I have been off the red letters for a few days so now I am going to spend the next few posts on them alone. In the past few weeks I have been reviewing the various commentaries on the Lord’s prayer. Quite frankly many of them aren’t very helpful to me. No one seems to be able to come right out and say what they think they mean in plain talk. Many theologians have “theologian speak”, that is fancy words they throw around, to describe the Lord’s prayer but nothing that the average Christian can make much sense of.

This is probably the most spoken prayer in Christianity and that is as it should be since it came word for word from Jesus Himself. But, I wonder how many people seriously think about what the words mean or do we just parrot them? I admit that I am guilty of the latter on occasion. I am not talking about sitting down and studying what others have said about it but instead trying to form your own opinion guided by the Holy Spirit.

As I say in my “about me” tab I am not a clergyman or a theologian but I am going to humbly attempt in the next few posts to put down my personal feelings about the Lord’s prayer. Some who read this will likely say “how dare he give us his thoughts on the Lord’s prayer; after all theologians have spent a life time trying to do this”. I am also sure there are those who believe quite differently than I as to the meaning of these words and that is quite as it should be. I certainly don’t claim to have an inside track. We each have to find our path to the Lord but it should be a personal path, not a public thoroughfare that we are guided down.

I am an admitted “cafeteria Christian” in that I do not fall lock step in line behind any particular Christian denomination. Instead I take to heart different aspects of different Christian circles. In my mind some denominations have much to offer and yes, some have very little. So I’m sure my humble interpretation of the Lord’s prayer will be different from many of you and certainly not aligned with any particular theologian. In fact it will probably be quite different most of them. I deem the Lord’s prayer and Christianity in general to be a call to action. More on the general theme of the Lord’s prayer in my next post. And following that I will address each individual petition.