Not too long ago, I found myself sitting down and once again rapid-reading the entire Gospel of Luke, in connection with my daily devotions. I would have to admit to you that for some reason or other, of all the Gospels, the Gospel of Luke has always been my favorite. I don’t really know why, but it has.

If you were to take my personal Bible and start leafing through it, one of the things you would immediately notice is how much I have written in it. You would find that I have underlined passages, highlighted others, circled still others, written in the margins—the list could go on and on. In general, I have really marked up my Bible. Some of the best advice I could give to others in addition to regularly reading their Bible is also not to hesitate writing in their Bible. When it gets too marked up, you can always buy a new one and start all over again.

Now, if you were to look in the margins of the Gospel of Luke, one word or phrase that you would repeatedly find underlined in the text, and one statement that you would repeatedly find penned in the margin is this: "Christ prayed." For it would seem to me that of all the Gospel writers, Luke, by the inspiration of God, lists this fact concerning Christ more than any of the other three.

For example, in connection with Jesus’ baptism in 3:21 it says: "Jesus, too, was baptized. And as He was praying, heaven was opened."

Moving on to 4:42: "At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place," again evidently to pray.

Moving on from there to 5:16: "Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed"; in 6:12, "Jesus went out into the hills to pray and spent the night praying to God."

It just keeps going until in Chapter 11 we find these words: "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’" You know what comes then. It is the Lord’s Prayer, or as many would call it, the "Our Father."

Last month we concluded in this, the President’s column of THE LUTHERAN WITNESS, a look at what in a way are those key emphases that I will again and again be holding before the eyes of our Synod as we move into the years ahead. I am certain you will recall at least some of them—a church body that is strongly in the Word, that is much more people-sensitive and people-centered, that is marked by a much greater commitment personally to getting the Gospel out, that is not ashamed of her confessional Lutheran theology, and finally, last month, a church body that is marked by peace and unity in the Lord.

Well, for the next several months, I would like to use this page in THE LUTHERAN WITNESS to visit with you about the Lord’s Prayer. I would like to take one section, one petition of it, at a time, and simply talk with you about what God is encouraging us to pray for in this, the Master’s prayer.

What are the goals we would hope to achieve through all of this?

The first goal would be to strengthen all of us in that great privilege that is ours when it comes to daily approaching God in our prayers. For sometimes, I can’t help but believe that one of the weaker spots that one finds in our ongoing faith life is that time we really do spend with our God in prayer.

Now when I say that, I am not implying that our people out there in the Synod are not praying, for I know that they are. Repeatedly, as I travel around our church body, I find people coming up to me and saying, "President Barry, you are daily in our prayers." Just this past week, I found any number of people once again saying this to me as I traveled through Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. That is some pretty powerful stuff, for which I daily thank God.

But having said that, I have a suspicion that all of us could still find ourselves turning to the Lord when it comes to our daily prayer lives and saying, "Lord, teach us also to pray. Lord, help us to see even more clearly that great privilege that is ours daily, even many times during the day, to come to you in prayer." So strengthening this awareness and this desire among us would undoubtedly be our first goal over these next several months.

Coupled to this would also be a second goal. It is to restrengthen among us an awareness concerning those great things for which our Lord would have us pray in the Lord’s Prayer. For I have a two-fold suspicion in this connection. One is that we sometimes roll our way along through the Lord’s Prayer without really concentrating on what we are saying. The other is a concern as to whether we and our children are really using the Lord’s Prayer as fully as we should in our ongoing daily prayer-lives. I hope that by spending a little time taking a second look at that for which the Lord would have us pray here, this tendency, too, we will be able to address.

So there is our road map for the next several months. With the first disciples in Luke 10, we, too, will be saying, "Lord, teach us also to pray." And we will be listening as Christ once again holds before us not only that great privilege that is ours in prayer, but also its blessed power in our lives.

To that end, may our gracious God, here, too, mightily bless.

A.L. Barry

Jude 24-25