Lately, I've come to see that I'm a very needy pray-er. I think this might stem from my childhood where prayer was mostly "Dear God, please be with this person and the people in the hospital and....." and "Dear God, thanks for my friends and my mom and Jesus....". As a kid, prayer consisted of please and thank you, but not much else, which happens to make a pretty lousy conversation. But a conversation I feel I've kept having. My prayers, long or short, tend to stick to a pretty direct ask-thanks pattern, and I know that there's a lot more to talking to God than that. Sometimes it feels more like a relationship with a cashier at a restaurant, "I'll have this and that, thanks", than a conversation with someone I know, "Hey how ya been, what's up." Prayer is a good way to show some trust in Him, but as I said, I tend to seem needy when it comes to prayer. I'm not sure how to feel about this. After all,
If you remain in me, and my words remain in you,
ask anything you wish and it will be given you.
-Jesus
There are several ways this can be distorted and twisted to make us think we get what we want, but it still remains true. And look at the Lord's Prayer. I'm no grammar buff, but most of that prayer is in the imperative mood. Give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us. It starts with praising God and praying for His kingdom, and then the meat and potatoes is about us and our neediness. I'm really not sure what the perfect prayer looks like, but I'm assuming Jesus knows what he's doing, so I'll keep asking God, and I'll keep thanking God, and I hope I can drop the fast-food conversation feeling and dig in deeper.
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