KEEP IT SIMPLE !
Back in 1983 a guy called F.R David went to number three in the charts with the song “Words don’t come easy to me”. He made a good point, they don’t sometimes, do they? We have all been tongue tied haven’t we? We want to say what’s truly on our heart but often instead end up saying something that is pale reflection of what we are actually thinking and feeling on the inside. Adequate words are often hard to find when talking to others and it can be easy to get stuck on what to ‘say’ when we pray to our heavenly Father too.
The thing is, in a pressured situation we don’t want to say the ‘wrong thing’. The good news is that when it comes to praying, as mentioned in my last blog, God already knows what’s on our minds and in our hearts. The words we outwardly express to him, in a way, just make it more real to ourselves. It enables us to KNOW and remember, for sure, that we have brought it before him.
So in the light of this, how important are the words that I speak out, or assemble in my thoughts in prayer? When we look at what Jesus taught us about prayer the answer is that they are not as important as we think they are sometimes.
Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 6: 7-8, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” In similar vein the apostle Paul told his listeners in Corinth, “When I first came to you, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom”.
To put it another way, one of the shortest prayers in the Bible was spoken by Simon Peter as he was answering Jesus’ call for him to join him walking on the water “Jesus save me!”. What a perfect prayer for the occasion, it expressed all that was needed to be said at that point. It’s what is on the heart that really matters when we pray, the words we say are just externalising it.
In my life I have found it helpful to K.I.S.S, meaning, Keep It Simple Stupid. In prayer always say what you’re feeling, always keep it real and always use language that feels right and natural for you.
Many years ago, I saw a TV interview with a Royal National Lifeboat Institute lifeboat coxswain. He said that he always prayed when they were going out in the boat to rescue somebody, but in a bad storm for brevity he kept it to three-word prayers, and he then trusted God to know exactly what was needed in answer to them.
He told the interviewer “If the storm’s bad I pray, ‘God it’s bad!’; If things worsen and we are in greater danger, I then pray, ‘God it’s worse!’; If it then later looks like we are in grave danger of losing our ship, I pray, ‘God save us’.
He finished by saying, “I always knew that no matter how loud the storm, God would always hear me!”
Wise words indeed.
by Fred Wright Wed 19th July 2023
