The Prayer Jesus Praised Was Seven Words and Badly Delivered

The first real prayer I ever prayed was five words long and I was flat on my back and I was not being humble.

I want to be clear about that, because people tell the story of a first prayer as though it were an act of devotion, and mine was not. It was a man out of options, in a room with a machine in it and his mother asleep in a chair, saying the only thing left in his head.

If You're real, I'm done.

That is it. Five words. There is no theology in it, no confession of anything specific, no request, and it is not addressed with any of the right names because I did not know any of the right names.

I have thought a great deal since about why that one did anything, when years of much better constructed sentences in a church I was taken to as a boy did nothing that I noticed. And the answer is in a story Jesus tells, where He puts two prayers side by side and then does something He almost never does, which is tell you which one worked.

Read the prayer He rules for

Here is the whole thing.

And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. (Luke 18:13, King James Version)

Count what is in it. One name for God, and it is the most basic one available. One request, and it is the shortest request in the language. One description of himself, and it is one word.

Count what is not in it. No praise section. No thanksgiving. No confession of specifics. No plan for improvement. No promise. No scripture quoted. Nothing anybody has ever taught in a class about how to pray.

And look at the delivery, which is terrible by every standard. He is standing at the back. He will not look up. He is hitting his own chest, which is not a technique, it is a man in distress doing something with his hands.

You are looking at the prayer Jesus ruled for, and there is no technique anywhere in it. Luke 18:13 records seven words with no method attached. It is the same Spirit, Romans 8:26 who helps our infirmities because we know not what we should pray for as we ought, who supplies the part a person cannot construct.

The other man in the story is not a monster

It matters that Jesus does not make the losing prayer obviously wicked, because if He had, everybody would be safe.

The Pharisee thanks God. He is honest about facts: he does fast, he does give, those are not lies. He is not stealing from anybody and he says so, and it is true.

His prayer is theologically better than the publican's by a distance. It has thanksgiving in it. It addresses God correctly. If you scored the two on structure, it wins easily.

And then Jesus says this:

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. (Luke 18:14)

This man, the one at the back with seven words. Rather than the other.

So the ruling is not about quality of construction, and Jesus knew exactly how that would land on the professionals listening. He tells it that way on purpose.

You are not being scored on construction, and the better built prayer is the one that lost. Luke 18:14 justifies the man at the back rather than the man with the structure. It is the Spirit of God, John 16:8 who convinces, who does what an accurate sentence cannot do by itself.

Jesus already warned about the length

If a person suspects that God is impressed by a longer effort, Jesus dealt with that before He told this story.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. (Matthew 6:7)

For their much speaking. He names the belief exactly: that volume of words is what gets through. And He says no, and then, in the very next verse, gives the reason, which is the kindest thing in the passage: your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

That is why short works. It is not that God prefers brevity. It is that He already knows, so a person is not informing Him, and a prayer is therefore an opening of a hand rather than a submission of a case.

And then, having said all that, He hands them a prayer to use, and it is about sixty words long and a child can learn it. He does not leave people without words. He gives them small ones.

You are talking to Somebody who already knows what you are trying to say. Matthew 6:8 says your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him, and it is His Spirit, Romans 8:26 making intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered, who carries what does not come out right.

And if what you would say to God is a thing you have never said out loud to anybody, say it to a person too: a doctor, a counselor, a sponsor, a pastor you trust, or the 988 crisis line, which answers every hour there is. A prayer said alone at three in the morning is real, and it is not meant to be the only place a thing that size ever goes.

Where the boldness comes from, and where it does not

There is a verse people use to tell nervous people to be confident, and it is worth reading where the confidence is actually located.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

The boldness in that sentence is not a personality trait and it is not a skill. Read the verses before it: the reason given is that the One on the throne has been through what we are in, and was tempted in all points, and is therefore not a stranger to it.

So the confidence is not confidence in your own delivery. It is confidence about who is receiving. Those are two completely different things, and mixing them up is how a person concludes they are bad at prayer.

Nobody is bad at prayer. Some people are bad at performing, and prayer was never a performance, and the man at the back of that temple could not even lift his eyes.

You are able to come boldly on the strength of who is receiving rather than how you sound. Hebrews 4:16 locates the boldness in the throne of grace rather than in the speaker. It is the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 2:18 by whom we both have access unto the Father, who is named as the access itself.