Jesus' Instructions on How to Pray

In today’s Gospel, Mt 6: 7-15, Jesus  teaches His disciples, that is us, how to pray, directing us not to babble on in prayer with lots and lots of words.  I might do that in the hope that I will truly be heard.  In other words, knowingly or unknowingly, I am attempting to manipulate God to do as I say. However, Jesus says to us: Don’t multiply words in prayer; there is no need to do that.  Why? Because “Your Father knows what you need before you ask.” How, then, should you and I be praying?  Jesus then teaches us the Our Father.

“Our Father”—I am acknowledging God as my father, my abba, my daddy in heaven!
“Hallowed be thy name”—a phrase of reverence,  a statement of praise. This is God. I am only a human being created by God, who willed His creation of me to carry on a specific purpose of His here on earth.
“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done”—I am acknowledging God’s Kingdom as a reign He wants to happen here on earth in accordance to His will and as it exists in heaven.

So, in the first part of the “Our Father” I address God and acknowledge what belongs to God: reverence and  praise and that God is Ruler/King of heaven and earth with a perfect plan to be brought about on earth as in heaven: heaven is a place of joy, peace, order, serenity, justice, where there are no slaves, no inequalities, no lording it over one another, no divisiveness. That is His will for us on earth as well but He needs us to carry out that will.

 In the second half of the Our Father,  Jesus instructs us to pray for ourselves.  We ask for our daily bread (like the Israelites in the desert where God fed them one day at a time). We also ask forgiveness for the ways in which we do not live the first part of the Our Father. And finally, we pray that we will  not be led into temptation that Satan throws at us. We ask that God deliver us from the evil Satan wills for us, that is, separation from God for all eternity, beginning here on earth.