Depending on what church meeting you attend will determine what kind of prayers you hear in that meeting. In Mainline churches you will hear prayers that are read from a book, some hundreds of years old. I suppose if the prayers were good for Christians centuries ago, they’re goo for us today. But are they heart felt prayers.

Attend some Evangelical churches you will hear a soft spoken prayer that is prayed from what they would call from both the mind and the heart. I guess I would lean to this kind of praying. At least this is how I pray most of the time.

The point of this article is the type of prayers that I often hear in traditional Pentecostal churches, and even some Charismatic churches. These prayers are usually more emotion based. The level of excitement you find in the voice of the one praying is usually quite elevated, sometimes to a feverish pitch. Literally, the pitch of the person’s voice rises while the words race along their lips, usually much faster than normal.

Recently I heard one person pray with such intensity. He was using the word "God" in his prayer so often I could not stop myself from counting the seconds between "Gods" in the prayer. I could not get passed four seconds until I heard another "God" coming from his lips. Most of the time this person was saying the word "God" every two seconds on average.

The prayer went something like this. "God, we thank you God, for your presence God, and God, we know God that you are with us God, as we God stand in your presence God…" Would you or I ever speak to one another like that. Would I talk to my friend Robert by saying, "Hi Robert. It is good seeing you Robert, and Robert could you Robert drop by Robert after church Robert to see my computer Robert". Of course we don’t talk that way to each other? So my questions is, "why do some talk this way to God"? It make no sense to me.

A subsequent question arises in my mind. "Does the person praying such prayers really understand who he is praying to and what he is saying"? Personally, I have a hard time understanding that he really does understand who he is praying to and what he is saying. Paul, in 1 Cor. 14 speaks of praying with ones understanding. With the risk of sounding judgmental, I would not call this type of praying a prayer of understanding.

The confusing thing to me is that many people call this "inspired praying". When compared to my simple praying to Jesus as if He were a real person standing beside me, well I guess I’m not all that inspired. Years ago I was in a prayer meeting and someone commented to me concerning some people praying this way. They thought that Lord was really in their prayer, and that they were really being led by the Spirit. I thought to myself, "and the Lord wasn’t part of my prayer because I spoke to Him in normal conversation".

I am not questioning the sincerity of the one praying. I am questioning his understanding of what prayer is all about. I am questioning if he really understand who he is praying to. Think about it for a moment. Would you really call such praying inspirited? Would you really call this kind of prayer, praying with understanding? Would you talk this way to your wife, or friend? Well, this is just something to think about.