Your Prayers Don’t Need Editing

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Your Prayers Don’t Need Editing

by David Thompson

I’m always editing. My life is a constant search for mistakes. I even edit when I’m not on the job: in the grocery store, at a restaurant, or watching TV. I can’t turn it off! But just fixing mistakes isn’t the point of what I do.

My goal as the GoodNews editor is simple. I want to make it as easy as possible for you, the reader, to understand the intent and message of each article. I do that by following a style guide. A style guide standardizes the rules of grammar,

punctuation, and writing, which helps everybody stay on the same page (pun unintended). Everyone might read an article a little differently, but that’s fine as long as we all agree on the same set of rules. That helps you focus on content without having to worry about clarity.

The reason I even have a job at all is because we don’t know a person’s intent without their words, and words can be misspelled or written in the wrong order. We can make mistakes. We can leave out a crucial bit of punctuation that changes the whole meaning of a sentence. For instance, “Let’s eat, Grandma!” is vastly different from, “Let’s eat Grandma!” Cannibalism is just one comma away. Even when we talk, what we say can be vastly different from what we mean, and others can take our words and twist them in a way we never intended. My job is to put words back in the right order, stick that punctuation back in, and untwist what’s written so the author’s true meaning can clearly come across.

But your prayers don’t need editing.

God sees exactly what you mean and what is in your heart when you speak to Him. Why? Because He’s God. He created you, He knows everything about you, and He can decipher our “groanings which cannot be uttered” more clearly than any mere mortal. You don’t have to worry about speaking eloquently or using correct grammar when you pray. God already understands you perfectly, style guide or no style guide, and He will always respond to your call for help. “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him” (Psalm 91:15). When Eli saw Hannah praying silently in 1 Samuel 1, he thought she was drunk. But God didn’t need anyone to translate Hannah’s message; He heard her cry and answered. When David wrote Psalm 51 after laying with Bathsheba, God didn’t need his heavenly editor to explain to Him what David meant by his heartbreaking words of repentance. And when the publican in Jesus’ parable smote his breast and cried, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13), it didn’t matter that there was no one around to put the commas and colons in their place. Because your prayers don’t need editing.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with trying to write or speak correctly. I think it’s good to strive for excellence in writing, if I do say so myself. But God would rather you come before His presence in humility and honesty than waste your time writing, preparing, and rehearsing a perfect prayer. He already knows what’s in your heart, so open your mouth and let it out. He’ll understand you. Because your prayers don’t need editing.

The Author David Thompson is the editor of GoodNews Christian Magazine. He and his wife, Emily, live in Rome, Georgia.