The opening line of the Lord’s Prayer is beautiful, inviting, comforting, challenging, and risky. It sets the tone and expectation for the entire prayer. It’s important that the prayer begins with praise of our Father, the God of the entire universe, testifying that He is on the only throne that matters, is a good God, is holy, and has a name above all names.
When we pray this line, we are making an announcement, accepting an invitation, and ultimately taking a journey through praise, confession, redemption, and formation. It’s hard to believe so much can be going on in one line, but that’s the genius and awe-inspiring nature of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.
We encourage you to take some time after praying this line of the Lord’s prayer to consider one (or more!) of these facets of the meaning of praying, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” These are merely suggestions to get you going and there is, of course, great freedom in what to consider as you pray this line! Check out our podcast episode for our conversation on why these four aspects are significant to this portion of the Lord’s Prayer.
Praise
When we stop to praise God, we take time to reflect on the holiness of his name. When Jesus teaches us to pray “hallowed be your name,” it isn’t about us making God’s name holy. We aren’t qualified to do that! Instead, Jesus uses a grammar term called the Divine Passive. It basically means that Jesus is saying, “May you make your name holy (or set apart).”
When we stop to praise God, we take time to reflect on the holiness of his name.
A simple way to reflect on God’s name being holy is to consider the various names of God. All of God’s names: Alpha and Omega, Yahweh, King of Kings, Good Shepherd…they reflect the holiness, power, compassion, and mercy of our Lord. A challenge is to go through the alphabet, reflecting on a name of God for each letter and the character or trait of God that that name reveals. You can also pick just one name of God and sit with it, letting it speak to you about God.
Furthermore, you can praise God by considering God’s creation and the amazing things God has created. God spoke the entire universe into existence. God never leaves us nor forsakes us. God continues to sustain our life each moment of every single day. That is a lot to be praised for!
Confession
As we take time to reflect on the holiness of God’s name and to consider with awe and wonder the many things that God has created, we will certainly begin to notice a contrast between God’s might and power and goodness and our…lack of that. Isaiah 6 reminds us that when we consider the holiness of God, we cannot help but realize how unholy we are. When Isaiah sees God’s throne and the worship surrounding God, he despairs that he is so unworthy of being in such a place. As we join Isaiah in this realization, we see the magnificence of God and our utter dependence on Him. It triggers this cycle of praising God, confessing our many shortcomings, and then praising God once again that we are worthy of God’s attention and love because God deems us worthy.
As you reflect on this passage of the Lord’s prayer, allow yourself the time and space to reflect on your sinfulness and insignificance. Any true reflection of God’s goodness will make it clear to us that we aren’t anywhere close to being as mighty or magnificent. We fall short in so many ways, and to spend time humbly admitting that can be a powerful practice. This humility is central to coming before the God of the universe and only intensifies our praise of this wonderful God.
This is not supposed to serve as prolonged self-flagilation, however. Since we are, in fact, reflecting on God’s name being made holy by God, our confessions are centered around God being the holy and powerful force in the world.
Redemption
Since we don’t stop with confession, as we know that’s not the end of the story, another way of praising God through this line of prayer is to spend time focusing on God as our Father. There are few people in our lives who make as much impact as our father, whether for good or for bad. Thankfully, Jesus defines what He means by the term Father when he teaches the parable of the prodigal son. The father in this parable is absolutely disgraced by his sons: one son wishes him dead by requesting his inheritance early, and the other son sulks and refuses to enter a party where he would have been expected to play a major hosting role. And how does the Father respond to his sons who have shamed him? In both cases the father goes to his sons (even running disgracefully to meet them and welcome them home!) with the hopes that they will join him.
Because God loves us in this way so much, God invites us back into a relationship with Him.
This is the type of father that we have in God. Our God is the ultimate father-figure to us; perhaps the type of father we never experienced growing up. Certainly a perfect, non-sinful Father, full of love and grace and mercy and acceptance. Taking time to praise God for adopting us as His children, that He may be our Father, is a worthy way of spending some time in prayer!
Because God loves us in this way so much, God invites us back into a relationship with Him. We aren’t left on the outside or stuck in our sin. God invites us to praise Him, be known by Him, and to know Him. We are invited to praise God for redeeming us and inviting us into a relationship with Him. God invites us to be His beloved children and accept all the blessing that entails.
Formation
As we enter into such a relationship, another way to reflect with praise is to humbly consider that if God’s name is holy and we are His children, we represent that in the world. So by praying that God’s name be me holy, we are also, in a way, committing ourselves to God’s service of making that happen. As ambassadors for Christ, our lives, imperfect as they are, are used by God to reveal and reflect His holiness to the world. We are taught in Leviticus 22:31-32, “Keep my commands and follow them. I am the LORD. Do not profane my holy name. I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the LORD, who makes you holy.”
Brothers and sisters, you have a Father in heaven who loves you. God created you. You aren’t a mistake.
We are inviting God to work in and through us for His glory. How amazing that not only does God see us, save us, and sustain us, but God invites us to join Him in the work of bringing peace to the world! This is a risky prayer because it means we are going to change. We aren’t going to be the same. We are submitting to the God of the universe and God always responds. The Good News is that we are submitting to a loving Father who only wants what is good for us.
Brothers and sisters, you have a Father in heaven who loves you. God created you. You aren’t a mistake. Our God is a holy God worthy of praise who desires an intimate relationship with us. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we respond to this relationship and open ourselves to greater intimacy with our Father and we will never be the same.
May you enter the throne room of your Father by His grace and experience the love God has for you.
Grace and Peace.
*All Bible Passages are NIV
To dive further into this discussion of the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer, check out our podcast episode where we explore this line in even greater depth.
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