Your God is Not Big Enough
Hallowing Prayer (52 Ways to Pray)
“All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.”
AW Tozer
There’s a graveyard in my town that I love to walk through.
Situated in “Old Salem,” a historical district preserved from the 1700’s, the cemetery is a vast, rolling landscape of solemn beauty. I’ve spent countless hours pacing between graves there, praying, contemplating, listening for the Lord. It’s peaceful, and the headstones, each marked with a Psalm or some other scripture, read like a catalogue of victory and praise.
It is hallowed ground, which is to say that we have recognized it to be a sacred place.
The word “hallow” comes from the Old English halgian, which means “to make holy” or “to consecrate.” When we hallow the name of God, we do not make it holy—it is holy regardless of our thoughts about it. But we make it holy to us. We agree with and bow to the reality that God is holy. We subjugate our lives, our world, ourselves, to the holiness of the Most High. And then we live out of the overflow of that confession. Dare we not hallow God with our mouths and defame him with our lives.
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
Hallowing is the first thing we do in the Lord’s prayer. It’s an important statement of order. Before anything else can be said, we confess that God is holy. Everything else we pray is prayed in light of the hallowed name of God.
This same order is how our lives are meant to lived, too. Everything, always, done in reverence of the One who made us and sustains us. What if our days, our thoughts, our decisions, our responses, all began—as the Lord’s prayer does—with hallowing the name of the Lord?
“Here now the great need exists for which we ought to be most concerned, that this name have its proper honor, be esteemed holy and sublime as the greatest treasure and sanctuary that we have; and that as godly children we pray that the name of God, which is already holy in heaven, may also be and remain holy with us upon earth and in all the world.”
Martin Luther, The Large Catechism
So many of our present struggles are a symptom of “small God syndrome.”
In our broken, self-centered way of living, we shrink God down. The more we become the center of our world, the more God is banished to the edges. The bigger we become, the smaller God becomes to us.
We are not made to be the center. There is only suffering and self-hatred for us there. Anxiety, depression, and our litany of modern mental health crises are all in some way characterized by our self-centering. But when we step aside and welcome God into his rightful place at the center of it all, things change.
Hallowing is a discipline of de-centering ourselves and re-centering God.
“Some decades ago J. B. Phillips brought a great message to the Christian world in his book, Your God Is Too Small. But while the phrase “Your God is too small” is still used today, its message is usually misunderstood. The point is not “Your God is too small to meet your needs,” but “Your God is so small that you can fail to relentlessly worship and adore him.” In the renovated mind, God constantly stands as uniquely and supremely worthy. Hallowed be Thy name!”
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart
God is greater than we can possibly imagine. Our finite minds cannot come close to grasping the exceeding, infinite holiness of God. But let us try again, nonetheless.
There’s a tree in our front yard that my 4-year-old daughter loves to jump and reach for. She has never come close to touching the branches. But there’s something in the jumping. This is what we do when we practice the prayer of hallowing.
Practice
“In our astonished reverence, we confess thine uncreated loveliness.”
AW Tozer
Our Father
Pray the first stanza of the Lord’s Prayer over and over again like a meditation. Speak it aloud. Breathe it in and out.
“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” (Matthew 6:9)
(There are some things that the old school KJV just feels right for. This is one for me.)
The Sanctus
The Sanctus is part of the traditional Eucharistic prayer from Catholic tradition. It draws on scenes from Revelation, Isaiah, and Jesus’ triumphal entry.
This simple prayer, spoken by the church body for centuries, places us at the city gates, praising and welcoming in our Lord. It takes us to the end of days, when Jesus will return to finish the resurrection of creation. It is eschatological as much as it is doxological.
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
The Psalms
The Psalms are a treasure trove of adoration and hallowing. Choose a Psalm to recite daily, to meditate over, to impress upon your own heart.
A few recommendations:
Psalm 8 (Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!)
Psalm 29 (The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever.)
Psalm 33 (By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.)
Psalm 96 (Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary.)
Psalm 104 (He who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke.)
Psalm 145 (Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.)
Put these words on the walls of your home. Display them in your office. Emblazon them on your devices. Write them on your body. Let the greatness of our Lord be the banner over your life.
Amen.
Related:
Mirrors and Stars
There are few things more fundamental or more restorative than looking up and feeling small. It seems no coincidence that as our vision of creation has caved in, we have become larger in our own eyes. We are swollen selves at the center of a sad, shrinking universe. And we are miserable for it.
Love these prayer posts!
The gospel reading this morning was in Luke 18, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. I just listened to a reflection on this passage that talked about the Pharisee being “at the center” of his world, while the tax collector had placed God at the center, as you described it.
The Sanctus is sung in the Eucharistic liturgy, makes me ponder, what’s going on in heaven as we sing?!
Great list of Psalms…I like Psalm 90 as a good “God at the center” Psalm:
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Ps 90:1-2.