My wife Jill and I just had our 26^th anniversary. If you could only know what a miracle that really is! Obviously, I married up.  And even then, we almost never got started. The day I met her I made a complete idiot of myself. Her first impression of me: “Weird and Rude.” Stick with me. There were good reasons for those fears.

A study out of McMaster University pegs my problem. Researchers there discovered that men temporarily lose large percentages of their IQ in the presence of beautiful women. Serious. I’m living proof. When a friend introduced us all I could to do was stammer something like, “Ahhh…Uhhh. Honored, I’m sure.”

Jill intimidated me. Not only was she gorgeous and smart and talented, she was rooming with me ex-fiancé, a minor detail that sent my paranoia meter off the charts. That’s another story.

So, I was in awe. And from that day, whenever I saw her and tried to be clever, I ended up sounded stupid. Trying made me a jerk. And “Mr. Plastic Man” never stood a chance.

Fear makes self-conscious jerks of us. Have you ever felt intimidated in a relationship and tried to compensate by over impressing? It manufactures miscommunication – in our human relationships and in our communication with God. Being afraid focuses my eyes on US and that stifles honesty and intimacy.

Self-consciousness kills prayer. My experience has been that the harder I try to “press in” with prayer, the more self-conscious and the less God-conscious I become. I become “Mr. Plastic Man” with God.

I’m betting this blog spot that some of you would agree, that the harder you try to pray the more artificial the process becomes.

Question: So where do we find our true voice in prayer? I want to spend a few days drilling down into this question. Join me. How do you make prayer “plain and simple?”