Today I am going to close out the study of the Lord’s prayer with an almost overwhelming task. That is to try and put the prayer into my own words. This endeavor is for my own sake. For those of you who think this is approaching sacrilegious please forgive me. If any of you want to suggest alternate wording please let me know. Thanks to everyone who has helped me along this journey through the most powerful prayer in Christianity.

Humbly here is my interpretation:

 Lord God in heaven, as you taught us we will always praise and adore you for your omnipotent power, glory and especially for your total unending and undeserved love for us.

Help us while we are on this earth to always seek your will and live in the way you have taught us; we will certainly do this when we are in heaven.

Help us to always remember that you make us everything we are and provide us with everything we need.

As you commanded, help all of us on this earth to always love each other, care for each other, and treat each other as we would want others to treat us.

We reluctantly welcome those times in our lives where you challenge us in order to strengthen our faith; give us the ability to bear these burdens so that they do not overwhelm us.

Help us to constantly fight the temptations of the devil and of the world so that all our actions give glory to your name.

 Well that’s it. As you can see my words primarily seek God’s help in these petitions; we can do nothing without it. I still don’t feel totally comfortable with the words that replace “lead us not into temptation”. But, I guess that is the way it will have to be until I am standing in front of our maker and can ask him myself!

I welcome any suggestions of different words. Starting on the next post I will be spending a few week reviewing some of the books I have read (or reread) in the past year. All the glory goes to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.