Sometimes we pray things we don’t want to mean, and prayers we don’t want to pray, especially when they are prayed in the moments it feels like peace has been taken from us. Though we pray them because we know we need to mean them and need to want to pray them.
For the last eight days and seven nights, our family escaped to the Dewey Beach area of Delaware for a much-needed family vacation. The breakaway from normalcy was needed and beautiful. We rented a house that we have used for the past three years, which overlooks the bay. The bay, ocean, and coastal beauty were a daily sight. We spent four of those days at the beach, swimming and sinking into Sabbath provided by the rhythm of sea, surf, sand, and seabreeze. This year, my mother also joined us, which made it even more meaningful. In addition to a needed break from the everyday pressures of life, I was able to start and complete three books for my doctoral research.
A Reminder To Rest
Let me take a sidetrack for a minute and share that as I grow older—and more worn from carrying the weight of dual roles in ministry and family pressures—I am more convinced than ever that Sabbath is not a luxury or an option, but rather a necessity of ministry and life. You and I are not machines. We are not endless on our own, with self-sustaining power like God. Humanity has been created with the need to create space to breathe, to reimagine, to remember who we are.
I wish I had the finances to make these getaways a more regular part of life. If you are not taking these getaways for re-creation (recreation), you need to be taking them. These moments are an investment in our souls, marriages, in our girls’ childhood memories, and in my ability to keep showing up for others in a world that rarely respects boundaries. Life will take from you, the more you get away and invest in your spiritual and personal wellbeing, the more prepared and restored you will be in those moments.
Coming Home to Chaos
Of course, returning from vacation brings its own set of stressors. There is the fighting through weekend traffic. Packing at the house, cleaning the house, and unpacking at home. There is catching up on the mail and bills. Returning from vacation means cleaning the house and picking up our dog from the Doggie Hotel. We were finally settling back into the rhythm of being “home” when Katie looked out the window and said, “Our tree is broken.”
A few weeks before we left, we had planted a small tree in our yard. It was about the fifth tree we’ve tried to plant around in that same spot in the ten years we have lived here. Our house is at the end of a row in a townhouse community here in Lancaster, and our yard has unfortunately become a popular shortcut.
Over the years, kids, lawnmowers, and passersby regularly cut through our yard, despite our repeated efforts to make it clear that this is a private space. Our garden has been trampled, snapped, or crushed. Our yard, situated at the end of a townhouse row, has become a shortcut for neighborhood kids, teenagers, and even adults. We’ve seen people sledding in the winter, digging in our garden beds, climbing our trees, and even getting into our vehicles and jumping on our closed pop-up camper. A neighbor even drove a car through! Once, we watched a group of kids throw balls against our siding, leaving visible dents. We’ve kindly asked people to stay out. We’ve talked with parents (who accused us of being racist). We’ve filed police reports. We even installed outdoor cameras to monitor the property and discourage further intrusion. Still, the trespassing continues. It’s disheartening, and what I have felt stolen from me is a safe and quiet place to rest.
Because each of our previous trees had been crushed—sometimes by accident, but mostly by the carelessness of others- this time, we did it right. We braced the tree with stakes. We placed logs around it to block off the area. The garden was extended to include the tree. Still, we returned to find the tree snapped in two.
The Weight of Repeated Trespass
As I scrolled through the security footage of our backyard, I counted about a dozen individuals—children, adults, even seniors—who had entered our backyard while we were away. All dozen (or so) walked through our garden beds rather than around them. Three guys just walked through looking in our trees and garden for who knows what reason.
Watching that footage, I found myself stressed and angry. Not just irritated, but emotionally tired. Tired of feeling like my home is not a safe place or a sanctuary. I was trespassed. When I am tired from working two jobs—pastoring at River Corner Church and walking alongside the homeless at Water Street Mission—I come home and find that even here, peace is disturbed. Not just disturbed, but feeling stolen from since damage was done to my property. Investments I have made in my yard, trashed.
All I wanted was to plant something lasting. Something that might grow shade and beauty long after we’re gone. But here I was, holding the broken twig again.
Wrestling with the Prayer
It is in moments like these that the line from the Lord’s Prayer haunts me, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12, NRSVUE). Some of us grew up learning this line of the Lord’s Prayer by using trespasses, or sins, rather than debts. Most translations say debt—and in the Greek, I believe that this may be closer to the intended meaning. My doctoral research even leans into this nuance: sin is a debt we incur with God and others. That being stated, I’ve always had an affinity for the word trespass. Maybe because it’s easier to spot or understand in our world. Here in this moment, this line haunts me, because I can name the literal brokenness, the footsteps in my garden, the violation of a boundary, the peace stolen, and the debt incurred to the investments of my yard.
I am not dumb. We all trespass. I know I’ve trespassed against others in my life, too—emotionally, relationally, even spiritually. It’s always easier to remember the trespasses of others than yourself, harder to hold on to grace, in those moments when you’re staring at the shattered branches of your good intentions.
When Prayer Becomes Resistance
A few years ago, I watched a video of singer/songwriter John Denver explaining how he learned to sign the Lord’s Prayer in a Native American visual language. When he reached the line about trespasses, he explained that they had no direct word for “trespass.” So they translated it as, “Those who take from you in the cover of night.” That phrase stood out to me then, and it continues to haunt me. This is a description of the effects of our sin on God, and each other, and it captures what I have experienced. I know where I feel trespassed. Where do you feel that others have taken from you in the cover of night? Where has your peace been disturbed? It’s easy to sit and stew in those violations. To relieve them. To justify our frustration. To build fences, post signs, and forward videos to the police. All of these thoughts are going through my head. Trust me, I understand the desire to do all of that, I’m also trying to hear the deeper invitation of Jesus. I am haunted by these words that call me to forgive those who have trespassed against me, who have stolen from me in the cover of night.
A Hard Prayer, A Healing Prayer
Even more than you and I, Jesus knew what it meant to be trespassed against and to be taken from. Jesus experienced what it means to be violated in ways both physical and spiritual. And even from the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34, NIV). That prayer Jesus prayed in no way excuses the harm or makes it okay. There is nothing about this prayer that pretends the pain isn’t real. However, this prayer does prevent the harm from having the final word. It will haunt you until you wrestle with the trespass and debt. Tonight, I find myself wrestling with this line of the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t want to pray it, but I need to, and perhaps you do too.
Where is God inviting you to resist the urge for retribution and instead pray painful prayers of forgiveness? Where is He inviting you to say, even with a clenched jaw and an aching heart, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us?”
A Quiet Life in a Loud World
As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you” (1 Thessalonians 4:11, NIV). This has been a verse for me for a few years. I want that quiet life. But sometimes, even that takes courage. So today, I am sipping my coffee, while I hold the broken tree in my hands and the trespassing of peace in my heart. And I pray the prayer I don’t want to pray. Because in the end, even the smallest seed of forgiveness might grow into the very tree that shades us all.
The Lord’s Prayer is deeply spiritual, yet it meets us in very tangible ways—shaping how we forgive, trust, and respond to life’s disruptions. It’s not just a prayer we recite, but one we live. For more reflections on how this prayer forms our daily lives, I invite you to visit my website, jeffmclain.com.
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