The Lord's Prayer (For Sportspeople)Sample

To be “hallowed” means to be exalted, respected, and praised.

Today you may be one of the handful of athletes or coaches competing in a large stadium full of fans. If it goes well then hundreds or thousands could be ‘hallowing’ you in public. For others, a superior performance may see you being exalted on social media, the local radio, or newspaper. For most of us, the ‘hallowing’ might simply be respect and praise from a teammate or opponent in the bar after the game.

How shall we pray that our Father in heaven is “hallowed,” that is exalted, respected, and praised at today’s game?

One of the biggest mistakes we see in sports is when successful athletes praise God for their successful performance. Yes, I do mean what I’ve just written!

The first reason I think this is a mistake is that you rarely, if ever, hear sportspeople praise God for their failure after a game. Yet, if God is in control of our sporting lives and uses success and failure to draw us closer to himself, we ought to “hallow” God in all sporting circumstances.

Secondly, we must not be so vain as to think that God needs anything from us to make him look good. He doesn’t. Listen to how Paul the apostle talks about what God needs from us in Acts 17:24-25:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

We might informally translate Paul like this:

“Don’t begin to think that your victory or your brilliant performance will somehow add glory to the eternal creator of a hundred billion galaxies. Nothing you’ve done on the sports field today can add to his glory.”

So, what does it mean to pray that God’s name would be ‘hallowed’ through us at today’s game?

Jesus, please serve us.

The answer may come as a great surprise. In Mark 10:45 Jesus says that he “did not come to be served but to serve and to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus didn’t come to be served by you! God is hallowed in your sport today in the most remarkable way. His being exalted has nothing to do with how brilliant or successful you are. It doesn’t have anything to do with how morally good you are or whether you witness to him or not today.

Instead, God wants us to understand and experience that he is hallowed by serving us. When we pray this way, we are asking our Father in Heaven to shine through us with his strength and power. This is the way to hallow God’s name.

Go play.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, you have come to serve me, I don’t have the ability to serve you. Please serve me in my sport today. Please help and support me be the person you made me to be. Serve me today, by your Spirit, so I may flourish and enjoy competing today. That I may be gracious and humble in victory and respectful in defeat. Can you, my heavenly Father, give me the strength to do that in my sport today?

Amen.