After all these years I picked up something buried inside the Lord’s Prayer I had never really appreciated before. For the most part the prayer seems pretty one-sided. I don’t mean that in a bad way; it’s simply a recognition that we’re the ones doing most of the asking. But in a subtle way there’s something God asks of us in that prayer: forgiveness. Think about that for a second… Of all the things God might have asked us for, something that we should do every day, he chose forgiveness: that we set aside any wrongs our neighbors may have done to us, and treat them with as much care and compassion as those we consider our friends. That’s no easy task, which I suppose that’s why we petition God for the daily bread we need to pull it off.
So the next time you recite the Lord’s Prayer, take a moment to reflect not simply on what we need from God this day, but what he needs from us: forgiveness. With his help, we’ll be up to the task.