Boring Prayers

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Romans 8:26, 27

Now please don’t take up your hammer and bludgeon me to death, but I have to say it. I find a significant number of prayers, both public and private, to be incredibly boring. I do understand this is a subject people are not encouraged to bring to light for some very compelling reasons. Critiquing people’s public or private communication with God is a pretty dicey proposition. It just about guarantees a couple of angry letters. So let me admit from the beginning that I’m including my own prayers in my critique. Sometimes my own communication with God, public and private, seems trite, even boring. So, please indulge me as Ithink on paper.

It seems to me some people put about the same thought into the language of their prayers as they put into the answers they give a telemarketer. They take advantage of the idea that God is their friend, their good buddy. I guess the problem I have is that I discern a big difference between God and me. A gap so great that friend doesn’t seem to be the most appropriate term to define the relationship. Worship is what should define our relationship with God. And with worship comes awe. And with awe comes very carefully crafted language—no endless litany of personal requests for physical assistance, no constant repetitions— but thoughtful poetry and prose from my heart to God’s.

I would love to have heard T. S. Eliot pray, or C.S. Lewis. Barbara Brown Taylor’s homilies sound like one giant prayer, and I don’t doubt Kathleen Norris is worth listening to in a Wednesday evening prayer meeting. They know what to do with words. But just because my vocabulary is limited doesn’t mean I can’t work a little harder at showing my heavenly Father some respect when I address him.

I am often disappointed by my own prayers. I figure God has to be bored. I know I am. But that’s when I remember God’s Spirit. I may be the writer, but the Spirit is the translator. The Spirit takes my 12 “Dear Heavenly Fathers,” all spoken within the confines of a single paragraph, and turns them into a supplication of awe and beauty as he whispers into the Father’s ear. I don’t have to worry about the language of my prayers. The Spirit has taken care of that for me.

Yes, it would be nice if I always approached God with reverence and chose carefully both the words and subjects of my prayers. But things being as they are, I imagine God’s happy to be hearing from me at all.

—Paul S. Williams

For Further Thought

Do you find your prayers boring and repetitious? When you speak to God, do you feel awe or a dull sense of duty?

Does your perspective change when you realize that the Holy Spirit is acting as your translator—converting your human words into heavenly words and conveying them straight to the throne of God?