The Breathing Of The Soul

Prayer is one of the most powerful things we can do in life.  The Lord’s Prayer was so special in the early church that only the confirmed members could pray it.  They figured that spectators and inquirers weren’t ready for the power and mystery of the prayer.   It was called the “believers prayer.”  Even today in the liturgy of the Greek and Russian Orthodox Church, the praying of the Lord’s Prayer is a moment of awe and mystery as a priest says at the introduction: “And make us worthy, O Lord, that we joyously and without presumption may make bold to invoke Thee, the heavenly God, as Father and to say, “Our Father….”
 

Jesus does not want us to day the Lord’s Prayer.  Jesus wants us to become the Lord’s Prayer.  REAL praying is God moving in us through the Spirit.   Real praying is the Spirit of God praying in and through us, making us into the likeness of Christ.  In the words of Francois Fenelon: “Lord, teach me to pray.  Pray Thyself in me.”  Prayer is the breathing of the soul.   (Homiletics)