Meditation on the Our Father

Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name

“OUR Father”; not MY but OUR—God is our Father as well as Jesus father.

Father, Abba, Daddy.
No longer the idea of a remote thunderbolt-throwing deity.
We raise arms in an attitude of surrender.
Praise be to Your Holy Name.
  We will respect His name and who He is.

May Your Kingdom come

We want Your Kingdom to come on earth.

We represent You here on earth.
As we do so we begin to become part now of Your eternal Kingdom.

Your Will be done

May your perfect Will be done.

Your guidance is what we need.
We will spend time in silence, listening and looking.

On earth as it is in Heaven

The responsibility of seeing His will done falls on us. We carry it on our own shoulders. We have free will here to choose the path we take—to help others to choose, to show His way to others.

And we model this on our concept of Heaven—joy, peace, light, warmth, and above all, love.

Give us this day our daily bread

Please provide for all our needs—food, clothing, shelter.

His provision is there for all our needs; for health and healing too.

Forgive us the wrong we have done

Forgive us our sins and our faults.

Forgiveness—no longer to be earned but accepted—a gift from God, through His last and final sacrifice; the shedding of the innocent blood of His beloved Son.

As we forgive those who do us wrong

As we forgive the sins and faults of others.

Here is a new factor, totally unexpected.  The idea that we should forgive others, even our enemies, those who would hurt or destroy us or those we love.
This is what Jesus did.
Only as we forgive can we be forgiven.
Jesus, help us to forgive.

And subject us not to trials

Be with us when we are tempted.

He does not tempt us—He is exactly the opposite.
So we are saying “remind us of Your presence when we are tempted and give us the strength to turn from it.”

But deliver us from all evil.

We have no power to deliver ourselves.

It is His to deliver us from evil, not only in ourselves, but also from the evil one himself.
Satan cannot stand in Jesus’ presence.
We have free will.
We can live in bondage, or we can choose to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, in light, love and freedom.

AMEN

So be it.

(based on Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4 NAB