Way to Pray!!!

Have you ever been called on to pray publicly and had someone compliment you on your prayer afterwards? They might say that you “did a good job” “said a lovely prayer” or “that was great”.  Am I the only one to find that strange? I mean you do not walk up to someone after hearing their conversation and say “Way to Talk!!!” “way to put those words into….ummmm.. sentences and…..ummm paragraphs to complete ideas  and way to use your….  errrr…..mouth to say it.

I know. I am being silly but the point is that when we pray instead of being focused on God  we have the habit of trying to sound prestigious. In the church we have found that if we string a bunch of over used cliches together and throw in some King’s English people will compliment us and call on us to pray more.

I have been trying very hard to break that pattern. I have focused on praying conversationally with God as if I were talking with a person face to face.  I want to be honest and transparent before God and I don’t care if  I sound eloquent or not  that isn’t the purpose of prayer anyway and if we practice these habits we accomplish nothing and get nowhere in our realtionship with God.