Prayer as a Punishment

"Who would like to pray for us?" The sentence is uttered. The group grows silent for the first time all night... Palms sweating, hearts racing, Lord, please don't let her call on me!! "Joe Bob, would you like to pray for us?" "I PRAYED LAST TIME!! WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME?!"
One thing I deal with a LOT in my job is students thinking of prayer as some sick punishment used to torture and humiliate them. Honestly, if I wanted to punish and humiliate my students... Well, I have my ways. It seems to me that students these days-- and also adults-- view prayer as a punishment when it should be seen as an awesome privilege!! Getting to talk one-on-one with the Creator of the Universe? Having a direct line to the Rock of Ages? Having a little chit chat with the One who INVENTED chit chat? Umm... That sounds AWESOME! So why have we made it something so terrible?
My belief is that the problem lies not with prayer itself, but within our own selfish hearts! When we pray out loud in front of others, an internal prayer is going on, as well: "Lord, please don't let my voice crack! God, thank You for letting me hold hands with this really cute guy next to me. Jesus, I know I forgot my deodorant--- please make the wind blow in the other direction!! Savior, PLEASE make me sound smart!!" Our hearts are in the completely wrong place!! We care more about what the people around us think of our words than we do about Who hears the words and controls the tides!! God doesn't give a hoot how big your words are. He could care LESS how many Hebrew words you use per prayer. And I'm pretty sure God doesn't give a flying flip if your voice cracks or not: His BELOVED child is talking to Him!! He is so excited when we come before Him with a genuine heart and seek to praise Him, thank Him, and ask of Him.  He LOVES to hear from His children.
Last week, I was having a discussion with one of my girls. Her friend was going through some very difficult things, and she had no clue how to help her!! She kept saying "All I can do is pray-- what good does that do?!" Ohh, honey... If only you knew!! And that was the thing: she DIDN'T know!! To her, bringing this request before God was something she was supposed to do. It's what her mama had taught her. But she didn't understand just how POWERFUL that was!! She is speaking PERSONALLY with the Lord of All on behalf of her friend! But she didn't understand that. She was just talking to the ceiling. She wasn't taking the time to talk with her most important Friend: her Savior, her Father... Her ever present help in times of need!!
We've failed when our kids think of prayer as a punishment. We've failed when prayer goes from a Want to, to a Have to. So I'm gonna try my very hardest to convey this principal to my students: Prayer is the Privilege that we could never deserve. We are given this privilege by a God who wants to speak to us: undeserving, messy us. How awesome!

Shelby
1 Thessalonians 5:17