Attaching to Our Father Through the Lord’s Prayer by Cyd and Geoff Holsclawනියැදිය

“Hallowed Be Your Name”

In a world full of stories of abuse and trauma, even in the church, it can be easy to feel that God should be blamed. Sometimes it can seem like God is the one who causes ruptures. It can be hard to remember that ruptures are caused by the evil one, but God is in the business of repairing those ruptures.

People have questioned God’s character for centuries and have abused the name of God by blaming him for evil. It’s interesting that the first rupture Jesus teaches us to ask the Father to repair is God’s own name!

We are to ask our Father to repair the status of God’s own name.

Why?

If God’s name needs to be made more hallowed, it at least means God’s name isn’t currently hallowed enough. And if God’s name isn’t hallowed enough, then that’s because there is some sort of problem happening, some rupture that needs repairing.

So, in praying to our Father, who repairs ruptures, we first pray that God’s name would be repaired.

To hallow is to make holy or sacred, to honor or revere.

Or it could mean to glorify.

And things that are sacred and full of glory are heavy and weighty.

So to hallow or glorify are just fancy words for talking about the weight of something—how heavy something is.

And what is heavy stabilizes us.

What is heavy has gravity to it.

So to pray that the Father’s name would be hallowed is to pray that the Father would again be the gravity that stabilizes the world.

When we are all spinning around black holes of broken relationships and disruptive desires, the Father is the gravity that is pulling us back toward life.

When we are crumbling over the broken foundations caused by—and causing—trauma in us and others, the Father is the stabilizing weight that gives us hope.

To pray that God’s name would be hallowed is to pray that God would again be known as the good Father who repairs our ruptures.

AS YOU PRAY…

As you pray the Lord’s Prayer, begin by remembering the Father who runs out to meet you as you come to him (day 1). Then ask that the name of our Father would be repaired in your own soul. Ask that God would repair any spiritual trauma caused by the people of God who misuse and abuse the Father’s good name. Then ask God to repair you from distortions that rupture your trust in God, any disappointments and fears you have about attaching to God. Ask God to make his name the gravity that holds you and all the world again.