We as Christians are taught to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus (for example, Ephesians 5:20). We typically end our prayers with the phrase “In the name of Jesus Christ.” When we do anything in the name of Christ, we are doing what we believe Christ would do. So when I offer a prayer in the name of Christ, I should be offering the kind of prayer that Jesus himself would pray.
I think most of the time, however, my prayers are not the kind of prayers Jesus would offer to his Father. My prayers are many times selfish or prideful or even thoughtless. I fear that I take the Lord’s name in vain when I attach his name to my misguided prayers.
The answer, of course, is not to stop praying. Our Father is happy with every prayer we send his way. Any prayer is better than no prayer. My prayer does not have to be eloquent or fancy or long, and it surely should not be rote or tedious. If I bore myself, I am surely boring God. Nevertheless, the lesson I am learning is that a prayer should be worthy of Christ’s name when I attach his name to it.
If I begin a prayer by asking the Holy Ghost to teach me what Jesus would pray about if he were offering this prayer, and then listen to the promptings of the Spirit, I can offer a prayer that I can close in the name of Jesus Christ, and do it not in vain. I can pray like the disciples of Christ, for “they did not multiply many words, for it was given unto them what they should pray, and they were filled with desire. And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray…; and his countenance did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them… And Jesus said unto them: Pray on” (3 Nephi 19:24-26).
I will “pray on” in the name of Christ in the faith that “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you” (John 16:23).
