"Prayers began "Dear Heavenly Father" and continued with a litany of requests. When we prayed out loud, the prayers were often a not-so-subtle vehicle for sermons....Praying out loud was also a way of advancing one's case, the advantage being that no one dared interrupt you or argue back. Moreover, prayer was a way to tell God to behave, to stick with being the God we said he was, and a way to remind God of his "many promises" so he wouldn't try to do anything odd or theologically inconsistant."
"All the basic precepts were right there in my parent's prayers. Now God knew what he was supposed to be doing- predestining each individual to be saved or lost and doing this from before creation-so we could relax. Prayer was a way to remind God not to let his attention wander or forget that we, and we only, really understood what he was supposed to be doing. So we prayed at him, too. The logic of those prayers, if one was reading between the lines, was something like this:
"Dear Heavenly Father, in Your Word You say that when two or three are gathered together, You will be in the midst of them. Well, we're gathered here, so do what we're telling You to do because we have You over a barrel and can quote Your own book back at you! And in case You're thinking of weaseling out of this deal we claim Your promises, and because You can't break any of those since You wrote it all in the Bible, You'll do what we say, and You'll do it NOW! Amen!
.....
"..I just sat in my room and stared at the wall and couldn't figure out why it was a good idea to tell God stuff he already knew.
~pages 150,151
