Father,
In the prayer that
Jesus told us to pray, the very first petition is, ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’. We
fully acknowledge, Father, how appropriate it is to begin with this petition.
Life is not about us. It’s about You. It’s about Your honor, Your honor on earth
as well as in heaven. It’s only right that for us to pray that Your Name, the
person whom You have revealed Yourself to be, would be honored by all. It is
only right that that petition have the first priority in our prayers.
But You are not
honored by all. In fact, there are pitifully few who actually do honor You. You
are ignored, trivialized and even despised by so many. But that makes no sense.
You are the great God. You are the one who stands above creation, overseeing every
little detail. You are the standard of right and wrong, of good and evil. Apart
from You, how can anyone even know what a good life is, let alone be able to
pursue it? And You are the one who is full of justice for all and mercy for
some. How is it possible for You to be ignored, trivialized or despised?
But we need to
admit, Father, that there are those times when we fall into the same attitudes
of these many. There are those times when we do not honor You. There are those
times when we also ignore and even trivialize You. And, sad to say, there may
even have been those times when we despised You for what You were doing in our
lives. This is just wrong. And we have no excuse. We know what we deserve. But
we also know that You have also named Yourself as the God who graciously
forgives. And so, because of Jesus, we would be bold to ask that You would
forgive us of these shameful sins against You.
Father, we see what
You call for. It’s not complicated. You want us to honor You, to hallow Your
name. And we want to do that. But we are so weak. And the world, the flesh and
the devil are so strong. We need Your grace. And so, we ask for that grace so that
we would be able to act in the way that we pray all would act, that we would
hallow Your Name. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.