Speaking to God

   For years I have struggled with saying, or praying, The Lord's Prayer aloud in a church service. I just don't seem to get the words out audibly when fellow worshipers around me are doing so. It may be meaningful to others, but the words seem to come out so fast that I do not have any time to reflect on what I am praying.

  I have heard sermons on each of the lines of Jesus' prayer that He was teaching to His disciples. There is a richness in the words and how they are put together in this instance of how to speak to Our Heavenly Father. How can I internalize what is meant when the words and phrases come so quickly and glibly to my lips? Do I know what I am praying, or is it just a rote activity that takes place at a particular point in the order of service?

   Here are Jesus' words as recorded in Matthew 6:

   "“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil."

   It seems much easier for me to sit and ponder the words and their meaning for me than to speak them aloud with others at the same time. I want to participate in corporate worship, but I want to mean what I pray.

   This is not a condemnation of the use of The Lord's Prayer in church; far from it for they are Jesus' words, but it is a confession on my part of my inability to pray it with any meaning in that way, maybe not all of the time, but most of it anyway.

   God, help me to get it right.