Ephesians 1:15–23, Preview
Have you ever thought to yourself that some people seem to be really good at praying? When we think that other people are good at praying, perhaps we feel that way because we don’t believe we are good at praying. Especially praying out loud in front of other people.
Praying out loud in front of others can be a public speaking double whammy. Not only are you putting yourself out there for others to hear, which alone is risky and intimidating, but when you pray out loud you are also talking with God, which is often intensely personal. The whole endeavor can feel like something we want to avoid like Covid.
It seems to me, however, that, as with so much in life, practice makes perfect when it comes to praying out loud. If we can just overcome our anxiety about it, and get the first few times over with, we will feel a growing confidence. Then just keep at it.
Still, what can help people feel confident about praying is more than just getting past our misgivings about public speaking. Most of us will not need to pray publicly all that often anyway. We will, however, pray privately, and even private prayer can feel intimidating, given that we are talking with God. What should we say? The words to say in prayer sometimes seem hard to come by.
This is why many people appreciate written prayers they can read. The Lord’s Prayer is the epitome of using a written prayer, because it is the very prayer that Jesus himself taught us to pray. Use the Lord’s Prayer as often as you like.
The Lord’s Prayer is also a model for prayer, giving us categories and illustrations that we can use to develop our own prayer: Address, Confess, Request, Assess. Check out the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, and see if you can match those categories to the sections of the prayer.
(I would be remiss if I did not mention that prayer is a conversation, not just talking to God, but also listening for him. Listening through his Word, listening for his voice, listening by observing his creation, listening through words of his people. We do well to spend at least as much time listening to God as we do talking to him.)
Thankfully, if you are looking for words to pray, the Lord’s Prayer is not the only written prayer in Scripture. There are so many others, and this coming week in our continuing study of Ephesians, Paul prays a powerful prayer that we can borrow in our own prayers. Check it our ahead of time in Ephesians 1:15–23. If you ever wonder what you should prayer for yourself, for your family and friends, this is a great prayer. We begin studying it on Monday.
Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash
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