An example of this happened just the other day. As I was about to pray over someone, one of my friends whispered in my ear, "don't start out with 'Hey God'. It's inappropriate." Now, at first I was thrown off course because if you have ever heard me pray before then you know I almost always start it out by saying 'Hey God'. That comment really got my mind racing through thoughts and questions that I had. It made me feel like I had been right about my prayers not being good enough. Not to worry, my friend later apologized and explained to me what he really meant. Yet, it had sparked that curiosity to know.
Yet, God works in awesome ways and when He wants to know something, He makes dang sure that you know what it is. I have never been one to make fanciful and wordy prayers just cause I feel like it's not necessary. After all, you're just having a conversation with your Dad. Not only that, but one of the things that annoys me the most is being legalistic. Jesus hated it and preached against it. I hate it when I catch myself being legalistic and I hate when Christianity being represented as a high form of legalism.
Legalism means an excessive adherence to law or rule. Christianity is not based on law. That's what sets it apart from any other religion. It's core concept is LOVE. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to LOVE God and LOVE people. If you do those two things, then everything else will fall into place. Now, I'm not saying that it is wrong to pray a certain way that is different than the way I pray. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't feel like you need to impress God by having these 'respectful' prayers and following all these random rules because the reality is that YOU CAN'T. No one can. We are pathetic, imperfect humans and He is an awesome, perfect God. We will always fall short of His glory.
God already knows what's on your heart, so there's no need to not say something out loud. Of course, there are times where saying certain things is inappropriate to maybe those around you but NEVER to God. He is the BEST friend you will ever have so why not treating Him like one? He knows everything about you already.
Rule-keeping like being 'modest' by saying "dear Heavenly Father" in a prayer because you think that being informal with Him is inappropriate is not necessary at all. You do not need to make yourself look good before Him. Be broken and on your knees. As Christ-followers, we have been crucified with Christ. Our ego no longer matters. We are no longer divinely driven to impress God because Christ lives in us. It's that LOVE that makes us righteous before God, not our own deeds.
As Galatians 2:20 puts it, if living a relationship with God could come by keeping rules, then Christ died unnecessarily.
