Comments on: Pray “Please…”

By: Dave Moore

Dave Moore — Sun, 23 May 2010 03:35:50 +0000

Hi Sam, I’m not sure its a greek thing, but rather a ol’ english thing.
What people used to say when they spoke to someone important was, “I pray thee, may I take your coat?” or something like that. Or when you saw someone begging for their life, they were “praying the Judge to release them”.
So, “to pray” or “praying” is just the activity of “asking”, and a “prayer” is just “an appeal”.
So, even though its “common” for Christians us to say things like “I pray for war”. I’m just not sure what the person who says that to God thinks they are meaning. (tho I fully assume God knows their hearts and Jesus and the Spirit helpfully intercede at that point ala Rom 8 )
But I’m just raising the idea that we may just be using this as a shorthand for prayer, rather than actually asking God to do something.
Let me give another example. I’m currently sitting at my computer feeling quite sick with a cold. I could pray “God, I pray for health.” (and please hear me on this, that’s a great thing to pray!) But wouldn’t it be more natural to say, “God, please heal me.”
Or again, if my son came in with a cut on his toe and said “Father, I ask for a bandaid” or “I want a bandaid”, I’d certainly give him one! But I’d also wonder why he spoke to me like that!?
I’d rather he just said, “Dad, can you please put a bandaid on here?” Isn’t that more relational?
So I ’spose that’s my point… Its not about grammar, its about relating to your God like he’s your eternal Father through Christ.

I just wonder if God’s a bit weirded-out about the way we speak to him sometimes
I also wonder if it freaks out un-believers a bit too!

By: Sam C

Sam C — Sat, 22 May 2010 12:38:05 +0000

Hi Dave,

I like the thrust of your post, and the helpfulness of using “ask”.

However - I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.

When you say that the word “pray” means “ask” - I’m guessing you’re referring to the Greek? Because the words “pray” and “prayer” have much greater range in common English, which I think is why they get used in the way you’re objecting to.

By: Lachlan Wetherall

Lachlan Wetherall — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:38:10 +0000

I’ve found that using the word “ask” instead of “pray” when I pray is helpful in two ways: Firstly as you mention in your post it helps me to make meaningful, specific requests to my father rather than vague musings. Secondly though, using the word “ask” alerts me to the fact of how self-centred my prayers can become. If my prayers become full of “I ask” then it is a nice reminder to me to also fill my prayers with “You are …” and “Thank you for …”.