Thoughts About Prayer
Prayer.
I have been thinking a lot about prayer these last few days. When did prayer get to be so complicated?
When I was a kid, I went to a Catholic private school (for a few years anyway). For a brief time, we went to a Catholic church. While I was there, we learned several different prayers. As a matter of fact, you could not take your first communion until you had demonstrated a knowledge of several prayers and other doctrinal beliefs. Off the top of my head, I know there was the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Apostle’s Creed. I did not understand what I was memorizing, but I memorized those prayers anyway. Nobody stopped to explain these prayers to me. What do they mean? Why do we say these prayers? Have you looked at these prayers? There are some deep thoughts in here that little children might not understand.
At some point in our church history, there were many prayers added to the list of acceptable prayers. These were labeled “official.” To offer any other prayer besides the officially sanctioned prayers wasn’t necessarily wrong, it just wasn’t common practice. So what changed?
I would suggest that the change has been recent. In our recent church history, we have moved away from the liturgy and responsive readings towards a more relational prayer. That is to say, our prayers are less structured and have become more conversational. In other words, we simply talk to God.
Simple conversation. It sounds easy enough, right? Well, some people have difficulty striking up a conversation with a person that is right in front of them. How much more difficult is it when the person you are talking to is not seen, but is still there? Many adults struggle with this. Many children do also.
I can remember many times in various Church settings where the leader would pick someone to either open or close the gathering with a prayer. I was not the kind of person to jump and say “pick me! pick me!” Rather, I would utter a quick prayer that the leader would choose someone else.
Why? Why is that awkward?
I did not know how to pray the way that they are praying. Having only been exposed to prayers that come out of a book, praying from the heart was a foreign concept to me. How do I even begin? What do I say? If a writer can get writer’s block, I surely had prayer’s block. When I was called on to pray, my prayers were awkward and I stumbled through them.
I was intimidated. How can you be intimidated by prayer? If you have been to a church and had an opportunity to hear mature Christians pray, you might have experienced a strange phenomenon. When hearing a former pastor pray, His prayer would bring you into the presence of God. You could almost see the throne room when he prayed. This man definitely has a gift of prayer. His words are eloquent and beautiful and… well… mine aren’t.
I was afraid of what others would think. I don’t like to look like a fool. If I don’t know what I am doing, I like to research, see examples, and learn from others before I try it. With prayer, my mindset is the same way. I want to know what I am going to say before I try to say it. Besides looking like a fool, prayer in front of others is along the same lines as public speaking. If you are afraid to get up in front of a crowd and talk, well, public prayer is going to be that much more difficult.
So what can we do?
I do not know how to pray the way that they are praying.
Practice. Talking to God is just that: talking to God. Tell Him what you would tell your best friends. Had a good day? a bad day? a blah day? Tell God all about it. He wants to hear about it.
I was intimidated.
Don’t be afraid that your prayers aren’t as good as someone else’s. You are not praying for others to hear. You are praying to God. He does not compare your prayers to someone else’s. Your prayers matter, whatever they may sound like. To God, they are sweet and beautiful.
I was afraid of what others would think.
Again, you are praying to God, not to the “others.” The only opinion that should matter to you is the Lord’s. He loves your prayers!