Today’s post is by a gentleman named Sean Lyon. He was going to write his post last week & I today, but he needed to travel so we traded. We did it through Matthew Elliott, so I didn’t talk to him personally, but I hope to, as I hope to with all the others on this tour. Anyway, I think you’ll find the post worth the wait. I certainly did.
Enjoy it here.
Fridays post to the PenWorks of the Word blog tour is by a gentleman named Richard T. Hicks. To say that his story is miraculous is an understatement–very few fully recover from a diagnosis of chronic schizophrenia as he evidently has. You can find it here:
PenWorks of the Word Blog Tour Fri Oct 9
It’s well worth reading–have a look.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Abbie Johnson Taylor
and
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me.
I’ve been praying the Lord’s prayer for many many years. Saturday morning as I was thinking about how to go about writing this post, I realized something. Jesus was praying in the pleural! He used words like ‘us’ and ‘we’ and ‘our’. I guess I glossed it over because who better than Jesus to use the “royal we?” But then I began to wonder to myself: might there be more to it than merely an editorial turn of phrase? I didn’t even know how to go about searching, so I asked Gemini, Google’s AI. I learned much to my surprise and delight, that our church fathers had been pondering this question long before I ever entered the world, particularly Cyprian and Augustine. Cyprian wrote what is perhaps the most famous early treatise on the subject, De Dominica Oratione (On the Lord’s Prayer). Writing during a period of intense persecution and internal Church division, he argued that Jesus intentionally designed the prayer to prevent self-centered individualism:
“Before all things, the Teacher of peace and the Master of unity would not have prayer to be made single and individually, as for one who prays for himself alone. For we do not say ‘My Father…’; nor does each one ask that only his own debt should be forgiven… Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we pray not for one but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one.” — Cyprian, Treatise 4.8
For Cyprian, the plural phrasing is a mandate for solidarity:
One Body, One Voice: He pointed to the three young men in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) and the Apostles in the Upper Room as examples of praying “with one accord”.
Writing over a century later, Augustine picked up Cyprian’s torch in his Sermons on the New Testament, but he placed special emphasis on how the plural pronoun radically flattens human social hierarchies:
“How great a condescension! This the emperor says, and this says the beggar: this says the slave, and this his lord. They say all together, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’ … You have begun to belong to a great family.” — Augustine, Sermon 8 & 9
For Augustine, the plural pronouns acted as a theological reset button:
Both Cyprian and Augustine concluded that when Jesus gave us this prayer, He didn’t just teach us what to ask for—He taught us who we are when we ask it: one indivisible body.
Who knew? Certainly not me.
The other thing is that in 1st century Judaism, prayer was communal. The Jewish sages argued that a purely singular prayer was spiritually vulnerable to self-centeredness or accusation, whereas a plural prayer carries the spiritual weight and merit of the whole community. Jesus’ model prayer aligns squarely with this core rabbinic principle.
When we pray the Lord’s Model prayer, therefore, we’re joining all Christians throughout the entire world in a prayer for all believers. “Give us our daily bread” is a petition that’s not answered if I’m full but someone else is hungry. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” is a prayer that can’t be ansered if we ask forgiveness from God but hold a grudge against another–or won’t forgive ourselves.
Maybe if we thought more about this prayer, we’d realize that we really are all united in God–Father, Son, and Spirit.
Lord, thank you for the insight you gave that you weren’t just using the “royal we”, that you had a purpose for doing so, which was to unite all Christians w/you & w/each other. Help us look beyond our individualistic thoughts and find consolation that we are truly all brothers and sisters in your family. Amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me
and
This is the fifth part in my series on the Lord’s prayer, Matt 6:9-13. I’m concentrating on v. 11 “Give us today our daily bread.”
Many of us in developed nations have no idea what it means to be hungry. Seems rather foolish, doesn’t it, to be asking for daily bread when there’s practically a grocery store or fast food restaurant on every corner. It’s like get your butt out of your seat, out the door, & get what you need.
But behind closed doors, even in developed nations, hunger is a daily reality for some. Even more so in developing countries, where it’s often a lifelong nightmare.
Even in developed countries, though, this prayer is applicable. Maybe we don’t really need to ask God for our food, but I think daily bread applies to other areas of life. How often do we think about “how am I gonna do this or that?” or “how am I gonna be able to do x or y?” Maybe it’s get a job. Maybe it’s cope with devastating tragedy or health problems. Maybe it truly is coping with not having life’s necessities. This part of the Lord’s prayer reminds us that His provision occurs daily, sometimes just in the nick of time. God’s with us. He is our father, and he cares for us abundantly beyond all that we think or ask. He will provide. Maybe not on our timeframe, maybe not giving us everything we ask for, but He will give us what we need. God tells us to ask Him even though He already knows what it is we want and require.
