The Hallowed Be of Life and Leadership
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 for how we are to pray—not just for the sake of reciting words, but so we might pray a life-changing, day-changing, people-changing prayer.
What is your heart? What would it be like for
your day and your conversations, your impact and influence,
to be more greatly shaped by God’s presence?
In my teen years, very new to my faith in Christ, I came across a small book, then called, Open Windows, Swinging Doors, now called Letters by a Modern Mystic. It is a journal of letters by Frank Laubach, a missionary in the 1930s among 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?”
Laubach’s pursuit to stay in constant contact with God, to make Him the object of his thoughts and the companion of his conversations, shaped his prayers and his love for the people around him. He sought to live a non-compartmentalized life, a hallowed be prayer life merged with the tasks and endeavors of each day.
What practice or reminder would help you shift your awareness
toward God’s presence and hallowedness
in situations throughout your day?
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
How do you intentionally integrate the sacred and ordinary of your day? In what ways have you brought awareness of God’s presence into the moment of a conversation or a difficulty or when you are busy working and leading? We’d love to hear about your experiences as well as your thoughts and questions about this topic.
This is a revised post of an original post that appeared on The Leadership Institute’s blog
Image permission: Wikimedia Commons
0 Comments