And it came to pass , that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased , one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray , as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray , say , Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come . Thy will be done , as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
This is a very familiar passage of Scripture, or at least when I started reading it, I thought it was. It is the Lord’s Prayer, but it is not the more familiar version that is found in Matthew, which is the one many people know from the version set to music. This one is slightly different. It is one thing that makes it different that I want to comment on today.
This prayer ends with “but deliver us from evil”.
It does not go on with the more familiar, “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Most of us traditionally end our prayers with “Amen”. Whether at mealtime or in church or before going to sleep in the evening or in the morning quiet time or wherever it is that you pray. But the more I read about prayer, and the more I pray on a consistent basis and more continuously through the day, the more I find that prayer is very much a dialogue, as you would speak to a friend and listen for a response, more than a religious exercise.
Think about it this way. When you talk to a friend, you may sometimes use an ending word. It wouldn’t be “Amen”, of course, but it might be something like “Bye!” if you’re on the phone and the conversation is ended. Or maybe, “See you later,” or something like that, if you were then leaving the friend’s presence. But every single time you talk to a friend, you don’t add that “ending” to a conversation, because the conversation is not necessarily over. If you’re friend is just in the next room or you intend to see them again in five minutes, you don’t feel obligated to add a “Bye” to the end of the sentence. Otherwise, you’d sound like a telegraph message. Stop. And that wouldn’t sound like a conversation. Stop. It would sound like a formal message. Stop. Or like a robot. Stop.
So… the point is, there’s a place for “amen”, but there’s also a place for just praying and conversing with God and not ending all your requests (or even necessarily that prayer session) with “Amen”. And the even deeper point is that we should all be trying to cultivate that kind of prayer life that incorporates the praises to God and the fear of God, for he is majestic and awesome, but also that is as natural as a conversation.
One of my favorite Steven Curtis Chapman songs says, “Just because we say ‘amen’, doesn’t mean this conversation has to end.” I’d go further to say that we don’t even have to say ‘amen’. It’s a formality, but I think, based on the fact that God inspired one writer who recorded Jesus’ teachings on prayer to include it and inspired the other to not, that God cares more about the content and spirit of the prayer than he does about the formalities.
Challenge for Today: Find some time to pray, alone, to God. Praise him, worship him, make your requests known to him…then listen to him. (The part we usually forget in our “one-sided” prayer conversations.) Examine if your prayer is more about the form or the function of the prayer…that is, do you spend more time on formality or repeating a memorized prayer or saying your own “pretty” words? Or do you just say what’s on your heart?
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