It’s often tempting to think that we provide things for ourselves, that we earn it through our work or our cunning or our looks. But the reality is it’s all from God.
God gives us so many things–mountain vistas, azure oceans, ploomed musicians, family, friends, knowledge, and so much more that the blessings are innumerable. But it’s still good to remind ourselves daily that it’s God who provides for our every need.
Heavenly Father, make our hearts grateful and humble enough to accept your provision for our lives. But also give us the desire to be Your hands and feet in helping to show Your provision to others. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Abbie Johnson Taylor
and
Lynda Lambert, who shared the idea with me.
This is the 3rd post in my series on the Lord’s prayer. Today I’m discussing the first part of Matthew 9:10 “Thy Kingdom Come”.
Every time I think about it, I think I have more questions than answers, but here’s what I’ve come up w/thus far. Next week it might change.
As far as I can tell, there are 3 ways that God’s kingdom can come:
I made reference to that last week when I wrote a tribute to Dolly Parton. She was a well-known example, but there are those who exemplify God’s love and care for others every single day.
Sometimes I think perhaps this life is like a proving ground. We’re given things to have dominion over because we’re told, after all, that we will be given things to rule over in Heaven. It’s one thing to be given dominion over a waiting room full of cooperative patients, submissive kids, and loving spouses. Unfortunately, sometimes what we visualize doesn’t exactly come to fruition in our real world.
And yet, somehow, it’s precisely in the midst of the chaos that reveals what God is making of us. Why God would be testing us for a heavenly reign I don’t really know, since there won’t be any unhappiness or chaos in heaven. Sill, with all dominion comes responsibility, and I think that’s what God’s looking for–how we’ll handle the responsibility of ruling with God.
I think we also need to shift our mindsets from ownership to stewardship. That’s not a word often used these days. It’s common to say our home or my car or my money. The truth is that everything we have–children, parents, spouses, siblings, possessions, pets, is on loan from the Father, and that loan can come due at any time. Our rule is temporary because our earthly lives are temporary. Only in heaven will our rule with the Father be permanent. Even there, however, we’re still stewards, because everything there is, was, or ever will be is our Heavenly Father’s. The key is to realize that and share with others what we have, because in doing so, we bring a bit of His kingdom down to earth.
Leviticus 25:23 says:
‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me.
Lord, help us realize that you own all things, and that when we do what You would have us do, we bring some of Your Kingdom to Earth. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Abbie Johnson Taylor
and
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me.
Matt 6:9: This, then, is how you should pray: “’Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, (NIV)
Last week I discussed the first part of this verse, and today I’ll be talking about the second part–“Hallowed be your name. The definition of hallowed is holy, sacred, revered, respected, honored. The above-pictured church is humanity’s attempt to honor God’s name, and there are so many magnificent churches throughout the world.
Somehow, though, I have this niggling feeling that wasn’t what Jesus had in mind. I’m not saying He rejects these beautiful churches–far from it–but I don’t believe it was a priority of His.
John 13:34-35 NIV says:
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6:19 says:
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;”
The point being is each and every person who calls Jesus their Lord and savior is His church because He lives in us. Our daily lives are our feeble attempt to honor Him. I think God feels His name is more honored by those who obey His commandments than by all the statuary and stained glass contained in the world. For my part I feel my life is pretty mundaine. But it’s precisely there where I can hallow His name. I don’t know who to attribute it to, but there’s a saying that each of us might be the only Jesus someone ever sees. I, for my part, try to take that seriously. Do I measure up? Of course not! That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. I am convinced that there are so many acts performed by people who’ve touched other people’s lives profoundly but who are totally unaware of their impact. I think heaven will have lots of surprises like that for us.
Father, help me honor your name every day this week by how I reflect Your light and love. Amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me
and
Abbie Johnson Taylor
We say it every Sunday in church. We say it at weddings and funerals. It’s a prayer many have learned from earliest childhood. It spills forth from our lips with almost no thought required. Yet its importance can’t be overstated, for it’s the only time Jesus taught His disciples–which includes us–to pray. It’s what many call “the Lord’s prayer”, though I would say that designation is more suited to the prayer in John 17. But what do I know?
For the next however many Sundays it takes, I’m going to write my thoughts on this prayer. So much has been written regarding it already that I really wonder if I have anything to contribute on the subject that hasn’t been said previously. Then again, sometimes it only takes someone saying something in a different way to catch someone’s attention. So here we go–let’s rock and roll!
