short prayers

[BlackRain]

i just finished telling someone this:

i have nothing against long prayers, but sometimes i tend to get caught up in the words that i forget what i'm even praying about. i loose my consentration and start babbling about nothing. ha, it's hard for me to focus for more than about 5 mintues...sadly. i've resorted to short prayers, which are often very effective. short and repetitive! God doesn't care...

i read this a while back and it's been locked in ever since, "That we ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly, and imploring His assistance in our affairs, just as they happen. That God never failed to grant it, as he had often experienced."

pretty cool to think about how God is so powerful and holy and yet he still sees fit to tend to our needs. he can do anything he wants and he wants to spend time with us, his children. crazy!! i love it!!

 

[nhzname]

Amen. I know what you mean. Sometimes, especially if I'm tired, I tend to babble too much and lose track of what I started praying about. I find I am in conversation with the Lord all day anyway, so when I remind myself of that, I feel less pressure to sit and pray for a designated time everyday.

 

[repentandbelieve]

i just finished telling someone this:

i have nothing against long prayers, but sometimes i tend to get caught up in the words that i forget what i'm even praying about. i loose my consentration and start babbling about nothing. ha, it's hard for me to focus for more than about 5 mintues...sadly. i've resorted to short prayers, which are often very effective. short and repetitive! God doesn't care...

i read this a while back and it's been locked in ever since, "That we ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly, and imploring His assistance in our affairs, just as they happen. That God never failed to grant it, as he had often experienced."

pretty cool to think about how God is so powerful and holy and yet he still sees fit to tend to our needs. he can do anything he wants and he wants to spend time with us, his children. crazy!! i love it!!

Our prayers should be short and to the point. God does not require us to make tedious lengthy petitions. A few minutes is long enough for any ordinary public petition.

Many tedious prayers are offered, which are more like giving the Lord a lecture than presenting to Him a request. Long prayers are tiring to those who hear. Those in feeble health cannot endure this taxation without extreme weariness and exhaustion. Children are also wearied with long prayers and tedious exhortations. Long, dry, formal and mechanical prayers weary the angels.

In private prayer we have the privilege of praying as long as we desire and of being as explicit as we please. We can pray for all our relatives and friends. Let the long, tiresome petitions be left for the closet, if any have such to offer.

There may be instances in public where supplication is, in a special manner, called for by the Spirit of God. At such times it may be fitting that the petition be of greater length.

 

[LegomasterJC]

What bothers me are all the fillers that many people use in their prayers. It would be better to have silence in all those spaces of repeated "Lord", "Heavenly Father", "God", "Jesus", that are more taking the place of an "um" than they are addressing God. This is a minor distraction but a distraction none the less.

 

[Artos]

I like what the old hymn says about prayer:

(" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire")


Prayer is the burden of a sigh;
The falling of a tear;
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

So prayer can include physical prayer (sign of the cross), silent prayer, wordless prayer.....words are not necessary.

 

[StAnselm]

...as long as all this does not come out of laziness. Sometimes people pray "wordless prayers" because they can't be bothered getting their thoughts in order. Sometimes my prayers are short simply because I do not persist in prayer as Jesus commands me to.

And there are so many things that I forget to pray for. Yes, God knows them anyway. Yes, Jesus is praying on my behalf. Yes, the Spirit intercedes for me with groanings that words cannot express. But none of this excuses my laziness and luke-warmness.

But this really applies to private prayer. I agree with what repentandbelieve and LegomasterJC said about public prayers.

 

[StAnselm]

Long, dry, formal and mechanical prayers weary the angels.

Possibly, but is that in the Bible?

 

[repentandbelieve]

Possibly, but is that in the Bible?

Remember "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."(Matt 12:36&37)

When we become children of God, our names are written in the Lamb's book of life, and they remain there until the time of judgment. Opposite each name in the book of life is entered every thing we say (and do).

All heaven is interested in our salvation. The angels of God are among us marking the deeds of men. They record in the books of God's remembrance the words of faith, the acts of love, the humility of spirit.

 

[Artos]

...as long as all this does not come out of laziness. Sometimes people pray "wordless prayers" because they can't be bothered getting their thoughts in order. Sometimes my prayers are short simply because I do not persist in prayer as Jesus commands me to.

And there are so many things that I forget to pray for. Yes, God knows them anyway. Yes, Jesus is praying on my behalf. Yes, the Spirit intercedes for me with groanings that words cannot express. But none of this excuses my laziness and luke-warmness.

But this really applies to private prayer. I agree with what repentandbelieve and LegomasterJC said about public prayers.

Agree about laziness. But our culture is bombarded with so many words- there are times when silence speaks the heart better than the well phrased and parrot-ed words.

 

[LegomasterJC]

Father. Teach us to pray. Give us the words to speak and prompt us with the times we should speak or be silent. Amen.

 

[Artos]

Amen!

 

[BlackRain]

So prayer can include physical prayer (sign of the cross), silent prayer, wordless prayer.....words are not necessary.

i'm so thankful that we don't have to do anything specific to pray. we don't have to face a certain direction or say certain words. we don't have to say anything at all, as artos has put it above. i guess i've never thought about wordless prayers. the Lord does hear every sigh of give and he can tell when i'm leaping for joy...like today!

 

[holo]

Notice how Jesus didn't get into a long theological rant on the cross. He put it simply and perfectly. "It is finished."