Prayer

Lately, I've been thinking about prayer; not just the Lord's Prayer and other common prayers like, "Now I lay me." I'm thinking about how different people are perceived to have "better" or "more effective" prayers. When I was doing CPE, it seemed that some people needed an "authoritative" religious person to pray with them. Some people were content praying on their own, and some people didn't pray at all. I was also thinking about prayer because before just about every Hebrew Content and Language class, someone led us in prayer. When it was my turn to pray in Hebrew Language, I stumbled. A LOT. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a "bad" pray-er. In fact, many people tell me I'm a "good" pray-er. But, I think what I got tripped up on was that I was trying to be too verbose. A lot of times people, especially Christian leaders, think they need to pray long, elaborate, flowery languaged prayers in order for them to be heard by God. I've fallen victim to this thinking myself sometime. And in response, I've written three prayers that I think could be done anytime, anywhere, by anyone. Here they are:

Holy and Gracious God, you are with us. Help us to remember that ALWAYS. Amen

Holy and Gracious God, you know us. Help us respond to your love. Amen

Holy and Gracious God, your mercy is new every day. Open our eyes to see. Amen.

God hears us. Thanks be to God!