prayer as a foreign language

Bi-lingual prayer

It's really no wonder that a lot of non-Christians, new Christians and others are uncomfortable prayer.  They do not speak the native tongue of formalized prayer.  That is why prayer seems like such a daunting task to so many people.  There are so many unnecessary formalities to common prayer today.  We use certain language that NOBODY actually uses in common communication.  We pray like God is preoccupied with a foreign language; like he is preoccupied with our fine form and technique. We pray as if we have no personality.  We pray as though we were robots programmed by some old English scientist.

Why would God give us a distinct personality and then require us to pray apart from it?  Why would he make us unique and make us pray uniform and unnatural?

Prayer is only so awkward and daunting to people because they're afraid they'll mess it up; afraid they do not speak this language well enough.

Prayer is not a foreign language.