This kind can come out only through prayer. (Mark 9:29)

*All non-bibilcal quotations in this post are from: https://my.bible.com/reading-plans/19024-quarantine-youth-prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

By God’s grace and through Jesus’ incarnation, life, and sacrficial death, we have been adopted into the Covenanted Family.  We pray not to an unknown being,  or feeling, or the universe.  We pray to our Father.  To the One who creates and sustains.  To the One who loves in perfect and steadfast love.  Sadly, the image of a father is not a positive one for everybody.  However, “in the goodness of Jesus, we see the goodness of His Father.”  When you pray, “you are speaking with our Father, and He is good.”

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

When we pray “Your kingdom come,” we are stating our willingness to relinquish the kingdom of the Self in favour of the kingdom of heaven on earth.  When we pray “Your will be done,” we commit to denying our own wants in favour of the Father’s will.  When we pray for earth to become more like heaven, we are assenting to our willingness to give up earth.  To give up what we know.  To give up what we want.  We proclaim our believe that the Father’s way is ultimately the good way.

Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.

When you pray, for what do you pray?  Our Father knows what we want and knows what we need.  Jesus teaches us to pray for what we need.  What will be helpful for our body, mind, and spirit and for the Kingdom in the long term.  Interestingly, he highlighted two things: bread, that which we need for daily sustenance; and forgiveness, that which we need for our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with others.  What is also worth noting, is that forgiveness is one of the few things to which Jesus attached significant clauses.  God offers forgiveness through Jesus’ cross to everyone.  The benefits of which are received when we accept his grace in faith and propagate it by offering forgiveness to those who have offended us (whether such offences are real or imagined.)  “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

“Think of temptation as a giant hole in the ground.  If you keep walking the path that leads to that hole, you are more likely to fall in.”  “Asking God to keep you from falling into temptation is literally asking God to take you on a different path….when the different way becomes apparent, take it!… It’s pointless to pray asking for God’s help if you are not willing to make some changes in your life.  What if overcoming your temptations is actually about God empowering you to do something different?  Stop revisiting the site of your failure, join with God on a new path where He is your strength.”