Gentiles Prayers

Matthew 6:7-8 (ESV)
"And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. [8] Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
I have always found the whole praying from your heart rather than with memorized prayers controversy to be trite. I think it much better that a Christian is praying at all. And all prayers are the work of the Holy Spirit, and come from the heart of the New man. I like to pray, and discipline myself to do it. I tell you what, being able to “go through the motions” and follow a written form of prayer can be a real boon to one’s prayer life. It helps set it up as a routine. You begin to pray as a force of habit. What you find is that these add form and substance to the spontaneous prayers you have the rest of the day. Perhaps a bit like the burnt offering providing foundation to the rest of the occasional offerings people would add through the rest of the day at the Temple in the Old Testament. And prayers are the sacrifices of New Testament Christians, hence that analogy.
But I do have to say, it is often in crises when we find just how pagan we are. When I was suffering my divorce years ago this verse would haunt me in my sleep. It seemed I spent my days heaping up empty phrases, pleading with God. Even when I knew God heard and knew before I asked him, you think maybe you can manipulate him if you “pray harder.” That is a funny phrase, pray harder. What should be hard about prayer?
Today it seems though that much of the popular counsel you hear in Christian circles about prayer ignores this council of Christ. Instead prayer is treated as some sort of magical means of manipulating God. Yes we all want to do it. We all want to control God. We want to make God do what we want. It is inherent in the first of our sins, the original sin, the desire to be like God, to be God, to be Lord over God. We mouth thy will be done, and we mean by it, let my will be your will, and then be done. We want God to be our cosmic slave, doing our bidding. It just doesn’t work that way.
God knows what we desire even as he knows what we need, before we ask him. Prayer is a gift, it is answered, as it is heard. We can’t call down heaven, shouting doesn’t make it anymore heard than thinking it. And though there is something special about being able to pray in the sanctuary, early Christians took comfort knowing that God was with them in the sewers of Rome where they were being held captive. But God will not be manipulated. He isn’t that kind of god. We are his children and he is a loving Father. More on that tomorrow. Good Father’s are not manipulated, at least not often, but they do take care of their Children.