During the last three years, I was engaged in the fight of my life—concerning depression—and I failed in significant ways. I had endured an extended depressive episode earlier in life, but in retrospect, had not learned the lessons from that episode that I should have learned. Thus, in my more recent episode, I was not [ Read More ]
After having opened our prayer by expressing our longing for God’s kingdom and honoring his promise to restore the world, we are now ready to ask him to provide for our needs This is the third line of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” In this time between Christ’s first and [ Read More ]
The first line of the Lord’s prayer is, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Or, in more contemporary English, “Our Father in heaven, holy and wonderful and beautiful is your name.” It functions as the opening salvo of a payer that proceeds to instruct us on how to savor and honor [ Read More ]
During the last year, I have begun reciting the Lord’s Prayer, slowly and meditatively, twice per day. I find this habit to be supremely helpful in shaping my thoughts and actions throughout the 24-hour period. I offer this series, therefore, to elaborate on why this habit is so meaningful for me and how it might [ Read More ]
In the first installment of this two-part series, we explored the first part of the Serenity Prayer with an eye toward learning to live without anxiety. After all, Jesus exhorted us, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put [ Read More ]