My earliest memories involve prayer. They include:

Thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the world so sweet. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you Lord for everything. Succinct. Adequate. God focused.

The classic bedtime prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep ... If I should die, before I wake... What?!?! Sleeping carries the possibility of death? (This I focused prayer set the misguided standard for adulthood prayer-life.)

Our Father Who art in Heaven. Arts in Heaven? Like Ricks Popeye picture on Grandmas fridge?

Hallowed be thy name. Oh, a name. Must be talking about Uncle Art.

Thy kingdom come. How long will that take? Must be harder to make a kingdom than Heavens Earth.

Thy will be done. Gods will doesnt just happen?

On Earth as it is in Heaven. God gets His way in Heaven, but not on Earth?

Give us this day, our daily bread. Not Captain Crunch?

And forgive us our trespasses.

As we forgive those who trespass against us. We dont have any No Trespassing tire signs hanging on our fences like Uncle Walter does. So I dont think this applies to us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. WHAT?! Isnt this a given? I have to ask to not be taken to evil I? This prayer must activate the default override and cause God to be merciful to me.

For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. I thought the kingdom needs to come but now its forever? When Jesus first prayed this the kingdom must have come sometime between Thy will be done and forgive us our trespasses. Confusion reigns.

Then came variations of that bed-time prayer. I call them the Sales-Pitch, Instruction Manual, and Indictment prayers:

The Sales-Pitch involves enumerating commendable attributes and accomplishments in an effort to build a case in the hopes of swaying a stingy god to generosity.

The Instruction Manual is the creature telling Creator what to do and how to do it.

The Indictment (most often employed when praying for others):

Contemptible accusations are recounted and preferred consequences described in an attempt to extort justice and condemnation.

Much later in life I realized God is God. I am not. Thats the day my prayers became a lot less talk and a lot more listen.

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Following the evolution of a prayer's life - Rapid City Journal