The Lord’s Prayer Is Changing Me

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

At the beginning of the year, I decided to focus on my prayer life. As the calendar turns over, Christians often recommit to more Bible reading. I’m no perfect Scripture reader, but I read/listened to the whole Bible last year and I’ve known for a while that my prayer life needs attention. So this year I wanted to grow in prayer while still taking in the Bible.

I am using Trevin Wax’s Psalms in 30 Days. This book outlines three prayers each day (morning, midday, and evening) that structure prayer around Scripture, confessions, and historic prayers of the church. And, of course, the readings cycle through all 150 Psalms in 30 days.

This little prayer book has been a remarkable help to my spiritual life. Though I have not consistently prayed three times every day, I have finished the book and started it again. The structured prayers—far from making my prayer life stuffy or hollow—have given me needed words and momentum.

The most surprising effect of this prayer book has been my interaction with the Lord’s Prayer. Wax has included the Lord’s Prayer in every prayer time. When I first realized this, I was surprised. I was convinced that the Lord’s Prayer (or personal, ad hoc prayers that draw on the same categories) was meant to be prayed daily. But three times per day seemed…excessive, maybe?

But I have grown to love praying the Lord’s Prayer frequently.

The Beauty of the Lord’s Prayer

Here are five things I love about this prayer.

I am part of something larger. I pray this prayer as an individual, but the prayer contains several collective pronouns: “Our Father,” “Give us this day our daily bread,” “forgive us our debts,” “lead us,” and “deliver us.” This is a prayer for all of God’s people.

I need daily bread and daily forgiveness. I need daily bread because I rely on God to supply me with everything. I need daily forgiveness because I sin against God and others so often. These facts are obvious, but this prayer reminds me what is true (and humbling).

Lead us NOT. I love the phrasing in the sixth petition. This might have been phrased “do not lead us into temptation.” The traditional phrasing is much better in my mind: “lead us not into temptation.” That “not” is disruptive and definitive. It reminds me that God leads me and that because of the ways my feet tend to walk, I desperately need this leading to be away from temptation.

The evil one is real. Wax follows the CSB translation in the sixth petition: “deliver us from the evil one.” This reminds me that the devil is a powerful enemy from whom I need protection and deliverance.

I am longing more for God’s kingdom. As I repeat the first and second petitions of the Lord’s Prayer (“Hallowed be your name; your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”), I cannot help but long for these things to be true. What would it look like if I hallowed God’s name more? How can I help others so that God’s will is done more completely and immediately on earth?

Prayer Affects Us

This is the biggest effect the Lord’s Prayer has been having on me—shaping my desires to match the Lord’s. I’m a work in progress, but by God’s grace I think I’m pointing in a good direction, since this is one of the ways prayer is supposed to change us.

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Links for the Weekend (2025-07-04)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Where to Find Your Happy Place

How do we explain joys that serve no specific function? Andrew Wilson offers an explanation centered in the presence of God.

In the same way, joy in this world is located wherever God is present, in Christ by his Spirit, rather than wherever painful things are absent. It could be in a Galilean boat battered by the waves; it could be in the sorrow and confusion of an upper-room farewell, in the injustice of a Jerusalem kangaroo court, in the stocks of a Philippian jail; it could be in the isolation of exile on the island of Patmos. As sad as the circumstances may be, if God is present then delight is available. Joy is found through presence, not just absence. Happiness is more about the presence of Christ than the absence of crisis.

Did God Forgive Me If I Don’t Feel Forgiven?

John Piper tackles two related questions in this episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast (the transcript is available). Can someone who turns away from Christ return and be forgiven? Also, what should we do if we struggle to feel forgiven?

Dear friend, rehearse the mercies of God over and over. Never take your eyes off of Christ crucified, because Romans 5:8 tells us that’s where God spoke most loudly about his love: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That’s where he puts it on display. So, don’t take your eyes off the love of God in Christ crucified.