Matthew 6 9-13 contains the text.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11
Give us today our daily bread.
12
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13
And lead us not into temptation,[a]
but deliver us from the evil one.[b]’
Footnotes
a. Matthew 6:13 The Greek for temptation can also mean testing.
b. Matthew 6:13 Or from evil; some late manuscripts one, / for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
I’m going to focus attention today on just four words: “Our father in heaven.”
My first thought when I look at this passage is that this thing called Christianity is supposed to be communal. More than just a community, we’re a family, headed by a heavenly Father who loves each and every one of us so much that He sent His only Son to die on a cross so that we could be forgiven and live with Him eternally. Instead of the 613 commandments of the Torah, Christians are given but one:
John 13:34-35
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if every Christian took that seriously. I think there’d be a lot less misery on this earth–less hunger, less murder, less adultery, less war, and greater love, joy, and peace.
We are members of a great family–our ancestors in the faith who’ve gone before us, our brothers and sisters who share this world with us, and future generations who will walk this earth when we are long since gone. What we have in common is that we’re all loved dearly by our heavenly father.
The word father, as I mentioned in my post on Father’s Day, can be frought. But God our Father is everything a father should be and nothing he should not.
John 1:12 NRSV tells us:
“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,”
Lord please help me to take seriously every day the call you’ve put on my life. Help me to love those you’ve put on my path even half as much as You do, enable me to do your will. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path areLynda Lambert who shared the idea with me.
This is a hard concept to get my head around. The last description anyone, including myself, would use for me is that of “princess”. And yet, according to Galatians 3:26, that is what I am.
for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. (NRSV)
The Bible says I’m the daughter of a King–and that makes me none other than a princess. The problem is, of course, being a princess often doesn’t look like what we see on TV or in movies. Nonetheless, as children of our Creator, there are things we’re asked to rule over–our children, animals in our possession, our home, our belongings.
Sometimes, instead of the image above, ruling looks more like this:
Catch Me If You Can–Blind Human Tries to Medicate Blind Cat
Blindies, unfortunately, tend to not be all that great with videography, because this episode would likely have netted me a very tidy sum on “America’s Funniest Pet Videos” or similar if I’d been able to record it.
It was Monday night, 11:25 pm. Husband Karl had gone to bed an hour earlier. I turned off “Murder she Wrote” and was going to go to bed when I realized that Sunny Kitty hadn’t gotten any sinus medicine the whole day. “Great!” I thought. “Now I’m gonna have to do it all by myself.” And I really needed to, cuz he was sneezing. I went out into the kitchen, got a half of a pill out of the bottle, wrapped it in bacon flavored pill masker, then did the logical thing, returned to my chair, & called him.
He profoundly ignored me. He’s a cat. What else could I expect? So I got up from my chair and started walking toward him. Blind though he is, he took off like a shot toward the bedroom, with me straggling behind. In the bedroom I got close and reached down to grab him. Fur brushed my hands as he ran straight for a few steps, took a sharp left, and headed back toward the living room. This went on for about 10 minutes until I finally caught him. I sat down in my chair, put him in my lap with his head on my shoulder, and blew in his face to open his mouth so I could insertt the pill. He swallowed hard, I held him till I was sure he’d swallowed it, , then let him go. I got up, turned to go to bed, felt something round under my foot, and realized it could be nothing other than the pill. I swore and again started after Sunny. For 10 minutes we ran–if you can call the slow motion thing we were doing running– from the living room to the bedroom and back again, till once more I finally caught him.
Back in my rocking chair, I made him assume the pill posture. Once again I blew in his face. I put the pill in his mouth. It ended up inside my shirt, stuck to the fibers. Now I really had a problem. It’s not easy holding a cat who wants to escape while extricating a slimy sticky pill from inside a shirt. I held onto his collar, and he promptly jerked his head, freeing himself using the breakaway. Round and round and round we went for 10 more minutes.
I shoved the pill into his mouth. Out it came between the arm and seat of the chair. Away he streaked. Ten more minutes of blindy hide-and-seek. Finally I caught him again. This time I got it down. It was well after midnight by time I finally got to bed. Husband Karl had an early doctor’s appointment, so sleeping in wasn’t an option, at least not for me. Sunny on the other hand, was doing quite well at it. Go figure!
Ruling, reigning, or dominion is not tyranny, though I suspect Sunny Kitty may have had a different idea. It is doing the best we know how to do for the people, animals, and things God has given us to care for. For most of us, our throne looks more like the trenches we occupy daily. Often, it looks pretty humiliating.
