{"id":188,"date":"2013-10-07T03:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/?p=188"},"modified":"2013-10-06T13:35:49","modified_gmt":"2013-10-06T18:35:49","slug":"fumbly-stumbly-wooly-headed-thick-tongued-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2013\/10\/fumbly-stumbly-wooly-headed-thick-tongued-prayers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fumbly, Stumbly, Wooly-headed, Thick-tongued Prayers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Prayer is a massive, wonderful, frightening thing. God is there and wants to hear from us and to help us. Hard for a low-down no-good sinner to accept. Massively hard. But it\u2019s the Truth. He has given me This Day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So saith The Fat Guy, Scott Chaffin.<\/a> <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been distantly acquainted with Scott for many years, more or less since the dawn of the Blogosphere. I\u2019ve read his blog off and on, and every so often he\u2019s left a comment on mine, reminding me that he\u2019s still around. He\u2019s always written about food, music, sports, and life in general with a pleasing mixture of earthy gusto and a refusal to take himself seriously. <\/p>\n

For the past while he\u2019s been dealing with cancer and chemo, and dealing with both as best he can. And not coincidentally, today he\u2019s talking about the Lord\u2019s Prayer, the \u201cSwiss Army Knife of Prayers\u201d, and what he said struck me hard.<\/p>\n

\"Boots\"<\/a> Yesterday I started reposting my series on the Interior Life, which is to say the life of prayer. Christian discipleship is all about having a living relationship with Jesus, and prayer is the medium of that relationship. To live with Christ, you need to pray. And if you don\u2019t generally pray, how do you start?<\/p>\n

Scott suggests that if all you can do is pray the Lord\u2019s Prayer, do that. It\u2019s how Jesus taught his disciples to pray, and so it\u2019s the best starting point. In doing so you open yourself to the Father and ask for what you really need, using the words Jesus gave us.<\/p>\n

But second, he reminds me of a reality that\u2019s probably more widespread than I could have guessed. Scott says of his own prayers,<\/p>\n

My own fumbly, stumbly, wooly-headed, thick-tongued prayers are an embarrassment to me, though I understand they shouldn\u2019t be. But they still offend me. I have fretted for years over my entreaties to the Lord.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder how many others have had a similar experience. As Scott notes, the problem isn\u2019t with his prayers, but with his embarrassment\u2014but how to get past that?<\/p>\n

Then, after catching the cancer, and musing about the unsuitability of my personal prayers and the swiss cheese nature of chemo-brain, Francis Poretto advised me to start with the Lord\u2019s Prayer, and if that\u2019s as far as I got, well, it would do the trick. As it happens, it opened up my heart & my head to more prayer. No less fumbly, stumbly, wooly-headed and thick-tongued, but I ceased caring (mostly.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The hard part of a conversation with someone you don\u2019t know, at least for us introverts, isn\u2019t continuing it; it\u2019s getting started at all. And maybe we\u2019re all introverts when it comes to the Father. But it turns out that he\u2019s told us how to get started.<\/p>\n

Anyway, go read the whole thing<\/a>; and click through to the post Scott links to. It\u2019s good, too.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prayer is a massive, wonderful, frightening thing. God is there and wants to hear from us and to help us. Hard for a low-down no-good sinner to accept. Massively hard. But it\u2019s the Truth. He has given me This Day. So saith The Fat Guy, Scott Chaffin. I\u2019ve been distantly acquainted with Scott for many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,20,18],"tags":[21,22,38],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bootstrapping-the-interior-life","category-christian-living","category-links-to-this-and-that","tag-christianity","tag-holiness","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nFumbly, Stumbly, Wooly-headed, Thick-tongued Prayers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Prayer is a massive, wonderful, frightening thing. 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