adminI GREET you in this New Year with great wishes for a good and prosperous time ahead. The future is always a matter of great concern to mankind. When we turn to the Almighty we see in Him the ability to hold the future for us. We see in Him the new day coming to be with advantages on our side. A new year is like the rising of a new sun, the turning of a new leaf or the serpentines changing of skin as it were! It is amazing. The amount of joy and exhilaration we expressed as the clock clicked on midnight of the 31st of December into the 1st of January! Awesome to say the least. The mind turning in perspective to realise the dawn of a new era.
While others remade their resolutions, there were those who sought the Lord in numerous prophetic, apostolic and various spiritual “Cross over Services” as they have come to be known. It is these who sought the Lord that are the subject of my column today.
I take it from the very first prayer I learnt when in ECD then known as Kindergarten! I was taught that God is my Father who would hear me when I pray with my eyes closed, hands clasped on my chest and in a kneeling sombre posture.
I will not forget how it was very important that this prayer would be chanted in my Church and at times sung by my mother’s sweet contralto during a sung High Eucharist presided over by my late father, the original Reverend Damasane! It was so heavenly and meant so much to my upbringing.
It took a turn in the later years of my spiritual growth and development when I kept on questioning why some of the things we did in our church were done and why there was no real change and transformation in this child Paul. I needed to understand it with more depth and thought. I did and it has now got more meaning than the mere chants I did as a padre’s child.
I think as we begin this year we may begin with a different understanding of the so often know “The Lord’s Prayer”. This is as it was named by our early church fathers. It really is not the Lord’s Prayer but it is yours and mine as it defines us more than it defines the Lord.
From the start, it takes off with an identity statement, Our father, who art in heaven! As we address God at the opening we do not just see him but ourselves in the address. He is our father not my father or worse a father. He is our father. We come to God as a collective. We come to him not selfishly and self-centred. It is a clarion call to adopt a heart of compassion, generosity, hospitality, and concern for others.
Further, we declare that He is in Heaven we also belong to Heaven. Is that not Spurgeon’s root of his epic the Pilgrim’s Progress? Sure it is because it declares that while we are on this earth we are just but passing through and on a pilgrimage. He is our creator. He is the God of Genesis 1:1 That is our identity. We are of heaven. This earth is not quite our original home but we are sent to it with a mission. He is not some distant deity who is difficult to approach. No! He is our father! He is our progenitor. The first and self-existent one as the Nguni rightly addresses him as uMvelinqangi! He is the father you are the child.
The term father speaks of a personal love relationship. It draws us to the fact and realisation that God is knowable as we read in Deuteronomy 4:29. Such a deep meaning is not found in any other religion. Islam has 99 names for God and father is not one of them. We are blessed to have been taught that we can address God as Father. It makes it very inclusive. If God is your father then you are my brother, sister and family. John puts it right when he says in John 1:12 “But as many as received Him (Jesus), to them He gave the right to become children of God, {even} to those who believe in His name.”
We enter into this year with the understanding that we are not of this world but we are in this world for a purpose. We are of heaven. That is where our origins are. We may not be understood or little still ever even come to understand our mission here on this earth. Your purpose is designed by the maker and the originator of you. When you know where you come from you will certainly know what you are supposed to be up to on this earth. You are not an accident on this earth even if you were conceived out of your parent’s one night fling in total youthful amorous exuberance! No you are not a mistake! Out of the million sperm that your father let go with energy into your mother you were the only outcome of the fertilisation process. Why? Your father who is in heaven made it happen. Not just to add a statistic on this earth but there was a purpose. You are here because heaven needs someone to do the heavenly purposes here on earth.
In a short beginning this day I realise that there is a lot in this portion of scripture we call the Lord’s Prayer. Let us take it through the Year 2015 knowing that we belong to Him and to each other. We walk to the next line in the coming week. Shalom!
Online Reporter