So I've got a question for you. How did you learn to pray? How did you learn to pray?

I've been asking that question, and I've gotten different answers, but the reality is this

most people actually don't quite know. A lot of them can't quite remember, and many actually

wonder if they're doing it right. Like, am I praying the right way?

Unfortunately, many Christians have at best a limited view on prayer,

and at worst, a skewed perspective or even wrong theology.

So let me tell you about my journey in talking with God,

because I grew up in church. And so when I was a little

kid, God was scary. He was scary. I grew up in a church that talked a lot about Jesus coming

back and taking his church. They talked about the rapture, and they talked about the Antichrist.

And they told you, if you were sinning when Jesus came back,

you would be left behind and you would have to deal. Anybody else grew up like that?

You would have to deal with all that persecution. It was scary. So I was confessing my sins all

the time. Praying to God, forgive me for that thought I just had, right? It was scary. In fact,

there was this prayer that we learned.

Some of y'all might know it. It went something like, now I lay me down to sleep. If you know,

it say it with me, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord,

my soul to take. That's a scary prayer, right? Like this is as a kid,

we're praying these prayers. God was scary. Then as a teenager, God was more like my homie.

See, I grew up in Los Angeles around gangs, drive-by shootings were just a common thing,

a lot of violence, a lot of drugs, but I also got to witness a lot of gang members give their lives to Christ. And so God was more like my homie, because a homie's got your back. A homie lays down his life for you. A homie never backs down. He's with you. So God was more like my homie. I actually met two former gang members that gave him their life to Jesus. They took that same prayer and tweaked it a little bit. Now, I want to preface this. This was their prayer, not mine. Okay? Just put that in your mind. Because it went something like this. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord of my soul to keep if I happen to die before I wake, shoot the Antichrist with an AK. Again, is their prayer not mine, okay?

So God was more like my homie. As a young adult, God became more like my friend. There was a

...