The Our Father: Prayer as Alignment, Not Request

Finding Peace Not in What God Gives, But in Who God Is

I’ve been reflecting on the goodness of God, what we mean when we say God is good, and why sometimes His goodness feels difficult to see. Growing up, I associated God’s goodness with His blessings. God is a loving Father who gives good things to His children, so God is good because He is good to us. Verses like Matthew 7:11 seemed to confirm this: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

That line of thinking easily leads to the idea that God’s goodness is measured by what He gives. The reasoning goes: if we ask, He will give, so the Lord’s Prayer becomes a model of asking and receiving. But something about that never sat right with me.

Because history is full of saints, families, and entire peoples who begged God for protection and provision, and still endured starvation, persecution, grief, and horror. Think of the Jews in the Holocaust, early Christian martyrs, families of school shooting victims, Christian homeless men and women, hungry children around the world. Are we to say that their prayers were not enough? Where is the promise then? If prayer is simply asking, where is the answer?

This tension led me to rethink what God’s goodness really means. God is not good because He gives us things. He is good because He is. He is unchanging, constant, the source of life itself, and pure love. He is good in seasons of harvest and good in seasons of famine. The life of Jesus makes this unmistakably clear: the Father allowed His beloved Son to suffer, be tortured, and die. So the meaning of God’s goodness cannot be reduced to “God gives me what I want.”

The saints understood this. Many of them found deep peace and joy regardless of circumstance. They didn’t see prayer as a means of controlling outcomes, but as a way of aligning themselves with reality, God Himself. Life brings both calm and storm; our task is not to command the waves, but to remain with God through them.

When we look at the Our Father through that lens, the prayer changes.

“Give us this day our daily bread” becomes less about requesting certain outcomes and more about aligning our hearts to receive what this day already holds. It is the trust that, whatever comes today, God is present in it.

“Lead us not into temptation” is not asking God to avoid leading us astray, because God does not do that. Instead, it is a reminder: Anything that leads me away from goodness is not from God.

“Your kingdom come, your will be done” is not a command. It is an act of surrender. It is the acceptance that life, however chaotic or confusing, is still under the loving sovereignty of God, and we do not need to control it to be secure.

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Prayer, then, is not a mystical tactic for changing God’s mind. It is communion with God, placing our hearts next to His. In prayer we are not trying to get something, but to give something: our worries, griefs, fears, longings, and love. We release the clenched fist of the heart. And in that releasing, God softens us, clarifies us, reshapes our vision, and draws us into His peace.

So why pray at all, if prayer does not guarantee we get what we want?

Because prayer is not about getting what we want.

Prayer is about releasing what we want, so that we may come to desire what God desires.

This is why praying for the sick, the lost, the grieving, and the hopeless is good and holy, not because prayer forces God to act, but because it reunites our hearts with His, and opens space for love, compassion, and trust to grow.

• Should we pray for the healing of others? Yes.
• Should we pray for the protection of our families? Yes.
• Should we bring our desires to God? Yes.

But not as leverage. Not as an ultimatum. Not as a transaction.

Rather as a reuniting with the heart of God. Here is an example of the prayer for a sick brother refined in this thinking:

“God, my brother is sick. I am scared and sad. I grieve what might happen. I want him to be healed. But more than anything, help me, him, and his family to be united to Your will, which is always good, even when I do not understand it.”

We bring our desires to God without demanding an outcome. We bring our hearts to Him so He can hold them, shape them, and dwell with us in whatever comes.

Prayer is not about changing God. Prayer is about allowing God to change us.

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