The Best Prayer for a Bored Prayer Life

Matthew 6:9-10

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:9-10

May we always come to the very words of Jesus when we are in need of advice or encouragement concerning our prayer lives.

We see in the prayer Jesus taught to His followers a deep well of wisdom we can draw from when we need reminding of not just the purpose of prayer, but also how to pray.

While it’s common to say, “Dear God” at the start of a prayer — or something similar — Jesus teaches that prayers are meant to worship a God who is our Father. We approach prayer with an attitude of thanksgiving as we remember two amazing truths: God is our Father, and our Father reigns in Heaven.

Praying to our Father means we have this unbelievable relational privilege with the God of Heaven, the God who created all and sustains all. Having this mindset leads us directly into a state of praise as we declare, “Hallowed be Your Name!”

Hallowed also means “revered,” revealing God isn’t just our buddy or best friend-type of Daddy. Rather, He is our loving Father who deserves our reverence each time we come before His throne.

We see next how asking for God’s kingdom come is a hopeful prayer spoken with the assurance that God will keep His promises to His people. We believe that one day this will not just be something to pray about, but something we see with our own eyes.

God’s kingdom will come!

God will officially throw the enemy into eternal despair as we celebrate forever living with a sinless body in the presence of our Mighty God! Asking God for His kingdom come sets our minds toward thanksgiving. We thank our faithful Father as we place our hope in the promises of His Word.

So whatever we pray for, we can rest assured that God will fulfill His ultimate promise to His people. Our God is faithful, and He keeps His promises.

As we dig in deeper to each line of this prayer, it teaches us prayer is more than laying our requests down at the throne of God. (Take a look at these prayer cards for encouragement and inspiration on going deeper in prayer!)

Jesus taught His followers to pray using aspects of the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. The learned Jewish men in the crowd would have immediately picked up on the phrases Jesus used that came from those memorized words of God.

So another thing we can learn from this prayer, albeit not quite so obvious to our non-Torah-memorized brains, is how Jesus used Scripture to pray. When we feel like we don’t know how to pray or we simply are bored with praying the same words over and over, let us turn to Scripture and pray God’s Word back to Him.

Yes, prayer is so much deeper and more intimate than saying words into the abyss, hoping God hears us. And it’s more than repeating the same words over and over again.

Prayer is communicating with the Creator of the universe who calls us His children, and Himself our Father. Let’s follow the example of Jesus and pray with thanksgiving as we turn our desires to reflect the desires of our Heavenly Father.

Reflection Questions

What do we learn about God from this passage?
Why do you think we forget about this prayer so often when it comes to our prayer lives?
How will you find joy in your everyday through what you’ve learned in this passage?