I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately. Jesus says this is how you should pray: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Why don't we pray like this anymore?

We pray that prayer every Sunday at my church.

When I need to pray, but don't know how to start, I often start with the Lord's Prayer.

I always formulate my prayers around that.

yeah, I guess I think about all the stupid prayers I pray, and that prayer has a lot more meaning than something like, "Thank you for this food, keep everyone safe, help nothing bad to ever happen to me...." It seems socially unacceptable to pray the Lord's prayer at the dinner table or whatever. People want to hear something that's not too deep- they want to hear something that's safe.

Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. -Glorifying God and honoring him. This is how all prayers should start.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
-Asking God to help us through life and to forgive us of our sins.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
-Asking God to help you through temptations and through your daily struggles.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever, Amen.
-Giving the glory and honor to God once again and ending prayer.

Basically this prayer was given to us so that we could model our prayer after it. We should thank God at the very beginning and at the very end.

EDIT: For the record, I agree with this theory on the Lord's Prayer: It was given as an example to proper prayer and not as something to be used in vain repetition.

Repeating the Lord's Prayer is never in vain. It is the Word of God, and the very words of Christ...even if the person who is saying the words isn't sincere, the words are still God's Words...and therefore they are powerful.

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void - Isaiah 55:11


It is always a good thing to repeat Scripture.

"This prayer never gets old"
-Jesus

I'm not against people praying other prayers if they have something on their heart, but if you don't know what to pray, I think you should pray this prayer.

Jesus talks about lengthy prayers, and says that people who purposefully do that are like the pagans. Our prayers should be not be to long and unimportant. We need to realize who we are speaking to.

Thank you all for your comments!