I love Ellen Degeneres’ quote: “August is like the Sunday of summer.” I agree! I’m going to be traveling the next couple of weeks and taking a little Sabbath so I’ll be re-posting some favorite thoughts from the past. Let’s just call it “Throw Back End-of-August.” Ok, maybe we won’t call it that because it’s super awkward. Let me know if you can think of a different title. This post was from August of 2012.
Some (most??) people dread praying aloud as much as they dread getting on a scale the day after Thanksgiving.
When it comes time for closing prayer in your small group do you hyper-ventilate? Suddenly decide you need to go to the bathroom? Get a case of laryngitis?
Me? Like it or not, I’ve been doing it for a long time. Occupational hazard.
So I’ve gotten at least fairly ok at the “lifting ups” and the “if it’s your wills” and Bibley words like “grace and mercy”.
My out loud prayers are kind of like business letters all proper and punctuated, politically correct and polite.
But my real prayers? They sound more like David’s prayers of desperation than Mary’s Magnificat.
My “real” prayers sound like:
“Helpmehelpmehelpme! Oh, look! There’s a bird!”
Or like a letter from a kid at camp home to his parents:
But here’s what I’m thinking. As a parent, any communication from my kids is golden. I don’t care what they say, I just want them talking to me.
And as a parent, I know they’re kids. They’re not going to talk like me or think like me, or always remember their manners.
Yeah, I want them to know me, to trust me, to obey me, to ask my opinion, but they’re kids, and if they’re talking to me that’s a start!
What do your “real” prayers sound like? What do you really want to say to God?
