Prayer Part 1

Prayer is one of those things that alludes me...I mean when there are whole SECTIONS on how to pray in the book stores (christian and otherwise) there's got to be a problem!  But I think I've figured out why there are so many books!  I know, get the Nobel committee on the phone...

If prayer is described as conversation, then why do we try to imitate each other?  I know that Jesus told us how to pray, but saying a prayer by rote is not exactly heartfelt or conversation.  But that prayer can be heartfelt...for example, if my husband were to come to me and read a poem from a book, or even recited it, dead faced, yawning in between lines and mumbling...I'd kick him.  Now he may even try to make it feel more dramatic, pausing in the appropriate places and having an eb and flow to his voice...but I can tell it's just an act, and a good dramatic reading.  But, if he were to look into my eyes, speak those words TO me, as if they were his own...well, you know what would happen next...right, right!!!!

Or this...
When I was at camp one year in High School, my roommate for the week noted that she was starting to talk like me by the end of our stay.  I didn't understand what she meant, she sounded the same to me...no, it was the way in which she had conversations with people.  She then pointed out my specific mannerisms, how I trailed off at the end of sentences and finished thoughts to myself, how I shook my head and looked down a lot...I never noticed these things. But it made me realize, we all have a certain way of conversing that is uniquely our own.  Thus prayer...that's why often as we sit and try an learn how to pray from other people we my find useful things, but if we try to perfectly Copy them, it feels unnatural, it is unnatural.

We can take certain postures and tips and phrases and even words that other people use in prayer, but don't forget, you have your own unique way of conversing...don't lose it.  Look at how you uniquely have a conversation with other people.  Do you use your hands a lot (GINA!) do you laugh a lot, do you usually listen and say little?  Take these and apply them to prayer...it's just a conversation...