Stylish Prayer
Some people are naturally stylish. Their clothes, their hair–their entire manner–exude style, a magical word that blends elegance, originality, and visual appeal. While I am most certainly not stylish, I appreciate my stylish family and friends. Whenever I try to be stylish, either in my appearance or in my writing, I come off artificial, stilted, and phony.
The same thing happens when I try to be stylish in prayer. Oh, I don’t intentionally try to be stylish, but that’s what it is when I’m not myself in prayer, when I try to imitate someone else’s prayer style. My prayer ends up artificial, stilted, and phony.
It’s at those times that I need reminding that all God asks of us is to be ourselves.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” — Luke 18:10-14
