“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
The Prayer
When the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, he does not give them a theory of prayer. He gives them actual words, a model prayer worth returning to repeatedly, not merely recited but studied for its shape and priorities. Notice what comes first: not requests for personal need, but Our Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.
This ordering matters. Before any specific request enters the prayer, it begins with relationship, Father, and with God’s own name and kingdom being honored, not yet the petitioner’s own concerns. This shapes the whole rest of the prayer, situating personal need within a larger frame of worship and submission to God’s will rather than the other way around.
Only after this opening does the prayer turn to actual requests, daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance from temptation, and even these are framed relationally, forgive us as we forgive others, rather than as isolated transactions. This is not a rigid formula to recite word for word, but a pattern worth letting shape your own prayers.
Pray through this model today, slowly, letting its order teach you something about your own prayer’s priorities. Does your own praying begin with his name and his kingdom, or does it rush straight to your own list of needs, missing the frame Jesus gave it here.
Watch and Pray
- Pray through the Lord’s Prayer slowly today, phrase by phrase, not rushed.
- Notice whether your own typical prayers begin with him or rush to your own list.
- Restructure one prayer today to follow this pattern’s order, his name and kingdom first.
Pray This
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Let my own prayers begin here, with your name and your kingdom, before they turn to my own requests. Amen.
Carry this today
Prayer that begins with his name is already shaped rightly.