But the Bible in 2 Timothy 2:12 says:
“If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.”
There will come a day when we will reign with Jesus, if we but endure the present trenches–not because of anything we’ve done but because this is the way He wants it.
Lord, thank you for those things you’ve given me to take care of on this earth. Help me to do that every day to the very best of my ability. & when my time here has ended, may I reign with you in your heavenly place. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me.
and
Abbie Johnson Taylor.
I realize that even now the last thing some folks wanna see is rain. TX is reeling from flooding in the hill country. My sister was here from Chicago and said they had a glut of it. But when you live in the desert like me, where a quarter of an inch was the most rain we’d experienced this year, it’s like treasure from heaven.
It’s amazing the transformation that takes place. Brown parched vegetation turns a deep shade of green. Flowers literally raise their heads. Bird songs fill the air. It reminds me of Isaiah 35.
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
New International Version (NIV)
I wrote a song back in 2001–and sang it at church just 2 days before Sept. 11. Here are the lyrics.
Streams in the Desert
When the night is unrelenting and the silence gives way to fear,
When the darkness feels unending, and the road ahead’s unclear,
Then grant to me your vision
Of my life through your loving eyes,
And give me ears to hear your voice
Until the day arives–
Chorus: When the eyes of the blind are opened
And the ears of the deaf shall hear.
When the tongue of the mute will sing for joy,
And the lame will leap like a deer–
When streams will flow through the desert
To quench a thirsty land,
And every tear will be wiped from our eyes
By the touch of the Savior’s hand.
If you go before me,
I won’t be afraid
Keep my feet from stumbling,
And guide me in Your ways
And grant my greatest longing,
To hear you say “Well done!”
When at last my journey’s through,
And the day has finally come–
Chorus:
There will come a time when creation is whole again, when all things are made new. Sometimes it feels like a far distant promise, but through faith we know it’ll come to pass. Meanwhile, we can hope in that bright shining future when everything will be put right.
Lord, give those of us who are called by Your name a vision of the wonders that await, and help us stay the course until we receive what you have promised to us. Amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Abbie Johnson Taylor
and
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me.
This past week, on May 14, in fact, Christians celebrated the ascension of Jesus into heaven. I been thinking a lot lately about what that meant. He was leaving a very fragile seed, His church, to blossom and grow in hostile soil. He knew–he had to know–we’d screw it up. He knew we’d disappoint him, likely on a daily basis, assuredly many times a day. And yet, he let go, asking us to co-create with Him down here while He did whatever He needed to do from on high.
I often wonder why in the world He’d do that. And the only thing I can come up with is that if we are going to reign with Him in Heaven, we need to learn how to do that on Earth. Now, me, I think he could just have a heavenly school where we could bypass all the stuff that happens down here. But it seems He disagrees, and He definitively wins!
I’ve been battling a problem with our bank for a couple weeks. This week I was finally able to move things forward, and I decided to simply let events happen. There really isn’t much I can do. It’s a mixed bag. It feels good to finally quit hassling with it on the day-to-day, but not very good knowing I’m not in control. I didn’t give up control particularly willingly. The bank did that for me. Jesus, on the other hand, did surrender control to us. Does He intervene on our behalf? Assuredly. But He also gave us free will, and in large part, allows us to exercise it, whether or not our choices are those He would want us to make.
Often times I hear Christians complain–and I’ve done it a number of times myself–why doesn’t God just tell us what He wants from us? All I can do is answer that He already tried that w/the Israelites in the Old Testament. We all know how well that turned out. He appeared to them in a cloud by day, in fire by night. They knew what He wanted from them. They worshipped a golden calf instead, and He at last established a new covenant with humankind by means of His death on the cross.
Most people who walk this earth won’t be remembered long. All we can hope for is that some small action of ours, something we said or did, will turn someone toward God, and that they in turn did likewise. Often we don’t even know when we’ve done that because the action to us seemed so insignificant. And maybe that’s why we have to learn here on earth that the one who is faithful in very small things is also faithful in much, because sometimes that small thing can turn into something very big, while we’re none the wiser.
Luke 16:10 puts it thus: “Suppose you can be trusted with something very little. Then you can also be trusted with something very large. But suppose you are not honest with something very little. Then you will also not be honest with something very large.”
NIV
I pray that I can be more like Jesus, doing the best I can and then be content to put it in God’s hands, because that is, after all, where all my hopes and dreams will ultimately come to fruition.