The Lord's Prayer

I try to pay attention to the thoughts that pop into my head while I'm praying, and here's one I thought worth sharing: as I was praying the Lord's Prayer this morning, I realized that, given the number of Christians there are on the planet, and given how universal the Lord's Prayer is, the odds are that someone else, somewhere, was praying that prayer (thought probably in a language other than English) at the exact moment that I was. Private prayer is normally just that, you and God, and Jesus encouraged that: "But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." (Matthew 6:6) But I realized this morning that private prayer is not completely personal, that at any given moment my prayers are joined with the prayers of thousands of others all over the world--and I find that thought exciting.