Retreat Recap

I spent the weekend of September 12-14 with about 250 women at beautiful Lake Ann Camp in Michigan. Together we addressed the apparent dissonance between the God-centered requests and the need-centered requests that Jesus teaches in The Lord’s Prayer. Is it possible to be God-centered when we have so many needs?

When I began studying The Lord’s Prayer, I wondered whether hallowing God’s name could ever be a desire in the middle of a practical need like daily bread. I questioned whether a longing for God’s kingdom would be possible under the burden of broken relationships in this immediate world. I asked whether doing God’s will on earth - a hostile place full of temptation and very unlike heaven - could ever truly be possible.

But if we allow God’s holiness to inform us about bread, His kingdom to teach us about relationships, and His will to be our path of deliverance, something in us changes. What we discovered over the weekend is that as Jesus teaches us how to pray about our needs, he teaches us how to live in our neediness.

I’ve attached #3 of the four sessions, which brings together the third set of requests: “Your kingdom come…forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”