I grew up in a home where we said the Lord's Prayer every day, and I'm very grateful for that,

but naturally we six children just rattled it off, and it never meant much of anything to me

as a child, and my parents took the view that since your children's heads are going to be stuffed with all sorts of nonsense,

they might as well be stuffed with something that's worth remembering.

And we have that prayer and many hymns and scripture verses in our heads

because of the faithfulness of those parents.

But the familiarity that we have with the Lord's Prayer

opens the very real possibility that we won't really pay attention

to what it is we're saying.

And the older I get, the more comprehensive I see this prayer to be,

and the more meaning it has for me.

So often when I pray, and you probably have the same experience,

when I pray for other people, I would say probably nine people out of ten, I really don't know what specific needs

they may be facing, and of course I don't know all the needs of any of them.

So to pray the Lord's prayer with that person in mind helps me.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that there are truths which are commonly considered so

true as to lose all the powers of truth and they lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul.

A wonderful metaphor. These truths that become so far They lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul.

A wonderful metaphor.

These truths that become so familiar that they lose all the power of truth lie bedridden in the dormitory of our souls.

And perhaps there are some here this morning of whom that's true.

You've been saying this prayer all your life, and perhaps, like me,

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