"Pose, pretense, and posturing are primary dangers that threaten prayer....The great temptation always crouching at the door of prayer is to use prayer as a way to avoid God: using God language to avoid God relationship; using the name of God as a screen behind which to hide from God. Cliches are the usual verbal giveaways of prayer that is, in fact, nonprayer(italics added)." ~Eugene Peterson
3 comments:
Wow! That's a startling insight. But when I take the cliches and the Christian posture-words out of my prayer, it becomes brief and rather uninspiring. How am I ever going to be considered a "leader" with prayers like that?
Heh heh.
I know, really! What else will they think of? Next thing you know they'll be attacking my long-winded sermonizing about what proper Christian behavior looks like. How do they ever expect to get spiritual?
Agreed. I've noticed my most moving prayer times are when I'm simply talking to God, giving gut-level honesty and simply content for Him to hear me.
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