Prayer is a very personal relationship with Jesus the Messiah and God the Creator.  I learned that early in my Christian experience.  My prayers just didn’t seem to be verbally correct or spiritually significant.  They didn’t seem to match the prayers of other Christians that I respected.

Prayer is not a magical, religious formula to manipulate the God of grace into complying with my individual wishes.

In the "Sermon on the Mount", Jesus issued a serious warning about praying in public and taught the essential truth that prayer should be personal and private.

It took time, study, and practice to form my convictions.  Prayer time is not to be used as a "gesture", or "tone setter".  It is not to be used as a "social or political" statement.  It is not for "public relations". It is not an occasion to demonstrate "piety" for others to see.   Those reasons only trivialize prayer.

While in public school classrooms, never did I feel it was my place, as a teacher, to lead my students in prayer. Not all of my students had the same understanding about prayer as I did.  Out of respect for my students, their families, and their denominational understandings, I never sensed any urging from God to use my class as a time to correct "errors" in my students understanding of prayer.

In faculty meetings or assemblies, I was not willing to pray a prayer so general and nebulous it could be addressed "To Whom It May Concern."  I recognized the folly of trying to offer a meaningful prayer that could encompass all the different perspectives and views on prayer.  That type of prayer trivializes the activity.

Jesus’ instruction, "Go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father." was not an insignificant aspect of personal prayer.  It is an essential.

A "National Day of Prayer" and opening congressional or legislative sessions with prayers are civil rituals and not personal convictional prayer.  They trivialize the prayer relationship.

For any group of citizens to seek to have impact on government by holding a "public display of prayer", is an equally unacceptable reason for a "prayer activity."  Those activities are rituals with an intent to be "seen" for social impact value.

Prayer in an individual’s private room behind closed doors has more spiritual significance than public "prayer demonstrations."  I conclude that Jesus, in Matthew 6:7, would call it "…babbling like pagans… because of their many words."