KISS

I would think that all of us are familiar with the simple acronym KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). There are so many things in life that would be a lot less frustrating if we would follow that one rule. We do often try to complicate things. One of the clearest and best examples is in our prayer life.

Think about it for a minute. Sometimes people are terrified of praying in public. Others are quite comfortable with it. Usually, those who find this difficult have some aspect of worry regarding sounding stupid, not knowing what to say, or just plain “doing it wrong.” How could we possibly pray wrong?!

Jean-Nicholas Grou says, Be simple in your piety. Do not rely upon your intellect or upon subtlety and depth of your reasonings. Real piety is not concerned with thoughts but with the affections. Let your heart tell you what you wish to say to God and say it simply without bothering too much about the words; it is ridiculous to be eloquent in His presence and take pride in prayers that are well composed. We are simply talking to our friend. We spend very little time planning our conversations with our loved ones; they just happen. They flow out of the concerns and feelings within our heart. This should be how we pray to our God as well.

When it comes to our encounter with the Almighty it is difficult to do better than the type of prayer Jesus taught – secret and solitary. It is in the entering into our private moments that all else is stripped away and we stand totally transparent before our God, the one who knows all the things we want to cover up and keep hidden, the one who knows our sins before we can confess them, the one who sees beyond the formality of our composed and rehearsed prayers and simply wants to commune with us as we are. Praying in private centers our mind and heart on the object of prayer alone. It strips away all pretenses. Our dramatic words are futile with God; we cannot make him think we are more pious than we really are. When we go into a room and shut the door to pray, we face our own naked souls in all of their sin and beauty, and gradually our focus shifts from ourselves to God.

This is how our Lord wants us to appear before him. Whether we are praying in public or private, He wants us to come to him in our true nature, recognizing that He is constantly forming and reforming that nature, that He is fully aware of all our flaws and failings. In each and every prayer, we come before God, not to impress Him but to communicate with Him. It is in that transparent time that we know and are known. It is in that time that we are allowed brief glimpses of ourselves as God sees us. In these brief glimpses are see the sin-filled soul, but we see it transformed into a child of the King, holy and set apart, commissioned to carry the Gospel to the oppressed and downtrodden, messengers of light traveling in a world of darkness.

Pastor Craig