Praying in a public setting in front of a bunch of people can be a daunting task.  For many, the prayer being prayed is being done in an extemporaneous manner, meaning they are speaking about something that has been thought about, but not written down or memorized.  And since most people do not engage in this type speaking in front of large groups of people, it can be intimidating.  And because of the infrequency of the activity, it can be easy to make a misstatement.  If you are just speaking with a few people and you make a mistake, you quickly correct yourself.  “What I meant to say was . . . .”  But that type of a statement would not typically occur in a public prayer.

As someone who has led public prayer for years, it can be a little overwhelming.  You want to say something that everyone can agree on, but you also might need to be specific.  You might want to pray for some individuals specifically by name, then forgot one of their names.  If you were in a private conversation with a few people, you might say, “Oh, and what’s her name?”  That is not what you would typically do during a public prayer.

Sometimes, you might want to make a point, then as you build up to that point, you forget exactly what point that was that you were leading up to.  If you were talking to some friends, you might laugh it off or ask for help.  Maybe one of them might have deciphered where you were heading with your thought.  And if you were praying privately, by yourself, you might even make a similar statement to God, “You know where I was going.”  But leading a group of people in prayer, you probably would not say anything like that.

At this point, you might wonder why anyone would ever even volunteer to lead a public prayer.  Not every prayer ends up in ruin or public humiliation.  I suspect . . . I hope, that when people hear a verbal gaff during a public prayer, they probably just edit what was said mentally and otherwise gloss over the error.  After all, each hearer of the prayer is supposed to be offering that same prayer to God.  And if there is an error, or something that would be specific to that individual, it would only make sense that they would edit what is being said mentally, and in doing so modify their prayer to God so that it is appropriate.

Recently, I attended a worship service where the prayers being offered on that particular day were quite good, and by quite good, I mean excellent.  I even thought that the bar had really been raised that day.  Significant thought had been put into those prayers AND they were stated very well.  I was impressed and thankful that those individuals did so well in expressing themselves to the Creator of the universe.  And since I had the final prayer of that worship service, the pressure was on . . . me.  And it made me think about how I could do better.  Not because I didn’t want to look bad by comparison, but because these individuals, several in number, offered prayers that were better than what they usually did.  And that is not to say that they are usually poor, but just that they were even better than usual.

Prayer is an opportunity for each of us to express to God how we think or feel about something.  And it’s not that He doesn’t already know(He does), but rather it is an opportunity for us to express ourselves, and in doing so to help ourselves(and others in the forum of a public prayer).  Praying to God doesn’t help God, it helps us.  It helps us to remember who He is and who we are.  It reminds us of what He has done for us, and what He will do for us.  And so much more.

Let’s take a step back and think about prayer, our own prayers, and consider what we are doing.  Essentially, we are speaking to the Creator of the universe, who knows everything there is to know and He knows it before we do, even things about ourselves that others do not know.  Taking that into consideration, shouldn’t we take the time to think about what we want to say?  Not that this will eliminate every misspoken word we might ever make, but rather that we would offer our requests and our thankfulness in a way befitting the Creator of the universe.  If you were going to purchase a gift for someone you loved, would you wait until that last minute, not thinking about it at all beforehand, and just stopping at a convenience store, purchasing whatever was available and appeared decent?  I hope not!  And shouldn’t God get so much more from us?  Shouldn’t He get our best?

Let’s resolve to give God our best . . . our best prayers . . . our best lives . . . our be selves.