En Pointe

Our poem of the week: En Pointe, by Lesley Clinton. This poem celebrates dance and the transcendence of art.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-06-27)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Honoring God With Your Body: More Than a Health Goal

Staci Eastin helps us think about caring for our bodies in a way that glorifies God.

Our bodies are not projects to perfect, but gifts to steward. The way we eat, rest, and move isn’t just physical—it’s spiritual. As Paul reminds is in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we should honor God with them. Our bodies are the means by which we carry out the acts of service he has called us to. Our bodies allow us to enjoy the good gifts he gives us.

The Freedom of Being Seen by Christ

Alan Noble takes us to the Samaritan woman in John 4 to discuss the freedom that is found in being known completely by Jesus.

But like the Samaritan woman, we are free to be seen by Christ and unburden ourselves before him because he has already seen all that we have ever done and all that has ever been done to us and he loves us. He desires us to repent and mature in holiness. We never have to be ashamed or afraid of bringing our problems before him. We stand revealed before an all-knowing God who has also died for us because he first loved us. Perfect love and perfect knowing meet in Christ. And so the desire to be known and the fear of being known no longer need to be held in tension for the Christian. It’s resolved in the deity of Christ.

Sunburn

Our poem of the week: Sunburn, by Ange Mlinko. This is a short poem about sunburn and the longing for snow.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called A Guaranteed Way to Grow in Biblical Hope. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

A Guaranteed Way to Grow in Biblical Hope

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

When I sit down for breakfast, I don’t think much about my chair. My simple, wooden, dining table chair has always been solid, and I am far more concerned about spilling my tea or stepping on the cat than I am about my chair. The past sturdiness of my chair gives me confidence about the future sturdiness of my chair.

This track-record link between the past and the future is important when we as Christians consider God. As we seek out ways to grow in hope, in this post we’ll find instruction in an aside found in Romans 15.

The Context: a United People

In Romans 14, Paul warns against passing judgment on or despising others. He commands the people not to put stumbling blocks in anyone’s way.

As Romans 15 opens, Paul exhorts the people to please their neighbors, not themselves (Romans 15:1-2). He notes that Christ did not please himself but took reproach on himself for the sake of others (Romans 15:3). Paul quoted Psalm 69:9 to show the Romans that Jesus’s work fulfilled an Old Testament foreshadowing.

Here is the aside that follows this reasoning.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

I say this is an aside because while Romans 15:5 references verse 4 (see “endurance” and “encouragement”), the themes of unity and welcoming dominate the rest of Romans 15:5–7. This section of Paul’s letter is not primarily about how we use the Scriptures.

How the Scriptures Give Hope

However, what Paul writes here as an aside is quite interesting, particularly to someone who has been writing about hope for no small amount of time. We can learn several things from Paul’s comment.

First, what was written has been written for our instruction. The Law, the Writings, and the Prophets are not just dusty, historical documents. We are naïve and we need instruction, and the writings of the Old Testament give us just that.

Specifically, the result of this instruction is hope for God’s people. These writings should help us endure, and the Scriptures should encourage us to hope.

I’ve been defining biblical hope as the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises. If that’s correct, then we can make some sense of why Paul’s mind went to this comment after quoting a Psalm about Christ.

Paul notes that Scripture is being fulfilled in the way Christ did not please himself. The same God that kept this promise will keep all of his promises. And this is why we can have hope.

Much like the faithful wooden chair, when we see example after example of God keeping his promises, we can lean into other promises with expectation. We don’t need to question or wonder if he will come through. He is a promise-keeping God, so when he makes promises to his people, he will keep them. That’s who he is.

A Lens for Reading

Even though it is an aside in his larger argument, Paul provides us with a way to grow in hope. When we read the Old Testament, we can take note of the promises God makes to his people. Not all of these promises will have an obvious fulfillment found elsewhere in the Bible, but many will.

