Claim the relationship

Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Matthew 6:9

Tonight in Bible class we talked about names (among other things). We laughed that when we met our future mother-in-law, we didn’t know what to call her. So we usually didn’t call her anything for awhile.

Names define relationship. When we’re uncertain about a relationship, we’re also sometimes uncertain about naming it.

But when Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray, he started off strong. No mealy-mouth doubt about how to initiate a conversation with God:

“Our Father”

He was saying to claim the relationship! Call God what he is to you: your Father.

And that means I’m his daughter. There is no sweeter relation than being the child of the King. I’m certain about that.