My Pet Prayer Peeves.
By some miracle of space and time we find ourselves flung back to a Palestine some 1980 years ago. We stumble upon a gang of people assembled around another scruffy person, listening to him intently, asking questions and debating.
It dawns on us that we are looking at Jesus engaged in discussion with his disciples and we feel moved to address Him, to express the love and thanks we feel for all that He has meant to us. Here we go. This is our best extemporary effort.
“Precious Lord, we just really want to thank you Jesus, because, precious Jesus, you are just so amazing Lord, so truly wonderful, precious Saviour. You are the Lamb, the Almighty, the Everlasting Lord Lord……….” (this goes on in similar form for some time. The key elements are the words “just” and “really”, liberally sprinkled with various terms for Jesus and/or God all mixed together).
I have no issue with the intent behind the prayer (for thus it is), but where does our vocabulary go when we pray? We don’t talk like that to anyone else. I have this bizzare image of Jesus hearing us rabbiting on in this fashion and leaping to his feet to try to cast out the demon of “Weird Prayer Talk.”
I have the same problem with the established churches who seem to feel that, in order to pray effectively we must read from a book. Where does that come from?
Imagine the same group of people on a mountainside and we hike up towards them and, when we eventually get to them, we pull out a book and proceed to read to Him from the book. Wouldn’t he look puzzled and start to look around wondering who we were speaking to? Why read from a book – He’s sitting right there listening to you, trying to engage in conversation.
I guess that is my peeve. I feel that prayer is about communication and discussion but we never seem to stop talking long enough for God to get a word in. If we are talking with the Creator of all things, then perhaps a sense of perspective might descend upon us and we might realise that our words might not be contributing much; perhaps our listening might be a more useful tool.
I know God hears every prayer from a grateful heart and hears it with love. But is that a good excuse to be so awful at it?
Leon I just, wanna really just thank you dear leon, for just...being awesome in this blogsite and posting such awesome stuff like this dear leon, really just wanna say you're awesome - hahaha I joke I joke, but i hear ya! and I have said such prayers myself before (cringe). But I like this thought "where does or vocab go when we pray?" and about listening more and glad to see that you make a point of mentioning that what is in the 'intent' / heart is what counts.
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