A Childhood Prayer
Scripture Reading — Luke 23:44-49
Jesus called out … “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Luke 23:46
The first bedtime prayer I was taught by my parents was “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
In Jesus’ day, little Jewish children were also taught a prayer. Every night, in houses all across the countryside, little children would pray the words of Psalm
31:5: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” As parents tucked little ones in to bed, each child spoke those comforting words of trust in the Lord. It’s likely that Jesus too was taught that prayer as a child. And some thirty years later it was the last thing he said before he took his last breath.
On the cross Jesus had reached the climax and the end of his entire mission. And as he took his dying breath, his final words were the words of that prayer he learned at his mother’s knee: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
That’s the type of trust we’re all called to. Jesus had taught earlier that “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15). Jesus approached his Father both in life and in death with that simple childlike trust: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Father in heaven, teach me to trust in you with childlike faith. In life and in death, I want to commit my body, mind, and spirit into your trustworthy hands. Amen.
About the author — Shawn Brix
Rev. Shawn Brix has served as pastor in several Ontario churches. He and his wife, Jenny, have three children.
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