How to pray when you don't know how
Even when I want to pray, I sometimes feel I don't know how. Faced with disasters on a grand scale, or the smaller but just as painful griefs we all encounter at some time, there don't seem to be the right words. That doesn't matter. Prayer is about the focus of the heart, not the babbling of the mouth. Jesus taught that when we pray we shouldn't keep on babbling in the hope that God will hear because of the repetition of many words. When Jesus' disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he gave a framework or pattern for prayer which Christians call 'The Lord's Prayer'. There are two versions of the Lord's Prayer in the gospels, one in Matthew's gospel and one in Luke's gospel . Here's the Matthew version, from the New Revised Standard Version: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our deb