"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.I often feel like I've taken this verse too much to heart, because I tend to make my prayers extremely short to avoid repeating myself. I sometimes think my small prayer life is in part because I've taken this verse to the extreme. Rather than risk getting into repetition, I tend not to pray at all.
However, there's one thing I don't remember noticing before. In the previous instructions, Jesus said not to do things like the hypocrites; here he says not to be like the Gentiles. I guess the Gentiles were seen like the false prophets on Mt. Carmel, where they kept crying out to Baal to hopefully get his attention eventually. We don't need to do that, because we know (intellectually, if not emotionally) that God is always listening, even when we don't see a response.
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