"Lord, teach us to pray," a disciple asked. Jesus replied, "When you pray, say . . ." These are the words that introduce what we now call the Lord's Prayer, from Luke 11. What could be better than having the Son of God himself teach us how to pray?

As a starting point, it's helpful to look at the prayer as a whole. Jesus' model prayer begins with a series of second-person pronouns. The prayer isn't first of all about our needs and desires but about the being and purposes of God. In addressing the Father, our first concern is God's holiness, God's kingdom, and God's will. It's God-centered, just as our lives ought to be. This teaches us something important about prayer. As someone has put it, prayer isn't about pulling the shore to the boat but about pulling the boat to the shore. It's about aligning ourselves to God and his kingdom, not seeking to align God to ours.

Seeing prayer in this way also helps us sort out some of the most vexing problems we have with prayer. We wonder why God doesn't always answer our prayers, or at least why God doesn't answer them in the way we want or in the timeframe we expect. When our prayers are first of all God-centered, we recognize that God's purposes come before ours and that his timing supersedes ours. This doesn't explain away all our problems or questions, but it does give us a better perspective on our prayers. As Isaiah puts it, God thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God's ways (Isaiah 55:8).

Another important, and often overlooked, feature of the prayer Jesus taught is the point of view from which we address God---"Our Father, our daily bread, our sins." Jesus was addressing a group; he wants us to think of ourselves not as praying all alone but as joining with God's people everywhere in prayer. You may be praying alone in your room, but you're still joining millions of others before the Father's throne. You may not be hungry tonight, but someone, somewhere, is. You may not be stuck in the cauldron of temptation, but someone is.

Finally, we wonder about Jesus' purpose for teaching us this prayer. Of course, as we've been seeing, it provides a pattern for prayer, and it also teaches us about what's important in our prayers. But I think Jesus also meant for us to pray it just as he taught. Not exclusively, to be sure, but regularly. The church, almost from the beginning, has included this prayer in its worship, and Christians everywhere, in their daily prayers. The inherent danger, of course, is that it can become a rote prayer, rattled off with little thought. But just saying it reminds us regularly how central God is to our existence; how we're always praying with Christians the world over; and, as my wife and I pray it every day, how my forgiveness from God depends in some way on my willingness to forgive---no small matter in a marriage.

We don't have to know much more about prayer than this simple yet profound prayer Jesus gave us; if that were all we ever prayed it would be enough.