Paraphrase of The Lord's Prayer

In the ebb & flow of daily life, the Spirit constantly beckons us to engage with Him in prayer.  Prayer is not simply telling God what He already knows; but communing with Him, coming back to Him, exchanging fears & dreams with Him.  As I prayed through The Lord's Prayer this morning, I found myself rewriting it in my own words...

My Father

You exist and exert Your presence all around me and in the air that I breathe.

You are wonderful and majestic and worthy. In You is everything good, and I revere and fear and honor Your Name.

The reality that You created, the one that interacts with and undergirds all of human history & culture, is the Real Reality.  Every effort that bends Your truth to create an alternative is a temporary, deceitful fantasy that will someday be remembered no more. 

May Your reality, Your Kingdom, come crashing into my life and the lives of those around me.  May Your desires and plans be as plain as daylight in the midst of my daily life and the world around me, conforming all that I perceive into Your glorious & good vision.

Please provide for my daily needs; physical, mental, social, emotional, spiritual.

Thank You for Your amazing, stubborn love of me in spite of all my shortcomings; which grants me victory over sin and inspires me to truly love and forgive others in similar manner.  Help me to continue releasing every lump of judgment toward others that lives in me; so that although I perceive the distinction between righteousness and rebellion, my care & goodwill toward others is unimpeded by any form of indignation in me that would set itself against them. 

I invite You to inject Your leadership into every facet of my being – every known surface and hidden crevice within me – so completely that every thought that comes to mind and every move that I make possesses Your character and desire and power.  Thus will I remain free from every form of evil that originates from within me, as well as that which attacks me. 

YOU are absolutely, unequivocally, uniquely, completely, rightfully Sovereign and Almighty and Glorious; and I gratefully submit all that I am and everything I have to Your wonderfulness for this day, the rest of my earthly life, and for all eternity.  Amen

THE LORD'S PRAYER
MATTHEW 6:9-13 

“This, then, is how you should pray:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen."