The Lord’s prayer (Luke 11:1-13) begins with two important words. Our, we, us is found throughout this the most perfect of all prayers. When we call God ours, he is not our God alone. Some people are offended by calling God a father, because they had an abusive earthly father and so substitute the word mother or prefer a gender-neutral word like parent, but there have been abusive mothers too and Jesus did not use parent but father. God does not describe himself with the metaphor of father to cause offense. He knows that no human parent is perfect. He wants us to understand perfect fatherhood through him. In Greek father means one who “imparts life.” In the Bible it does not refer to a “universal fatherhood” towards humanity, but to those in "intimate connection and relationship" with him.
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