Praying What God Already Knows

Downtown Monroe

If God already knows what I am going to pray before I pray it, why do so? Because:
1. This is about a relationship, not a religious ritual. (Like a loving parent who already knows what their child is going to say, and allows them to say it without interrupting.)
2. This is about us, being real and authentic in that relationship. (Like a loving parent is proud of their child that is transparent before them.)

I like how Philip Yancey writes about this.

"Unless I level with God — about bitterness over an unanswered prayer, grief over loss, guilt over an unforgiving spirit, a baffling sense of God’s absence — that relationship, too, will go nowhere. I may continue going to church, singing hymns and praise choruses, even addressing God politely in formal prayers, but I will never break through the intimacy barrier. “We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us,” wrote C. S. Lewis. To put it another way, we must trust God with what God already knows." (Yancey, Philip. Prayer, Kindle Locations 759-763)

As you pray you can trust God with what he already knows.

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My new book is Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.