The Danger of “I” in Christian Prayer
Wise words from Dr. Albert Mohler . . .
"Over the past several decades I have noticed that many
Christians tend to begin their prayers by presenting their needs. Of course, in
some sense, I understand why we naturally turn to petition almost immediately
upon entering into prayer. We tend to begin with petitions because prayer
reminds us of our deep need for God to sanctify us in our circumstances and
save us from our trials. Additionally, our circumstances and trials are often
the very thing that drives us to pray in the first place. Thus the tyranny of
the urgent has a remarkable way of consuming our intellectual life and our
thought patterns. As a result, our prayers, from beginning to end, are often
marked by petition.
But the Lord’s Prayer begins in a very different place.
Petitions certainly are a part (a major part, in fact) of the Lord’s Prayer,
but Jesus does not begin with requests. He begins, instead, by identifying the
character of the God to whom he prays while at the same time challenging our
individualism in prayer. Jesus does all of this in the first two words, “Our
Father.”
The word 'our,' at first glance, seems like an insignificant
little pronoun. But Jesus is making a tremendously powerful theological point
by beginning his prayer with the word 'our.' Jesus is reminding us that when we
enter into a relationship with God we enter into a relationship with his
people. When we are saved by Christ, we are saved into his
body, the church. In fact, this emphasis on our place in the corporate identity
of the church is reiterated throughout the prayer. One way to notice this
emphasis is simply to read through the prayer and stress each personal pronoun:"