I grew up in a home of memorized prayers. I’m not saying this is a bad or good thing, but it was my reality. Each night as my family sat down for dinner, a different family member would say,
Heavenly Father, we come to you in prayer to thank you for this food and ask you to bless it and make it nourishing to our bodies, we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
I first learned those words about the same time I learned to speak, and though I haven’t prayed them in years, I will probably remember them forever.
I grew up in church, so praying was never foreign to me. Even so, when I was young I remember having a certain aversion to praying out loud. Praying at meals and bedtime was one thing, but thinking up my own words was very much another. I felt lost without my prayer scripts. As I got older all of that slowly began to change, as God became more and more real to me. I prayed at church and with my family, but I also learned to pray on my own, to have my own conversations with God. I remember as a teenager loving to pray, and feeling free at the idea that I could pray however I wanted. No scripts, just me and God.
I fear I’ve lost that.
I still love to pray, but something has changed. I don’t regret the blessing of growing up in a Christian home, but just as the believer who comes to know Jesus late in life has their own particular set of battlefields, the Christian-from-birth sort of believer picks their way daily through the minefields of ruts, restlessness, and redundancy. I try to genuinely talk to God in my prayers—prayers of praise, of concession, of thankfulness, neediness, longing, and intercession—and though the situations always change the prayers all start to feel the same. It’s like I’m locked back into memorized scripts of pre-thought out words mechanically repeated in varying patterns. Sometimes when I’m talking to God I see myself as that old uncle who keeps telling the same stories over and over again. I’m only 27 and I can’t help but feel a little washed up.
I’m sure I’m not the first person to feel this way. I’m sure I’m not the only person to feel like this now. But in the midst of our Summer of Prayer it does feel painfully drawn to the surface. So what do I do about it? I suppose, I pray. And when I’m finished with that prayer, maybe start another.
-Lori Rice Council member, Worship and Arts
Beautiful thoughts, Lori! Now that I'm a mom and am teaching my kids the old stand-bys ("Now I lay me down to sleep..." and "Come Lord Jesus, Be our Guest....") I sometimes wonder if that is helping or hindering our kids as they grow in understanding of God. Of course, we also pray impromptu prayers too, but there is comfort in the repetition of the learned prayers, especially for a child.
ReplyDeleteBut you've put into words what I've felt--I'm just filling in the blank with specifics sometimes and the language I use can seem worn out and not as heartfelt as I'd like. But maybe it doesn't seem that way to God... I guess I'll ask Him someday.
I don't mean to sound trite, but maybe part of the problem is being stuck on "saying" prayers. When I feel this way, I stop talking. I try to listen instead.
ReplyDeleteErik Cave
I didn't realize we had a FirstCov blog, but I'm liking the idea.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Lori. I also sometimes feel lost in the redundancy of prayers--especially when I've been praying for someone to come to know the Lord for a long time.
One of the parables that seems strangest to me is the story in Luke 18 of the oppressed widow whose persistent pleas finally convince an indifferent ruler to grant her justice--so that she will not bother him any longer. Jesus implies that if a godless human ruler will ultimately acquiesce to the cries of his subjects, the God of all justice and goodness will surely respond to the prayers of his people.
Which is great, really...although it leaves me confused when I feel that I have been persistent in praying for what seems like something good--help for the hurting or faith for the faithless, for instance--and I don't see any response to my prayers. It does lead me to believe, however, that God isn't bored or frustrated with the repetition that sometimes stems from a heart earnestly seeking him.