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Prayer Watching

Have you ever noticed all the different styles of praying in a church? Observing these different styles of how people pray can be a lot like bird watching. In Scot McKnight’s Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he makes the following observations of different prayer categories:

Pious Paddy – You know how serious and holy he is through the extensive use of thee and thou, along with other words you haven't heard since you had to read Shakespeare in High School.

Repetitious Rollie – There is no confusion as to who Rollie is praying to because every possible pause in Rollie’s prayer is filled in with an "our Heavenly Father" or "Lord." Rollie just really wants to make sure his prayer is heard.

Informal Isabel – She comes to prayer and says whatever is on her mind. There is no filter to what comes out of her mouth, and it is probably going to be something that you’re not expecting to hear in a prayer.

Cliché Clarissa – The collection of cheesy sayings you would find on Christian t-shirts is the gold mine of phrases Clarissa uses in her prayers. She is loaded up with the clichés and is not afraid to use them.

Now I don’t make light of all the different ways people pray to try and discourage anyone from praying, but with all these different examples, how should we pray?

In our readings today, we hear Jesus give some pretty specific instructions on prayer. He’s hard on people who use prayer as a way to make themselves look good or think it’s about how we pray that gets us heard by God.

Prayer is not as much about us trying to convince God of something or to change His mind, but it is our opportunity to acknowledge and join what God is doing in the world. He has given us the Lord’s Prayer to anchor us in those realities in our prayer.

Prayer Prompts:

• Pray the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6:5-13.
• Praise God for all of His wonderful attributes that come to your mind.
• Thank Him for all the blessings He has provided in your life.