You’re His Child
To begin with, the arc of our liturgy is suffused with prayer, such that participating in worship is indistinguishable from participating in prayer. These “not-so-simple” prayers as some have put it— those we recite from a breviary— give weight and rhythm to our shared community, thus they employ corporate language (we, us, our, etc.). If you’ve come to the Anglican tradition (or another sacramental community of faith) from a more evangelical background, this may seem somewhat strange at first, but there is unimaginable grace in these long-lived ceremonies.
I have found great comfort in the fact that these prayers have been a vibrant part of the church’s shared language for hundreds of years. Even more so, that we are joining with the saints of all ages — and in all places — to worship our risen Savior. Take this quote from Karl Barth.
“Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, who has made himself our brother and makes us his brothers and sisters…takes us with him in order to associate us with himself, to place us beside him so that we may live and act as his family and as the members of his body….Jesus Christ invites us, commands us, and allows us to speak with him to God, to pray with him his own prayer, to be united with him in the Lord’s Prayer. Therefore he invites us to adore God, pray to god, and praise God with one mouth, and one soul, with him, united to him.” - Karl Barth
I especially appreciate Barth’s quote about Jesus making us His family when we begin to pray so that what is true of Jesus becomes true of us as well. What a beautiful promise!
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
It is crucial to say that we are not asking for a magical escape from suffering but an endowment of patience and otherworldly joy amid our pain. Truly, this is the heart of what it means to be a praying people: we consent to the slow work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, unhurried but not listless, as we are modeled further in the image of Christ.
Finally, there are times in prayer when do not receive what we petition God for — “you have not because you ask not” is only part of the story, too. We have not because we asked incorrectly. We asked with impure motives or a desire to use faith as some type of shield from things we fear — God isn’t a genie, and we shouldn’t be shocked when these prayers do not result in what we’ve asked for, primarily because God knows we have no need of what we’ve requested! We are very much like children begging to stay up late the night before our first day of school — and God is shuffling us off to bed, reminding us that we need to trust him.
God is at work in our lives, and that’s really the gift of prayer. He inhabits the ordinary. We have an incarnational God — and He makes himself known to us each week in His body and blood, but also in the stillness of a summer breeze or the warmth of a stranger’s smile. Your heavenly Father desires to give you good gifts, and all you must do is keep your hands open. As the old Gospel song reminds us, “You’re His child, and He cares for you.”
