The Lord’s Prayer is one we are all familiar with, and often, familiarity can rob us from the depth of meaning which God wants to speak into our hearts.
In their book, May It Be So: Forty Days with the Lord’s Prayer, Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson, slow us down so we focus on each line in the prayer.
Combining words and images, they take this familiar prayer which Jesus spoke and have brought us to forty one line prayers to think on over the course of forty days.
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He said, “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 this day 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.”
(Matthew 6:9-13, NIV)
The book seeks to engage the reader with this prayer, line by line, through stories, short one line prayers, and images. The authors hope to “help you to discover what God is already doing in your life and in your soul.” They encourage the reader to ask ourselves, “What does this line, this story, this prayer, or this image draw out of me?”
The book is a short read by design. It’s purpose is for the reader to be drawn into prayer – conversation with God – so that we discover prayer is the place where we are met by our God who loves us relentlessly and deeply.
Some of the one line prayers which have stayed with me are:
- “May I soberly remember that people will someday tell stories about the life I lived. And may that change the way I live between now and then.”
- “May I more clearly see my filters, blind spots, and biases so that I might recognize goodness, truth, and beauty beyond them.”
- “May I learn to love and serve my world and those in it rather than settling for control and safety.”
- “May those I love know it unquestioningly.”
- “May I have the wisdom and patience to let questions grow rather than anxiously harvest answers whose season has not come.”
- “May I sense when I should fight through resistance and when I need to slow my pace in wisdom.”
While I went through the book quickly, over the course of a few days, this is a book I want to return to and go through as designed, letting The Lord’s Prayer change and mold me over forty days.
*The book releases September 24th. An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher, Waterbrook & Multnomah. My review contains my honest thoughts and opinions.
Today I am joining … Destination Inspiration and Heart Encouragement and Booknificent Thursday .
Thank you for the review of this book. We used to pray the Lord’s Prayer every day in school. It’s one of those things (like the pledge of allegiance) that we sometimes say rotely, without thinking about the words because it is so familiar. Taking a good, long look at it seems like a wonderful thing to do. I especially loved this prayer: “May those I love know it unquestioningly.”