My and Our

 

Did you see the animated film where the seagulls chase their prey, yelling “mine! mine! mine!”?  “I”, “my” and “mine” are probably the most often used words in our language. It just seems to come naturally to us to use those words.

A while back, one of those funny-to-share emails made the rounds, about the child who says “all toys are mine…unless they are broken.” It was funny…and true. Sadly, it’s more often than not also true of us adults.

Do you speak of My Father in Heaven or Our Father in Heaven? Yes, I know…He’s a personal God. And that’s a good thing, especially when contrasted with the god-who-doesn’t-care (Allah) or the non-god (Buddha) or the 21^st-century-pantheons (fame, material goods, sex, political correctness, equality, choice, etc.)

I grew up in a church that did not recognize a personal relationship with a personal God. They worshiped God; they talked about Jesus, but there was no indication of making that connection with either of them. And then there was that spooky Holy Ghost. Going to church was a little like putting on those flimsy, plastic, color-coded sterile gloves. Worship from a distance, but you can’t get too close.

And then I learned to say MY Father, MY Jesus, MY Holy Spirit. The God I had searched for most of my life became personal. And that is a good thing.

So what is the “our” deal?

Jesus patterned prayer for us, and He said “OUR Father”. Why do you suppose He did that?

OUR God is all about relationships. He is in relationship with Himself, in the Trinity. Not easy for us to understand, but it is a basic truth. He wants a relationship with us. He sent His Son to prove it, and to show us how. And He wants us to be in relationship with each other. Sometimes we forget that. Hebrews 10:25: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…”

When we accept Jesus, the Son, then we have the right to call God our Father. John 1:12: “Yet to all who received him, (The Word, Jesus), to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God__”

That’s right. We are all His children…and He is our Father. Jesus wanted us to remember that. We are a community. We are a fellowship. We are a family.

OUR Father.