Reward in Full

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."
- Matthew 6:5

Sometimes it drives me crazy that my head is so quick to come up with words, to put them together to sound somewhat profound or intellectual. When it comes to praying, I fear that this could become my downfall - one of those things that eliminates me from fully communicating with God as I fill silence with a flurry of big words.

I won't say that when I pray out loud that I am any better at it than anyone else - so often I do find myself stumbling on trying to represent a thought that I want to take to the Lord. I fear though that sometimes I am too good at sounding good - that my prayers would intimidate others or that they wouldn't really be honest before the Lord. That I would throw in verses because they're in my head or use phrases generally reserved for speech writers simply because they pop through my mind and out of my mouth. That I wouldn't be connecting with the Lord, but instead somehow just coming across sounding pompous and austere.

I suspect that the God who made my mind understands that I don't say such things to try to impress Him (or anyone else who might overhear) - that I know the things that I pray are no more powerful than the smallest child's prayers or the most simple, sincere string of words presented to Him. I am frustrated though that simplicity so often seems out of reach for me and I fear being lumped in with the Pharisees at the beginning of this post when my prayers begin to sound like something one might read in a book.

I guess this post is just another reminder to me of how far I truly have to go. As always, thankful that His grace is sufficient and hopeful that people aren't comparing their prayers to mine in any way, shape or form.