I know many people who are beautiful pray-ers. They\u2019re the people who sound like professional public speakers, who never stumble over their words, and who invoke \u201cAmens\u201d and \u201cYes, Lords\u201d from those around them during the prayer. It is beautiful; I love hearing it. At the same time, though, it never fails to make my heart ache because I think that there\u2019s no way I\u2019ll ever be able to pray like that.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how my prayers usually go: God, I don\u2019t really know what to say. I\u2019m just [insert emotion here] and I don\u2019t know what to do. Can you just do something to help me with what I\u2019m going through?<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s usually all I can get out, and sometimes not even that. So when I look at others in my life who seem to be effortlessly connected to God, and then at my own feeble attempts at prayers, I sometimes think that I just shouldn\u2019t even try. Why pray when I\u2019m obviously so terrible at it, especially compared to others?<\/p>\n And there it is. Something I am so incredibly good at: comparison. When I compare the way that I pray to the way that others pray, it leaves me feeling worthless and just downright yucky; worse than that, it gives me the mindset that God would rather not hear from me if I can\u2019t pray the big words and eloquent phrases.<\/p>\n It reminds me of a parable that Jesus told in Luke 18. He tells of a Pharisee praying loudly in the temple with fancy words. And then Jesus tells of a tax collector, a man carrying so much shame and without any eloquence about him. And he prays, \u201cGod, be merciful to me, a sinner\u201d (Luke 18:13). That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all the prayer he can muster up. But Jesus says that he went away justified. In the Greek, justified is the word dikaios<\/em>, and it is the same as saying that the man went away without fault, without guilt and completely right with God.<\/p>\n His prayer was enough. As simple as it was, it was enough in the eyes of his Father. It was enough because it was real. The tax collector was talking to God about what was on his heart and in his mind, regardless of how plain it sounded out loud.<\/p>\n Prayer isn\u2019t meant to be fancy. It isn\u2019t meant to inspire the people listening to our prayers, and it certainly isn\u2019t meant to invoke feelings of failure or shame when our prayers are scattered or we can barely get the words out. God wants to hear from me, and he wants to hear from you, no matter what we say. He\u2019s just as excited to hear from me \u2013 with my pauses and stumbles \u2013 as he is to hear from the people I know who pray beautifully each and every time.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not about what we say. It\u2019s not about how we say it. It\u2019s about showing up in front of God just as we are \u2013 real and raw and vulnerable \u2013 and trusting that he\u2019s glad we\u2019re there, he\u2019s listening to us and he\u2019s big enough to handle our very small prayers. When we say, \u201cAmen,\u201d it\u2019s knowing that God isn\u2019t comparing us to the person next to us who prayed \u201cbetter\u201d than we did. Instead, we can open our eyes and lift our heads from our prayers \u2013 simple or eloquent \u2013 and know that, in God\u2019s eyes, we did it exactly right.<\/p>\n