Evolution of a Prayer’s Life

My earliest memories involve prayer. They include: 

Grace at meal-time

 “Thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the world so sweet. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you Lord for everything.”  Succinct. Adequate. God focused.

The classic bedtime prayer

“Now I lay me down to sleep ...  If I should die, before I wake...”  What?!?!  Sleeping carries the possibility of death?  (This 'I' focused prayer set the misguided standard for adulthood prayer-life.)

The Lord’s Prayer added to my repertoire: 

Our Father Who art in Heaven.  Art’s in Heaven?   Like Rick’s Popeye picture on Grandma’s fridge?   

Hallowed be thy name. Oh, a name. Must be talking about Uncle Art.

Thy kingdom come. How long will that  take? Must be harder to make a kingdom than Heavens Earth.

Thy will be done.  God’s will doesn’t just happen?

On Earth as it is in Heaven.  God gets His way in Heaven, but not on Earth? 

Give us this day, our daily bread. Not Captain Crunch?

And forgive us our trespasses.

As we forgive those who trespass against us. We don’t have any ‘No Trespassing’ tire signs hanging on our fences like Uncle Walter does. So I don’t think this applies to us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  WHAT?! Isn’t this a given?  I have to ask to not be taken to evil I? This prayer must activate the default override and cause God to be merciful to me. 

For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. I thought the kingdom needs to come but now it’s forever?  When Jesus first prayed this the kingdom must have come sometime between ‘Thy will be done’ and ‘forgive us our trespasses’. Confusion reigns.

Then came variations of that bed-time prayer. I call them the Sales-Pitch, Instruction Manual, and Indictment prayers:

The Sales-Pitch involves enumerating commendable attributes and accomplishments in an effort to build a case in the hopes of swaying a stingy god to generosity.

The Instruction Manual is the creature telling Creator what to do and how to do it.

The Indictment (most often employed when ‘praying’ for others):

Contemptible accusations are recounted and preferred consequences described in an attempt to extort 'justice' and condemnation.

Much later in life I realized God is God.  I am not.  That’s the day my prayers became a lot less talk and a lot more listen.