Pray...

Since when did "pray continuely" mean babble to God? I don't know why it gets under my skin so bad but it drives me nuts when people try to sound spritual in there prayer and then when they decide to go on and on. They make up phrases that sound spiritual but for the life of me I can't figure out what they are trying to say or where they got it from. Yet they get moos from the rest of the room.

Let's pause for a second and talk about the "Moos". I used to love them. In fact I would try to pray the prayers that would get the Moos. It made be feel like a great pray-er. I was so tempted to pray more to the moos than I did to the heavenly father. Many times I did. I don't want to completyly slam the moos though. I think at times they can be apropriate to aggree with someone in prayer but I also feel that more times than not the get out of hand.

So back to the prayer continuely. Personally I think that we have it all wrong. It is my experience that when we pray for extended periods of time all we do is ask, ask, ask. It seems like all it is is a request fest. We miss the context of the instruction to pray. Paul says "be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances..." He says be joyful and thankful. When we pray for hours we should spend the majority of our time being thankful, not complaining about our current curcumstance, and what we need more of.

I think it is time that we return to the Jesus teaching on prayer:

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

"This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right
Do what's best—
as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You're in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You're ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.

That's simple. We should pray like that. We should always be thankful, be honest and keep from babbling. I think it is time we re-examine which prayers/prayer-warriors we are modeling ourselves after.