Prayer

Lately, I've been thinking about prayer. As I've examined my own heart and life I've noticed a considerable lack of personal prayer as a spiritual discipline. But the more I think about it, prayer has always been difficult for me. I'm not sure why, it just feels so foreign. Maybe it's because I have always wrestled with the question of how to pray. My prayers seem so inadequate, like I never say the right thing or have a pure intention. I hear the prayer of others and feel overwhelmed by their depth of spiritual language in comparison with my own. I feel the pressure to measure up to their prayer, which seems so easy for them.

Recently I have been reading through Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. A book I would recommend to anyone and one I will comment on more in the near future. But, the one subject I want to highlight here is the chapter on prayer. Particularly, Wright's emphasis on not needing to be so original in prayer. Rather, Wright argues that when we pray we should gladly use prayers composed by others.

But, we don't like that idea. We want to be our own individual who is capable of praying our own great prayers.  Wright notes, "Part of our difficulty here is that we moderns are so anxious to do things our own way, so concerned that if we get help from anyone else our prayer won't be 'authentic' and come from our own heart, that we are instantly suspicious about using any else's prayer (164)."

But, isn't this the opposite of what Jesus taught? In Matthew 6:9-13 Jesus said,

Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, 

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

I think Jesus would be alright if more of our prayers followed his own, and maybe some of our questions and difficulties with prayer would be answered if we would humbly pray prayers composed by others.