Hallowed be Thy name in Industry:
God be in my hands and in my making.
Holy, Holy, Holy; Lord God of Hosts;
Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory.
The above is one from a set of prayer panels preserved from the 14th century cathedral ruins of St. Michael in Coventry, England. Each prayer invites the fusion of the holiness and presence of God with all our daily endeavors and experience.
Jesus gave what we now call The Lord?s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), including the phrase ?Hallowed be Thy name,? as a model of how we are to pray?not just for the sake of reciting words, but so that we might pray a life-changing, day-changing, people-changing prayer.
In my teen years, very new to my faith in Christ, I ran across a small book, then called, Open Windows, Swinging Doors, now called Letters by a Modern Mystic. It is the journal of Frank Laubach, a missionary in the 1930s to the Maranao people of the Philippines. I was stirred by the meaningful challenge I found in his prayer, ?Fill my mind with Thy mind to the last crevice,? and in his many questions, including, ?Can a laboring man successfully attain this continuous surrender to God??
Can there be integration where the holy and sacred are taken out of a time or situation-consigned box and the name of the Father is honored in everything we are and do? Can there be that ?hallowed be? surrender and leaning into the permeation of His Spirit throughout all things in all of our day? In our leadership, work and influence? In each thought, conversation and task?
This, I believe, is the hope and prayer of many of us who follow and serve Christ. Looking further into the prayer panels from the Coventry Cathedral, perhaps we can find inspiration in shaping the ?hallowed be? portion of our daily prayer toward greater consistency of God?s presence in all we do:
Hallowed be Thy name in industry.
God be in my hands and in my making.
Hallowed be Thy name in arts.
God be in my senses and in my creating.
Hallowed be Thy name at home.
God be in my heart and in my loving.
Hallowed be Thy name in commerce.
God be in my desk and in my trading.
Hallowed be Thy name in suffering.
God be in my pain and in my enduring.
Hallowed be Thy name in Government.
God be in my plans and in my deciding.
Hallowed be Thy name in education.
God be in my mind and in my growing.
Hallowed by Thy name in recreation.
God be in my limbs and in my leisure.
(Refrain prayed after each section)
Holy, Holy, Holy; Lord God of Hosts;
Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory
Image permission: Wikimedia Commons
