This One Will Make You Laugh… and Think…

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In normal healthy conversation, we talk, listen, and respond to what the other person is saying. Prayer is essentially conversation with God. But it does not often sound the same. In fact, if we talked to one another the way we talked to God it might well look like this….

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  1. Considering that God has a documented history of smiting people in the OT, I think people are sort of taught to approach him carefully lest they set him off; after all, He doesn’t change.

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    1. I don’t think you are wrong there. You’ve heard of “preacher talk” perhaps… Well there is also “prayer talk.” His relationship with us is built on grace so the fear of setting Him off is not quite right is it?

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      1. I guess it depends on the church you go to – I’ve seen pastors that practically fall on their knees and beg:
        “Oh Father God,
        please Father God,
        give us your mercy, Father God.
        Oh Father God,
        remember us, Father Good,

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      2. I guess everybody has their own style – some pray through the Psalms, some stick to the Lord’s Prayer, others write them down, now that War Room is popular, odds are some people are doing just that. I know it might seem to strange to us when we have a different style, but to them, our style is probably even stranger.

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        1. True that… There is the appropriate use of “don’t yuck my yum” to apply here. =)
          But my real point is not to get down on anyone’s flavor or style of prayer, but to think about why we pray the way we do. I don’t think God minds hearing His name 27 times when we pray, but I think we should think about why we feel we need to do that or what we accomplish in that.

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  2. It did both Dan..laughed then thought. I hate to say this, but we have one fellow who says Lord 95 time during a 86 word prayer. He is the most serious Christian I know, and my mentor. He simply does it from respect. But, we still poke at him some over it, because what he says is very heartfelt and honest.

    We have others who just say the same thing every time they pray.

    I wonder if it’s fear Dan? When I was first saved I was off the hook for that sort of thing, but it became clear that eventually the preacher was going to call on me to pray. It was really scary. I will be honest, I had something already planned to say when it happened. It did, and I said my preplanned prayer. I don’t need to now, but then I was so scared I wouldn’t have words that would pass muster.

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    1. I would not be surprised if that were the case. I think some of it may simply be being uncomfortable with praying out loud or publicly. I would not be surprised if some people were just unaware of how often they say “Father God” or “our God Father.” That said, I don’t mean to make any one feel bad, I just thought it was illustrative of how differently we talk to God from one another… I don’t think it’s supposed to be all that different. Know what I mean?

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      1. I know exactly what you mean. I tend to be that way now, even for a congregational prayer. I just talk about whatever has moved me and that’s it. Simple, rather like I myself am LOL.

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        1. Haha! When I do the Congregational prayers at my church I write them out. Some people want to let the Spirit move them to pray one the spot. I like working with the Spirit before hand. Nothing better about one way or the other. Fortunately it’s all about grace and not in how we pray.

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          1. Yep..the heart matters, not always the words. Nothing wrong with preparation for sure either. I think God expects us to prepare diligently for the things we know we will be doing. Do you all know you are doing a congregational prayer before hand? Preacher just picks. And we have numerous ones on any given Sunday. After morning devotional, after preaching, after after noon devotional, after preaching. Odds are high you are gonna pray for everybody pretty often LOL.

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          2. In my case I’m the usual suspect. The right reverend and most holy Dr. William Boylan is the senior Pastor…. Been here 47 years. First call… Last call. When he’s preaching (which is most of the time) I lead the Congregational prayer. When I preach we switch.

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          3. Ahh…gotcha. Yall are a little more formal than we are I suspect. Half the people in my church couldn’t even tell you what Liturgy means LOL. We even get our pastors differently…we are an odd bunch, us Missionary Baptists. We run in fear from anything resembling ritual, rite, or sacrament. Heck we are even nervous if the Holy Spirit gets too busy.

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          4. New England Congregationalists are odd. My current church was founded back in 1702. It’s hard to get away from history, tradition, and liturgy. After all, we did descend from the Puritans. That said, our church is much less liturgical than most. It’s not uncommon for ministers to be all robed up around here. Sr. Boylan is awesome though. Lol! Big radio personality around here. The station is after him to go national.

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          5. That would be pretty cool! A robe? Ha…that would spell the end of the world for sure! Look, we look sideways at some of those crazy Southern Baptists where the choir sings in robes!

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          6. Fortunately it’s just suits… Choir is still in robes. But that has more to do with Yankee thriftness…. We paid good money for em so we’ll wear them till they fall apart. And that will be a while because they still look good.

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