Hindered prayers

"Prayer is friendship for God. Friendship is not formal, but it is not formless."-Buttrick

In my own prayers I tend to lean more towards the side of formless. I do not think about how I am praying before I pray, I simply start talking. Buttrick warns about this when he wrote about rushing into the presence of God. By not having any form whatsoever in my prayers, I often hinder my requests with unconfessed sin and selfishness. It is the same in human friendships. It is very hard to have an  intimate conversation with a friend if one is keeping a secret from the other or if that person has wronged the other and will not recognize it. Before, I never really understood the importance of having any sort of form in the way I pray, but now that I have examined them, I see that they could be very beneficial to my own life. This recognition, for me, will be the first step to avoiding the formless prayer. The next step will be to put into practice a sort of from in my prayers. I should write down a little list to put into my Bible to help me remember. This will help me make sure that the order of my prayers is guiding me into intimacy with God and that I should not just rush into making requests.