DAILY BYTE
So what comes after the ‘amen’ in the Lord’s Prayer? Well, we end up where we began in a sense. In the hands of a loving parent, knowing that we can trust deeply in the saving grace and redeeming power of this God. This prayer wants to end in us not with misery or fear, but with joy and trust and hope.
Which is why at the end of the prayer, we acknowledge a God who is able to lead us through the immense challenges of life today - through the quicksand’s of temptation and the rock falls of evil. As we pray, we learn that there is nothing bad enough, scary enough, or powerful enough to pluck us from the hand of God. Nothing.
Ken Bailey tells of some of his experiences journeying through the Sahara desert. He wrote that if there is one thing you need before going out into one of the harshest environments on this planet, is to select the right guide with great care. His guide, Uncle Zaki, was a confident, humble man with enormous personal dignity. He never walked but seemed to flow over sand and rock like a ship moving gently through calm seas. As Ken and his group left their village on the edge of the Nile to head out into the almost trackless Sahara, he shares that each member of the group, in turn, felt enough inner pressure to turn to their guide and say, “Uncle Zaki, please don’t get us lost.”
Now, Ken makes special note that this was not because of any lack of trust in a man they all respected so much. What they were really trying to say was, “We have chosen you as our guide because we don’t know how to get to where we must go. Without you we are sure to die. We are afraid of this journey, but know how much we trust in you to get us there.”
The whole of the Lord’s Prayer prepares us for an exodus of deliverance – a journey. This prayer is about how we can follow Jesus as guide on the hard journey of life with its many, mysterious turns, and steep, rocky uncertain inclines. It is about how we can trust Jesus, even more so than Ken’s group trusted Uncle Zaki.
In this journey, the Lord’s Prayer is therefore like Compass and Map, reminding us always what kind of God we follow, what exactly is important to that God, and how the journey itself is just as important as the final destination.
So what comes after the ‘amen’ in the Lord’s Prayer? Well, we are brought back to trusting our deepest needs, our greatest weaknesses, and our most paralysing fears into the hands of a loving Parent.
In this, we learn that any amen after a prayer is not a full-stop but a comma. It is but a brief pause before we move on. We move on and out knowing that God’s name, God’s kingdom, God’s will, God’s provision and God’s forgiveness CAN be made reality even in the very darkest corners of our hearts and this earth because God WILL be doing it within us.
That’s deliverance.
For God’s is the kingdom, the power and the glory, both now and forever. Amen.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord our God, we ask that you would help us to live the Lords’ Prayer in every way possible. May we hallow your name, live your kingdom and will, share our bread and offer forgiveness. May you lead us in this way through even the darkest of temptations and the fieriest of evils. In Jesus name. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Matthew 6 : 13 NRSV
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