When we encounter such fulfilled promises, we can take a small moment to praise and thank God. Our future hope, ultimately, is based on his faithfulness and his unchanging nature.

Then, when we encounter a promise that is yet to be fulfilled, we can remind ourselves of the God who promised. And maybe, perhaps, our minds can run ahead a bit to imagine what the world will look like when he keeps this specific promise.

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Links for the Weekend (2025-06-20)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Know Your (Teenage) Child’s Frame

Cara Ray wrote a helpful article about loving the teenagers in our families (and our churches!).

The changing teenage frame can be as mysterious as it is wonderful. As parents, we sometimes have mixed feelings about entering this season, which can be marked by tension and the tendency to pull away from one another. Knowing our teenagers’ frame and how God kindly remembers ours helps us move toward them as fellow strugglers and sufferers with compassion and grace. We don’t always know how to respond to our teens, but with God as our perfect Father and model, we can rest confident that everything will ultimately be “just fine.”

You Need Context When Reading the Bible

Here is an article explaining the different contexts that matter when reading the Bible. All are important!

Unfortunately, when we come to the Bible, we all too often do something very similar to what your friend did with your words: we take verses and passages from Scripture and rip them out of their proper context. Sadly, I believe that people tend to do this with the Bible even more than with other books that they read. Many times, people do this with good intentions. They are seeking to find a word of encouragement for their day, an inspiring quote for a friend, or a devotional thought to share with a small group, sports team, or business gathering. They read quickly, find a verse or verses that seem to work, and grab them and go, only to discover later that they wrongly interpreted verses by missing their broader context. Despite their good intentions, such disregard for context can often result in the abuse—and misuse—of the word of God.

Merry Mind

Our poem of the week: Merry Mind, by Sherry Poff. This poem, part of The Clayjar Review’s issue on mirth, asks the reader to think about what the mind of God must be like to have made some of the wonderful (and absurd) things on earth.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-06-13)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

How Do I Leave My Sin at the Foot of the Cross?

Katie Laitkep offers some advice related to this common Christian expression: leaving your sin at the cross.

You must continue to rely on Jesus for everything—day by day, moment by moment. This is the part we often get wrong. We start out at the cross, knowing we’re in need of God’s mercy, but then we begin to drift––trying to manage, fix, or perfect ourselves apart from the grace that saved us. We proclaim the first part of Galatians 2:20 with our lips: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” But if our lives told the story, they might read more like this: “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God controlling everything myself.”

Taking a Closer Look at Psalm 22

Daniel Stevens offers a helpful overview of Psalm 22 and then looks at the way the author of Hebrews quotes this psalm. (There is a video accompanying this article.)

And even for apologetic purposes, Psalm 22 often gets used because here, in this psalm of David, we do seem to have a description of Jesus’s death at the crucifixion—that his joints are stretched out, his heart melts away like wax, and we even find within it people dividing his garments and casting lots (Ps. 22:18). So Psalm 22 does meet us with the crucifixion scene. It is a prophecy, even as it is a psalm, telling us of how Jesus was to die. And Jesus wanted us to see it that way.

Battling Negative Body Image

Many Christians—indeed many humans—struggle with negative body image. However, Christians have tools to combat such negative messages.

The trouble is that a negative body image rarely remains contained to occasional frustration—it quickly grows to impact how we function. Adverse thoughts about how our bodies look often spur negative feelings about ourselves—about our value, our ability to contribute to society, and even our perception of our worth to others. To make things worse, those feelings may even lead to bodily harm as a way to cope with difficult emotions or to force our bodies to measure up to the desired ideal.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Joy: An Engine of Christian Hope. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Joy: An Engine of Christian Hope

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

In sorrow, we reach for hope because we see how far we are from the fulfillment of God’s promises. We can harness this distance to long for what we do not have.

Joy is a more pleasant path to hope. We can turn God’s delightful provisions into opportunities for hope: we have a small taste now of the promised full experience yet to come and we can train ourselves to look ahead.

