I am the world’s worst at praying. I do it regularly, that is not the problem. In fact I pray several times every day.
Most of you know I was not brought up in any church. My mom was raised Catholic until she turned 16 and her family converted to Baptist. My dad was raised Baptist. They actually met in a Baptist church. My dad actually thought about being a minister at one point in his life. He would go to prisons to preach and pray with the inmates. Then something happened and he just quit believing. No, it is more severe than that. He is actually more militant than that. He is anti-Christian and does not believe in anything. He has turned my mother the same way because she is so weak and lets him write down how she should vote and what to think and how to believe. So I grew up with no religious teachings of any kind although I always felt this spirituality inside of me.
I began trying to pray at about 12. It just seemed like the thing to do. Even now when I have doubts, and I do have them, bottom line I can not imagine a world without God. It scares me to even contemplate it for a second. But when I began to pray in my youth I had no clue what I was doing. I had no instruction, no role model and if my father realized I was praying he laughed at me for wasting my time and energy.
At 16 I “made a deal” with God. I wanted to be a cheerleader and I promised to pray every night for the rest of my life if He would grant my wish. Now I know that God is not a magic genie that grants three wishes but I did not really get it back then! I also know that you don’t “bargain” with God. But for whatever reason, God granted my wish and I have tried to live up to my promise and pray every night. It has been suggested to me that maybe God was generous to me in this instance to try to lead me into a life of prayer and forgave my innocence. I don’t know.
As I prayed last night I realized I am still pretty awful at praying. I have been in prayer groups, Bible studies, and lectures on prayer but I still don’t feel very good at it. I know the 5 finger trick, the breath prayer plan and more, but I still feel like I ramble on in a very unprayer like way most of the time. And do NOT ask me to pray out loud in a group!
Part of my problem is one of my major flaws in life in general. I feel the need to over explain everything. I send out a tweet or post on facebook and I then feel the urge to explain myself. After every conversation I analyze every word I said and want to get with the person again to explain what I meant. I don’t think I doubt the other person’s ability to understand, I just think I don’t tell things the way they should be told. So when I pray, I thank God but then want to tell Hm in depth everything that I am thankful for. Then I try to ask for specific requests that I again feel the need to explain in agonizing detail. Last night I thought to myself, “God already knows all of this! Why am I going on so?” Then I ask for forgiveness and again, go into detail with what I think I have done. And again, I think, “God already knows!”
Most nights I am bored before I say “amen” and figure God got bored and has moved on and I am just expounding to myself. If I were God I would have moved on for sure!!
A friend of mine at school prayed with me every night before The Bacchae. They were concise prayers that said everything and made me feel calm and loved, by God and my friend. I attribute her prayers to my being able to perform each night with minimal nerves and a fair amount of success. We turned it over to God. And even though the show was rather strange to many people, including my family, it felt holy by the time the prayer was over. Now that is knowing how to pray! She has the gift. I do not.
I think maybe for the new year I need to try to learn to pray, to be sensible and coherent, to make my prayer something that might actually keep God’s attention for a short amount of time. I know He is more patient and loving than I am but I REALLY don’t think even He can put up with my present prayer style. Pray for me!
