Is There a Right Way to Pray (Part 2)
I've cut short on some thoughts and posts on other occasions--after all, this blog is just about my unscripted thoughts and scribbles--but this topic keeps coming up maybe because I'm praying in front of people. Is there a right way to pray?
The simple answer--no.
But, there are things that we do in prayer that are so mechanical, so formulaic that it goes against the very meaning, purpose, and nature of prayer which should be all about relationship.
We pray like He is not really there. For example:
DEAR GOD...
It's actually quite sentimental, but we usually use "dear" as a greeting in letters to someone that is distant or away. There's nothing wrong with it, just saying when we address a personal God we should approach Him in a way that acknowledges that we truly do believe He is Immanuel--God with us. I personally get bothered by this because I catch myself praying in front of kids in this way, modeling for them what I was shown when I was a kid. I want them to know that God is real, God is near, God is here.
I need the most help with this one.
Why do we close our eyes, bow our heads, clasp our hands? It's because naturally, I'm not attuned to God. Everything in me wants to focus on what is seen and tangible. There's nothing wrong with closing our eyes to focus, to bow our heads in reverence, to clasp our hands in unity--as long as you know and exercise its purpose.
PLEASE BE WITH...
The funny thing is, we address God and then ask Him to be with us. What are we trying to say when we ask Him to be "with us"? I think it's just our way of asking God to be near to us because we are often so far from him. It's in praying these words that I'm reminded that there is nothing about me that wanted to be with God, that deserved to be with God, that I was lost and was only found because He gave His Son for me. So instead of asking God to be near, which He already is, maybe our prayer should reflect our confession of how distant we and others are from Him and that nothing can bridge that gap apart from His salvific work on the cross.
PLEASE WATCH OVER US...
When I say funny, I actually mean sad, but the funniest thing is that on top of the previous two we also ask Him to "watch" over things as if He has no power whatsoever to do anything about the things we ask Him to do. We pray unexpectantly because so many of our expectations have been cut short. Watch? This is the deistic outlook on God's sovereignty--that God set everything in motion but is now taking a back seat and just watches things unfold, powerless to intervene in the history of mankind because that would go against our free will.
We could say all sorts of stuff about free will, but that's probably best left for another post which I may or may not get to. But here is the good news. That even though our prayers are probably formulaic at best, it is possible to have a relationship with Him because He was the one that reconciled us to Himself. And in terms of prayer, I think Romans 8:26b-28 (NIV)says it best:
We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
