Jesus says, "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others (Matthew 6:5)."
And Paul writes in Romans: "...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26-27."
It's not our words or the manufactured fervor we muster to speak them that make our prayers acceptable to God. Nor is it even the clarity of our thoughts. When we pray trusting in Jesus, even when we don't know what to pray, God hears and answers our prayers according to His perfect will.
I like the prayer suggested by writer Anne Lamott which my colleague Will Hartfelder pointed out last week on Facebook: "The two best prayers I know are, ‘Help me. Help me. Help me’ in the morning and at bedtime ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’”
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