Prayer is like the act of a child talking with its parent. It needs to be trusting, genuine, sincere and personal.
Sometimes we feel inadequate to express ourselves appropriately, but God is more interested in the substance than the style.
While there have been many beautiful prayers composed and recorded over the centuries that are still used in Christian worship services today, the simple baby-talk of a little child or the desperate moan of a dying cancer victim may resound just as loudly in heaven.
I once heard a man tell how he had been so addicted to alcohol that he was reduced to the dreadful extremity of spreading boot polish on bread to satisfy his endless craving.
One night in a state of dereliction and despair he stumbled into a church. He saw the joy on the faces of the people, and prayed the only way he knew how: ‘Righto, sport, you’ve done it for them, do it for me.’
He was saved and delivered from alcohol that night and never drank again.
Prayer in our own language comes from the heart and needs to express the yearnings of the heart.
The best place to begin, as Jesus said, is with the words, ‘Our Father.’
To read more on this topic see Living in the Image of God, Barry Chant (Miranda: Tabor, 2012 available in eBook and Paperback) from which this edited extract is taken.