The joyful engine of hope can be dangerous, however. Few of us are tempted to seek out sorrow in order to grow in hope, yet that is a pitfall where joy is concerned. We may delight in the person, experience, feeling, or blessing of God so much that we forget it is from God. Many people have valued the gift over the Giver and so put their hearts in peril.

May we all grow in Christian hope, seeing in each blessing the future that is to come. Here are three concrete examples, in which I link joyful experiences to what God has promised about the future.

Feasting

It’s no accident that almost every celebration involves good food, where we elevate meals from mere sustenance to something special and delicious. It should be no surprise that the Bible points to a grand feast in the new earth.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (Revelation 19:6–9)

When God’s people (the Bride) are united with his Son (the Lamb), the celebration will be glorious, and it will involve food. When we are gathered around a joyful table now, we can catch the scent of the wonderful aromas to come.

Fellowship

Most Christians have probably shared conversations or experiences with other believers that leave them overflowing with gratitude. There’s nothing like connecting with others who share the deepest and highest desires of our hearts.

And while “fellow pilgrims” are given to us in this life for encouragement and help, we don’t leave fellowship behind at death. We will also have friends and companions in the new earth.

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. (2 Corinthians 4:13–14)

We will go with others into the presence of God.

When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, (Matthew 8:10–11)

As God gathers in those from many nations, they will “recline at table’ with each other and with the patriarchs.

The sweet fellowship we share with others in Christ on earth is a foretaste of our heavenly communion.

Rest

If we could bottle up the feelings of contentment, relaxation, and peace that come on vacation, we’d have a best-selling product on our hands. Even a weekend or a long night of uninterrupted sleep can be an enormous blessing.

This is the blessing of reprieve. Broadly speaking, we are looking for relief from the curse pronounced to our first parents in the garden. As many have noted, this is not the curse of work, but it is a curse upon work. And sometimes we groan under those thorns and thistles when we just want to make it through another day.

Rest is good, and it offers a glimpse of heaven.

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. (Revelation 22:3)

It’s hard for us even to imagine a world in which nothing is cursed, but such a world is coming!

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:8–10)

We need not work for our salvation; Jesus’s work accomplishes this for us. This rest pictures the Sabbath rest for God’s people. As tired and worn out and frustrated as you feel now, there is rest for you in the future.

Joy to Hope

All of the joys God gives us in this life are blessings by themselves.

But many of these joys are joyful precisely because they give us a small picture of larger masterpiece. If hope is the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises, then these small, temporary blessings can direct our attention to our fuller, lasting future.

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Links for the Weekend (2025-06-06)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Is There a Future for Church Grandpas and Grandmas?

Trevin Wax reflects on his family history of Bible readers and wants to cast a vision for creating future church grandmas and grandpas.

The beautiful truth about church grandparents is that anyone can become a super-reader of the Bible. You don’t need a degree. My grandparents weren’t part of the “knowledge class.” Some went to college; others didn’t. Some read widely; others were content with Reader’s Digest or the latest from John Grisham. I probably won’t be discussing Dostoevsky’s The Idiot or Kierkegaard’s existentialism with my grandmothers anytime soon. But we sure can talk about the Gospels. They know the stories of Jesus backward and forward. They’ve immersed themselves in the Psalms. They explore the Epistles as regularly and perhaps more reverently than most New Testament scholars. The Bible is life to them.

How do I encourage and help my child who is shy and anxious in social situations?

Here’s a helpful video from a CCEF counselor about how to help children who are shy and anxious. (There is a video with a transcript at this link.)

So preparing ahead of time is going to be essential. And how do you prepare? What do you do? Well, it’s helpful to encourage your son or daughter to put into words both what scares them in these settings and what they want to have happen, what they want to do in that particular setting that they’re going into. And when you start to talk to your son or daughter about what’s going on inside, what they’re fearing, what scares them, and what they’re looking forward to, well, you’ll see essentially two things, both fears and then desires.

