So Be It

July 6, 2023

From Jackie Payne

I recently finished doing a study on the Lord’s Prayer. Many things stuck out to me, but one thing that really lingered was the meaning of the word Amen. I’ve never really thought about it and why we say it at the end of our prayers. I have said it countless times and have never stopped to think about its meaning.

Encyclopedia Britannica says, “The basic meaning of the Semitic root from which it is derived is ‘firm,’ ‘fixed,’ or ‘sure,’ and the related Hebrew verb also means ‘to be reliable’ and ‘to be trusted.’ The Greek Old Testament usually translates amen as ‘so be it’; in the English Bible it has frequently been rendered as ‘verily,’ or ‘truly.’

When we say “Amen” at the end of our prayers, we are affirming what we just prayed. We are saying that we agree God can handle all that we just asked of Him and agree with all the praise we just gave Him. It’s our way of putting our stamp of approval on all we just prayed.

The Daily Grace study that I did says, “We sow and we sleep, trusting Him with the ultimate results of all of our faith-filled utterances. Our requests remind us of our humanity while our amens remind us of God’s divinity.” (pg 74).

May all our “Amens”, be they public or private, remind us of who He is and put us in a posture of trusting and obeying our Great and Mighty God, who loves us and cares for us and can’t wait to spend eternity with us.