20/02/2026
Merely Mouthed Prayers.
By Peter Barfoot
I'm sure you've heard it because many Christians say it. I used to say it myself. But I've made up my mind that I'll stop saying it, because it annoys me when I hear it, and it annoys me even more when I say it myself.
"Just."
Not as in "Just you wait!" or "Just say the word" but in the following, fairly typical prayer:
"Lord, we just come to you to ask you to just answer our prayers, so that we may just see people saved..."
I'm sure you agree that it's about time we removed from our prayers this verbal apology for intruding into God's presence. But we can't do it by just not saying just. (Just try.)
But don't worry. I've discovered that we can replace the beggarly "J" word with "merely", which has pretty much the same meaning. We just (oops!) pray like this: "Lord, we merely come to you to merely ask you to answer our prayers so that we may merely—"
Enough! Appalled by this obsequious approach to the glorious Throne of God, where God meets our needs abundantly, we are now ready to drop this trifling, insignificant, scant, negligible, mundane, nothing-else-but/nothing-more-than, cringingly-apologetic, totally unworthy expression from our prayers!
We are believers, not beggars. We do bow our knees, but we don't grovel. We lift up holy hands, not sweaty palms. We are saved by grace, not by the skin of our teeth. We don't need to use paltry words when praying. How can we "come boldly to the throne of grace" with merely mouthed prayers? We ask, we don't "just" ask. We pray; we don't "just" pray.
Just stop it!
