Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

If you've ever felt like a JV prayer, you're in good company. Even the apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.

The good news is, just like any conversation you have with a person, it's a skill you can learn.

We don't have time to dig in deep on this, but there are a few things worth noting in the prayer Jesus teaches his followers that I want to highlight.

First, Jesus tells them to pray to the Father, not to Him.

If we aren't careful, we end up putting the three persons of the

Trinity in a blender and mixing them all up together as though they're the same. While they are one,

and they are unified in their will and purpose, they're also distinct in their roles. In Scripture,

the most normative way we see prayer modeled is to pray to the Father through the Son by the Spirit,

and Jesus is the mediator between us and the Father,

and the Spirit empowers our prayers through the Son to the Father.

That's not to say we can't or shouldn't pray to the Son or Spirit.

It definitely enriches our relationship and deepens our understanding of God

when we think intentionally about which person of the

Trinity we're praying to and talk to them according to their roles. The more we get to know him,

the more natural this will become. In today's show notes, we'll link to two articles about this,

as well as two things I've written about the Trinity, a book, and a Bible study. What Jesus is pointing to here

that is so huge is that we can boldly approach the Father, the supreme authority of the universe.

For some people, though, this can be challenging. Maybe you had an absent dad or a terrible dad.

Maybe it feels easier to you to pray to a different person of the Trinity,

the son or the spirit, instead of the father. There is grace for you in this. He knows.

If that's you, my hope is that he'll draw you in and that by beginning to talk to God the

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