“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” Matthew 6:7
Jesus begins to teach the people how to pray. He can do this because He is perfect in prayer. Whenever Jesus prayed to the Father about something, He received it. Look through the gospels and see how long His prayers were. All of them were short.
One thing that often occurs with public prayers is the using big fancy words or the old King James words to pray. God is a great God and can speak the common everyday street language you speak. Notice: Jesus did not speak King James when He spoke, He actually spoke Greek and probably Aramaic.
As you pray in public do not try to use fancy language or words to pray. Pray what is needed. If you are living your life for God and are cleansed by the blood of Jesus you are righteous before God and He hears you.
Along with not using fancy words, do not keep on praying over and over in the same prayer for one thing. As Jesus said, do not babble like the pagans.
Think about when someone is talking to you about something. Some people just keep on going and going about the same thing for a long time. It seems like they will never finish and the whole time they are really saying nothing. The first 2-3 minutes they said something, then nothing after that. This type of talk is babble.
God does not need to hear babble. It will not change His mind one way or the other about hearing and answering your prayer.
You may also look at all the prayers of the prophets and leaders in the Bible. All of them are very short. None of them will take more than five minutes to read out loud with the exception of Psalm 119 if that is taken as a prayer.
Keep yourself in tune with the Holy Spirit and you will know what God’s will is for a situation. Then pray that will of God. He will hear and answer. It does not take long prayers.
This does not mean you cannot return to God at a later time to pray for a situation again. Go to God more than once. Just do not take forever at one time trying to convince God to answer your prayer.
Pray today God’s will and see what He will do for you.
I pray today that God will fill you with His Holy Spirit to guide you; that you will know the will of God in every situation you come across; that you will learn from God how to pray effectively; and that God will hear your prayers.
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