Where Two Are Gathered

Our poem of the week: Where Two Are Gathered, by Coby Dolloff. This poem reflects on the presence of the Holy Spirit when Christians gather together.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-05-30)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Four Good Questions To Ask Your Tech

The last of these four questions, posed by Tim Challies, is especially important: What are you doing to my heart? These are important questions to ask of our technology, and I fear we think about such things too infrequently.

The wise consumer of technology will realize that the technology he uses today, the technology he has come to love and depend on, will have unintended consequences in his life and in the world around him. He will look not just to the technology itself but to the function for which it was created, the problem it was originally supposed to address.

Listening is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do

This writer thinks that intense listening to other people might be on the decline. He offers an exhortation to pay attention in our conversations.

The more you learn to listen and put this into practice, the more people will tell you. They will feel heard. You might have deeper conversations with your spouse or your parents or your kids. All it takes is some effort and the attitude to place others first.

A Sonnet for Ascension Day

Our poem of the week: A Sonnet for Ascension Day, by Malcolm Guite. I especially like the repetition of singing through this sonnet.

    On the WPCA Blog This Week

    This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Jesus Takes Office Through His Resurrection. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

    Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

    Jesus Takes Office Through His Resurrection

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

    The Christian faith is based in history. Jesus of Nazareth was a man who lived, died, and came back from the dead.

    These are historical claims of fact, and Christianity rests on the truth of these claims. As Paul wrote, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

    Jesus’s resurrection is central to our faith and has scores of implications for Christians throughout the ages. But in this post I want to direct our attention to what Jesus’s resurrection tells us about Jesus himself and the offices he occupies.

    Jesus is a Prophet

    While it is true that Jesus is The Prophet, the one spoken of by Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15–19), that is not my present concern. In this post, I’ll only argue that Jesus was confirmed as a prophet of God by his resurrection.

    Jesus predicted his suffering, death, and resurrection multiple times (see Luke 9:22 and Luke 18:31–33 among other places). Further, the two men at the tomb told the women,

    “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” (Luke 24:5–7)

    These prophecies were a regular part of Jesus’s teaching. His contemporaries recognized that Jesus was a prophet, and the Old Testament teaching on prophets is clear: false prophets can be identified when prophecies do not come to pass.

    This means that Jesus’s credibility was on the line on the third day after his death. His resurrection proved that he was a true prophet of God.

    Jesus is a Priest

    The book of Hebrews spends a lot of time explaining that Jesus is a priest. The author contrasts the priesthood of Aaron (the Levitical priesthood) with the priesthood of Melchizedek and concludes that Jesus is a priest of the second kind.

    How was Jesus qualified for this priesthood?

    This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 7:15–17)

    Jesus’s resurrection proved his “indestructible life”—he was victorious over death and therefore stepped into his eternal priesthood. In his death, Jesus was both priest and sacrifice (Hebrews 7:27), and he now lives to make priestly intercession for his people (Hebrews 7:25).

    Jesus is a King

    Jesus’s resurrection declared him to be the king of the world.

    Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 1:1–4)

    Paul writes that Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God … by his resurrection from the dead.” The title “Son of God” was, in part, a royal title, so Paul is connecting Jesus’s resurrection to his kingly office. (I have written more about the title “Son of God” and its use in the Gospels; you can find that post here.)

    The Centrality of the Resurrection

    It is not a stretch to start with Jesus being a prophet, a priest, and a king and end with the fact that he is the prophet, the priest, and the king. In other words, Jesus occupies these offices in a way that is so unique, powerful, and unending that there can be no comparison with other human prophets, priests, or kings.

    The resurrection of Jesus starts us down that road. In addition to being a necessity for our faith, Jesus’s resurrection reveals some of the historical and ongoing work that he does for his people.

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