{"id":23081,"date":"2025-01-30T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/urc\/urc-daily-devotion-thursday-30-january-2025"},"modified":"2025-01-30T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T06:00:00","slug":"urc-daily-devotion-thursday-30-january-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/urc-daily-devotion-thursday-30-january-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"URC Daily Devotion Thursday 30 January 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

St Luke 11: 1 – 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, \u2018Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.\u2019  He said to them, \u2018When you pray, say:<\/p>\n

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.\u2019<\/p>\n

Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n

What can one say about the most familiar prayer of all that hasn\u2019t been said before? A prayer that most of us can easily say without hesitation, almost by rote – even non-church-goers!<\/p>\n

And yet its familiarity somehow doesn\u2019t make it lose its effectiveness and power.  Unlike the Creeds, which in the church of my youth we said every week and they appeared (to me at least) a virtually meaningless mash-up of words. Say them periodically, taking the time to consider what we are saying and their deep expression of faith resounds. Likewise the Methodist Covenant Prayer said once a year is powerful and moving, something that I suspect would be lost if said frequently.<\/p>\n

Somehow, though, this simple prayer, taught by Jesus to his disciples, never seems to lose its potency, no matter how often it is said. Indeed I cannot conceive of a Sunday Service without it being in there somewhere! <\/p>\n

Yet it is not without its problems – a past church member had a sexually-abusing father and had serious challenges praying to a heavenly Father-figure.<\/p>\n

On a smaller scale, some insist on sticking to \u2018thees\u2019 and \u2018thous\u2019 and \u2018trespasses\u2019 (whatever they are). In school, in Scotland we said \u2018forgive us our debts\u2019 which I found obtuse and yet later found that of course it is how Luke recorded the line. <\/p>\n

When the Church of England tried to replace the line about not leading us into temptation (as if God would ever do that!) with not bringing us to the time of trial, there was uproar and it was quietly sidelined, even though, to me, it makes much more sense.<\/p>\n

Is it a magisterial source that gives it its power – after all there were very few things that Jesus specifically told us to do. Or is it its deeply personal nature, combined with spiritual simplicity? I don\u2019t know but I plan to continue to pray frequently just as Jesus suggested, confidently expecting it to be as meaningful as ever.<\/p>\n

Prayer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Say slowly, pausing between each line:<\/p>\n

Our Father in heaven,<\/p>\n

hallowed be your name,<\/p>\n

your kingdom come,<\/p>\n

your will be done,<\/p>\n

on earth as in heaven.<\/p>\n

Give us today our daily bread.<\/p>\n

Forgive us our sins<\/p>\n

as we forgive those who sin against us.<\/p>\n

Save us from the time of trial<\/p>\n

and deliver us from evil.<\/p>\n

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours<\/p>\n

now and forever. <\/p>\n

Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St Luke 11: 1 – 4 Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, \u2018Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.\u2019  He said to them, \u2018When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come.Give us each day our daily … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “URC Daily Devotion Thursday 30 January 2025”<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}