prayer is not performance.

Matthew 6:5-6

And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

 

some people feel like prayer is an opportunity to impress the people around them.  they prepare an eloquent speech but never consider that the only ears that matter hear the words from the heart far more clearly than the varnished words from their fickle lips.  it's not only the unbelievers that do this tho...sometimes we...as followers of Christ feel like we are in competition for 'worlds best pray...er' it gets kind of ugly from there.  we pull out some Christianese and a healthy dose of kjv-speak (gotta love the thy's and thou's...).  we know that God doesn't care about the words that we say but rather the condition of the heart from which we say them...but we do it anyway.  we might as well be brushing our teeth with mud.

i could balance this by saying that any prayer is a good prayer...

but...these prayers leave a bad taste in my mouth.

if you have no interest in speaking to me at any time...and even go out of your way to avoid me and then talk to me in a rehearsed manner...i am going to be irritated. and if we are friends and you use our relationship to impress people by how close we are...i am going to be irritated.

thankfully...i am not God.

God wants you to talk with Him. that's all. He doesn't want your relationship with Him to be leverage or means to an end or anything but a real relationship. He wants you to fall so deeply in love with Him that talking with Him is natural. and it is not based on who is within earshot.