shopping lists – please do this, please arrange for that to happen, please bless so and so.  But Jesus says, in effect, when you pray, praise God and thank him for his goodness.  Spend some time thinking of how God has answered your prayers – how he has provided for you and blessed you.  Count your blessings; count them one by one.  A good way of praising God in your personal prayers is to use words of hymns.  Sing hymns in your head, use a hymnal, put some worshipful music on the CD player.  Sadly, for many people praying is like talking to your lawyer – you only do it when you’re in trouble.

3.    Perfect Plan.  Jesus tells the 12 to pray ‘your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven’.  Those 2 phrases are actually 2 ways of saying the same thing – the coming of God’s kingdom is another way of saying ‘God’s will being done’.  A kingdom is a place where the sovereignty of a monarch is total, and so the Kingdom of God is anywhere where God’s wishes are carried out.  So, says Jesus, we should pray for God’s desires to be fulfilled here on Earth as completely as they are in Heaven.  You see, prayer is not really about you and me and our needs and desires, but about God’s will being done.  And sometimes our wishes and those of God can be in conflict.  Sometimes we pray for things which in hindsight we see God did not really want – he had other and better plans which we couldn’t see at the time.  Sometimes too we can pray out of really bad motives.  In the film Bruce Almighty Jim Carrey is given all the power of God, including the power to hear and answer prayer.  And he receives thousands of prayers from people to let them win the lottery.  And he grants them – and of course they each win just a couple of bucks.  It makes me wonder how many of my prayers are prompted not by a wish to see God’s rule exercised on Earth, but in my selfishness and desire for a trouble-free life.

It can be hard to pray the Lord’s Prayer sincerely.  While journeying on horseback one day, St. Benedict met a farmer walking along.  “You’ve got an easy job,” said the farmer.  “Why don’t I become a man of prayer?  Then I, too, would be travelling on horseback.”  “You think prayer is easy,” replied the saint.  “If you can say the Lord’s Prayer without any distraction, you can have this horse.” “It’s a deal,” said the surprised farmer.  Closing his eyes and folding his hands he began to pray aloud: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come...” Then he stopped and looked up and asked, “Do I get the saddle and the bridle too?”

Someone has written a modern day person’s version of the LP, one which is based on the pray-er’s desire of personal blessing and nothing more. ‘Our Grandfather, who art in Heaven, special be thy name, thy candy come, thy will be changed on Earth as in our wishful thinking.  Give us this day our daily cake; and wink at our trespasses as we wink at ourselves when we trespass against others; and lead us not into commitment, but deliver us from dedication.  For thine is the lap and the chuckle and the pat on the head, forever and ever.  You bet!’

4.    Provision.  But, Jesus DOES say there is a legitimate and right time to pray for our own needs.  At last, after worshiping God and praying for his kingship to be displayed on Earth we may turn to prayer for ourselves.  We should ask God for what we need for that day – physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual.  Bread in that culture was a staple food – it still is for us too.  So ‘daily bread’ is another way of saying ‘things we need’ – not necessarily those things we’d like.  It’s our daily bread not our daily doughnut.  The only piece of baked goods we’re to ask for is bread.

Now what we need will vary from person to person.  One person’s need will be for healing, or for the endurance during suffering, or for a job, or for a marriage to be repaired, or for some reconciliation with a friend, or for the right words in a tricky situation, or a good night’s sleep – the list is probably never ending. 

5.    Penitence.  Forgive us for our sins because we also forgive everyone who forgives us.  A vital part of prayer is humbly acknowledging our sin.  To repent.  Literally, to ‘turn around’.  Do a U-turn.  It doesn’t just mean saying sorry and getting on with your life as normal.  It means being sorry before God and endeavouring to amend your life afterwards.  And because we fail again and again we will need to do a U-turn again and again.  It’s why we say the confession in every service.  And it means forgiving other people.  In fact Jesus instructs us to ask God to forgive us only as much or as little as we forgive others.

6.    Protection.  ‘Lead us not into temptation’.  Now let’s understand that God will never tempt us to do wrong.  That’s not what this means.  The word temptation is much more accurately translated ‘testing’ or ‘trial’.  God will never tempt us, but he often does call us to go through times where our faith is tested.  These can be times of suffering or loss.  And so when we pray this we are asking God not to place us in such severe situations that we start to doubt and lose our faith.  Not that we should pray for a smooth path all our days, a life free from suffering and stress, rather we pray that whatever does come our way God will give us the strength and the faith to hold onto him through the fire.

So there we have a brief skate through the Lord’s Prayer.  A prayer that challenges us deep down.  Let me conclude with these words:

When I say ‘our ’ I mean that I will live with love for others

When I say ‘Father’ I mean that I will try to act like God’s child

When I say ‘Who art in heaven’ I mean that I will live like that is my true home

When I say ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’ I mean I will live today for his glory

When I say ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ I mean that I will look for God’s rule in my life

When I say ‘Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven’ I mean that God can have his way completely

When I say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ I mean I will trust him to provide for my needs

When I say ‘forgive us our debts’ I mean I will let go of the hurts people have dealt me

When I say ‘lead us not into temptation’ I mean I will do all I can to avoid it

When I say ‘deliver us from evil’ I mean I will stay close to God in prayer

When I say ‘Thine is the Kingdom’ I mean God is sovereign over my life

When I say ‘the power’ I mean I need not be afraid

When I say ‘the glory’ I mean to live humbly

When I say ‘forever’ I mean I will live for him as if there is no tomorrow.