The Lord’s Prayer & Building Secure Attachment (Day 0)

Or, Praying to the One Who Repairs our Ruptures

How do we build a secure attachment with God?
How do we become secure in God’s love for us?

Praying the “Lord’s Prayer”—the prayer that Jesus teaches us and is often called the “Our Father” prayer because of the opening words—helps us build a secure attachment with God.

But not necessarily in the way we might think.

This post is an introduction to an 8-part series on the Lord’s Prayer. Please subscribe so you don’t miss any posts.

Baptism and the Lord’s Prayer: Entrance into a New Family

In the early church, after your baptism, you would recite the Lord’s Prayer (see below).

This means the very first words out of your mouth after baptism were “Our Father…”.

This signaled the surpassing…

1. of your commitment to (or avoidance of or hatred toward) your biological family (the family typically bearing the father’s last name),

2. and your commitment to (or avoidance of or hatred toward) your national fatherland (the land of your nationality or political affiliation).

By praying the Lord’s Prayer after baptism—by speaking first of “Our Father”—you were declaring a commitment to

• a different Father,

• a different attachment relationship,

• a relationship that would transform all other relationships.

And praying to “Our Father” is as much a beginning as it the goal. 

We begin our spiritual journey by learning this prayer.  And this prayer tells us the goal of our spiritual journey right at the beginning—to truly know and experience God as a loving attachment figure.

But this spiritual journey to fully arrive at a secure attachment with God—a journey that travels through the rest of the Lord’s Prayer—is a journey through the ups and downs of the rest of our lives.

These ups and downs are the RUPTURES and REPAIRS of everyday life.

Secure Attachment through Rupture and Repair

Often we think that a secure relationship is one where there aren’t any ruptures.

That it’s smooth sailing all the time.

But that’s actually a fantasy.
No relationship, no matter how good, is like that.

In fact, we are out of sync, we are misattuned, we are disconnected from people 70% of the time.

A secure relationship is one where RUPTURES are REPAIRED.

As Dr. Ed Tronick and Dr. Claudia M. Gold say, “repair is the crux of human interactions.” The process of repairing physical, relational, and emotional distress “leads to a feeling of pleasure, trust, and security.” It builds the “implicit knowledge that I can overcome problems.” The practice of relational repair teaches that the negatives feelings created by a relaitonship rupture can be changes through repair (see The Power of Discord: Why the ups and downs of relationships are the secret to building intimacy, resilience, and trust).

It is these neurologically engrained processes of rupture and repair that build up a secure attachment default orientation to life that includes

• that others are available (faith),

• that this present distress will someday be alleviate (hope),

• and that you have a degree of agency in the world (love).

And the prayer Jesus gives us leads us on the paths of the One who repairs our ruptures. So this prayer is part of how Jesus envisioned helping us attach to God.

8-Week Series Starts Tomorrow

In the 8-part series (beginning tomorrow), we will look at the Lord’s Prayer as it teaches us how to pray to the One who Repairs Our Ruptures.

This series will be just for paid subscribers because it is still in development, and I want to get honest feedback and criticism.

The Lord’s Prayer (Translation by Frederick Dale Bruner)

Our Father who is in the heavens,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
       on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our failures
       as we, too, forgave those who failed us.
And don’t let us be led into any temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.