have I missed something?

:: Sidenote ::

I have been writing + editing this post,

then flip-flopping back + forth over publishing it for months now.

when I say months, I mean I started writing in January.

LOTS OF MONTHS.

:: but here it is, I'm just going to lay it all out ::

I must be a terrible Christian.

I rarely get anything out of corporate worship, and would much rather go to bed or think about snacks than stay up past ten o’clock singing along to my husband’s guitar.

I often drift off to LaLaLand while someone else is praying, contemplating how to better organize the things under my bathroom sink. Or thinking about snacks.

The first issue is pretty easy to address. As someone who typically finds more value in time spent alone than with others, it makes sense that I would prefer to worship on my own. There are too many distractions in a group [especially since I am somewhat musical and tend to hear and fixate on the few bum notes rather than get into the music], and it’s difficult for me to get into the right head space when others are around. [This is something I even have to work on with my husband -- even someone I’m completely comfortable with can totally throw me off my game.]

The second issue is one I’ve wrestled with for quite awhile now, and debated even more about sharing. It’s not that I never get anything out of praying with a group of people. I do find myself occasionally uplifted and refreshed from a time spent praying with friends. But it’s definitely not the norm.

I find it so hard to sit in a group and listen to someone regurgitate their well-rehearsed words; the generic babble that doesn’t add any more value to the prayer itself than a word with so many less syllables. Having to dig through flowery language to find the actual prayer, trying to ignore the once-a-minute references to the person of God in as many different names as possible [Heavenly Father, Lord, God, etc.] without compiling a spreadsheet can be overwhelming. Add on the pressure I’ve felt to embellish my own spoken prayers so I don’t give off the impression of insincerity, and you might understand where I’m coming from. I’ve never once felt closer to God through these grandiose prayers than through a simple “I need you” or “thank you”. In fact, those two- or three-word prayers often show so much more urgency for God, they are the ones leaving me in tears, either built up or wrecked by the Spirit.

Now I know, not everyone is simply regurgitating words when an elaborate petition is spoken. Just as I like prayer that is simple and straight-forward, I realize that many others do like ornamented supplication. It’s a matter of preference, of personality. If you’re generally a more serious person, then maybe your inclination will be toward a more serious prayer. If you spend a good portion of your time lost in deep thought about how great our God is [because He certainly is, there is not a bit of doubt about that], perhaps you’re partial to carefully choosing your vocabulary, offering your well-chewed words to God. These are fantastic reasons to pray in a way that just might not capture my attention, my reverence, personally.

My beef comes when the expectation to pray with solemnity, with swollen diction is viewed as more important, more worthy of being heard than the prayer spoken with such desperation that only a few words can escape. When these shorter prayers are seen as inferior to the others being offered up. And maybe I'm just overly sensitive when it comes to this issue, or perhaps I read into things just a tad too far. But I can't be the only one who has ever felt this way.

I suppose the real question to ponder is how I am to deal with these issues, now that they've truly been brought to light. It would not be possible, given the community with which we've currently been blessed, to avoid coming together as a group to pray and worship. Nor would I necessarily want to; there is, of course, a measure of teaching, admonishing, and edifying that comes with corporate worship that I fully believe is necessary to spiritual growth and well-being. As someone who is introverted and does value time spent alone or, at the very least, quietly, I need to take time to really immerse myself into an assembly so as not to be stagnant in my faith, while also balancing time away from the masses to keep myself in check.

I think, in the end, we do need to be careful to put away the pre-made prayers -- carefully crafted phrases thought out well in advance of the actual prayer time & saved for just the right moment -- and instead genuinely communicate with God in order to grow closer and more intimately connected with Him. In the moment, nothing scripted. He wants to hear from us, the desires of our hearts, not the fancy lyrics we'd like Him to hear & believe of our lives.

He knows better.