Lord's Prayer

Close our eyes and most of us can recite the Lord's Prayer by heart.

It is as familiar as childhood memories. In some church traditions, we say the prayer together nearly every week, as a community standing before God.

We call on those so familiar words and the comfort and direction they offer.

The comfort that God is holy, that his kingdom is coming, that he provides just enough, and that he can protect us from ourselves and from evil.

The direction that we are to worship him, that we are part of this kingdom-coming work, that we have the discipline of forgiveness as almost a daily task, and that we are vulnerable to temptation, so being on guard is a fine idea. The Wycliffe College faculty featured in this book take the Lord's Prayer line by line and excavate it for its forgotten meaning and its neglected treasure.

Each brief essay, pondering each line of this foundational prayer, guides us more deeply into the very things the Lord's Prayer requests: a sense of God's holiness, a sense of our own truest selves--broken and redeemed--and a glimpse of his kingdom, coming.