The Language of Prayer

Many of us pray standard prayers, such as the “Our Father.” Or often at the end of the day, we pray something like, “Heavenly Father, thank you for such-and-such, help me with such-and-such, give me such-and-such… .”

But rather than a mechanical listing of things, prayer serves as a way to align ourselves with God's will by having a conversation with Him. Unfortunately, to me, having that conversation introduces another problem: What do I say? My prayers don’t sound like those elegant, powerful prayers I hear from learned theologians. Rather, I sound like some guy mumbling random thoughts, often with bad grammar!

Evidently, I am not alone! As Paul writes in Romans 8:26-27 (NIV):

We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.

As Jesus says in Matthew 6:8 (NIV):

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Why worry about elegant phrasing and proper grammar? After all, what is perceived as “elegant” and “proper” is entirely earth-based and subject to change. But the “groans” of the Spirit, as Paul puts it, remain constant. Those spiritual concerns are deeply embedded inside us, because, as stated in Genesis 1:27, we are created in the image and likeness of God, probably not in a physical sense, but rather in a spiritual sense.

So I believe that the purpose of prayer is to align our spiritual selves with God. Whatever His will might be, we must align ourselves with that will, and we do so by conversing with Him through prayer. Don’t lose sleep over the actual wording of that conversation. Just have that conversation!