Jesus taught us to begin our prayers with these words as our pattern: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." (Matt 6:9)
Recently as I was praying this, I was struck by the juxtaposition of "Father" and "name".
I thought of my own earthly father.
It was my custom to address him as "Dad". In all the years I knew him, I never called him by his first name, Major.
That would have been weird.
On the other hand, I was aware that even though I had this special relationship with him, and though I am sure he valued that relationship very much himself, there was so much more to "Major Gross" than being "Steve's Dad".
He was Dad to 3 other sons, a husband to Carla, a member at First United Methodist Church, a business owner, plus all the personal attributes which made up his reputation with every person he ever met - integrity, common sense, patience, and wisdom.
It seems like Jesus is inviting us to remember something similar about God when we begin a conversation with Him: our personal relationship with Him and Who He Is.
God invites us to call Him "Father" - and that is a close and loving relationship - but we are reminded of His name, and thus His reputation - "Yahweh" - the Creator, the One Who spoke to Abraham and Moses, Who sent His Only Son to take away our sins - a God slow to anger and abounding in love, righteous and holy.
And THAT is a good place to start the conversation.
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