I’ve recently been reflecting on the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. I believe it was the 17th century French church leader, Jeanne Guyon, who recommended the practice of praying the scriptures by reciting a familiar scripture word by word. You reflect on each word until you have taken in all the meaning before you move on to the next word of the scripture. It is a practice I enjoy when I’m trying to relax or just as I am falling asleep.

Praying this way encourages me to receive His meaning more deeply. I know each word has meaning and purpose. God has shown me a deeper understanding of the first word of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.

It is striking that the prayer begins with the word "Our." I’ve always thought how awesome it is that Jesus taught us to pray "Our Father," not My Father. Jesus really wants us to think about God as our Father when we pray. He is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Holy and so much more…yet in spite of this He wants us to know Him as Father. That’s incredible in itself.

Although I have practiced praying the scriptures using the Lord’s prayer on many occasions and have pondered the meaning of the word "Our" several times, this time it brought deeper meaning and understanding to me about how I relate to all the Christians in this world.

As I meditated on the word "Our," I begin to think of all the many people that are included in this "Our." I thought of people I love and respect who call God, Father. I thought of others in whom I’m ashamed of how they are reflecting on the church of Christ. I considered the Christians with whom I am deeply disappointed in their interpretation of Scripture and the way they live their lives. Suddenly it hit me: They are a part of the "Our" with me. When I pray "Our Father," I am praying with anyone who believes in the power of the name of Jesus, whether I like the way they are living out their faith or not. I found a wider vision of my Heavenly Father. I realized that His desire is for us to pray in unity. It helped me to realize that I must not think I have God and the Christian life all figured out perfectly. I’m sure that I’m doing some things right, but perhaps I’m a little off even in some of the areas that I find so hard to accept from those Christians I disagree with so strongly. Whether I agree with them or not, they are part of the "Our." Perhaps our differences, when put together with God’s love, would show us that each of us is a little right and a little wrong at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling your to tolerate what you feel in your spirit is incorrect. The people that I’m talking about are not people that I have personal associations with. They are people that I have been judging as not doing the spiritual life the right way. In my prayer of "Our," I began to see my judgment of them and for the first time saw how harmful it is to my own life. If God includes them in the "Our," why should I get out of sorts by them? God is the one who will set them straight, just like He needs to do with me. I need to keep my focus on Father and let God work out the "Our" as only He can do.

God is the God who wants us to know He is ours. He wants us to claim Him as our own. He claims us as His children and He teaches us to know that we plural have a Father. We may not fully understand Him as He really is, or there wouldn’t be so many denominations and differences in our theology, but one thing we have in common is that the more we call on Him as Our Father, the closer we will grow to knowing Him as He really is.