Lord's Prayer

Post Reply New Topic

In Luke 11:2-4, the Lord's prayer is stated as such:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.

The one in Matthew has a bit more verbiage to it, and it's the one that's often prayed outright by Catholics and the more direct offshoot-from-Catholic Protestant churchians, but what I'm thinking is this: it's general, so why not use it as a format rather than just repeat it like a parakeet?

Father: Lord God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, King of everything, Jehovah/Yahweh Jireh(our provider), God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Abba, etc.

hallowed be your name: blessed be Your Name, may You be praised, etc.

Give us each day our daily bread: thank You for providing for me and my birds and allowing my wife to have a rest from work while she awaits money to fix that car which had tires that may have killed us, thank You that due to my wife leaving that I was able to stop a fire that would have killed us, thank You for all Your acts and agents of Your Providence.

and forgive us our sins: forgive me for speaking badly about my lovely wife, even though You used it to protect and provide for us.

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us: I forgive everyone who wrongs me and treats me with a double standard, and all the "Minnesota Nice" people who act nice to my face with polite fictions while stabbing me behind my back, and I forgive all the dishonorable promise breaking Yankees in general.

And lead us not into temptation: help me God to not want to seek vengeance or to treat people as badly as they've treated me. In Jesus' Name, Amen

I am sure God will be more impressed with your prayer that follows the guidelines in the Bible, but that includes specifics that indicate it is a prayer from your heart, that you really mean it, rather than a rite or ritual that you can quote without even having to think about.

It is a good idea to personalize the prayer a bit, but I found it too resentful, so I have made some changes in order to restore the idea of forgiveness. Generalizing it again was part of the process. Only without concrete grudges and aiming at the whole the prayer s power remains intact.

[...]
and forgive us our sins: that we sometimes speak and think badly about people that were overall so lovely to us,

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us: that we forgive everyone who wrongs us.

And lead us not into temptation: help us God to not seek vengeance and to treat all people well, including those who say bad things about us behind our back, all those who break their promises, and those who speak and think badly about people that were overall so lovely them.

In Jesus' Name, Amen.

It is a good idea to personalize the prayer a bit, but I found it too resentful, so I have made some changes in order to restore the idea of forgiveness. Generalizing it again was part of the process. Only without concrete grudges and aiming at the whole the prayer s power remains intact.

[...]
and forgive us our sins: that we sometimes speak and think badly about people that were overall so lovely to us,

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us: that we forgive everyone who wrongs us.

And lead us not into temptation: help us God to not seek vengeance and to treat all people well, including those who say bad things about us behind our back, all those who break their promises, and those who speak and think badly about people that are lovely to them.

In Jesus' Name, Amen.

On your today s post on: Got Anything Random To Say.

It is really not good to threaten your wife and your brother-in-law with being nasty to them.
It is in particular not good for yourself.

Could you save a draft first, when you think that the post might be too revengeful, and then decide another day, whether you really want to post this?

I understand though that it is very difficult for you at the moment, to be less resentful.