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"Just"

This week off between jobs I have had a lot of time to read my Bible, pray, connect with friends and think about things that I haven't had time to think about lately. I have noticed this before, but it came to my mind again as I was praying while driving to run some errands (don't worry, I had my eyes open).

What I kept noticing was that I was praying with the word "just" a lot, but not in any way that made sense (i.e. referring to being "guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness" or God's "righteousness" as defined by dictionary.com), but rather I was using it as a qualifier of sorts ("exactly or precisely; only or merely" again by dictionary.com). When I say I was using it as a qualifier, I was saying things like, "Lord, would you just protect them" or "would you just be with them" type of stuff. The frustrating thing is I realized what I was saying in the middle and kept stopping and starting my prayers over or backing up to before the word "just" and skipping over it. I started thinking, do I seriously think God's ever not with people who believe in Him? Or do I think God doesn't know they need protecting? Does using "just" actually communicate to God that this is "exactly, precisely and only" the thing I would like to see Him do in so-and-so's life or in such-and-such situation? If I'm really asking for God to be in control of the situation or meet a person in their needs and help them know His love and comfort, why am I putting the word "just" in front of my heart concerns? There's nothing small about those requests and those are good things to pray about. And God can answer those prayers in whatever ways make sense for His good and His glory. But there's seldom one little thing that is the answer, so "just" doesn't make sense to say.

Without going on in circles, I think you get the point, but I do want to summarize my thoughts in regards to praying with the word "just":
*If I'm praising God for being just and for leading me towards being just in my character, that makes sense and is good.
*If I'm bringing concerns or requests to God in prayer, using "just" both communicates limitation to what I think God can/should do possibly and I think it also minimizes the prayer in making it seem very minor or that it can only be solved by my request (which probably is seldom the case).
*If I really do mean to specify one thing or request, "just" can make sense, but I should probably use it more scarcely than I do.

What do you think of "just"? Why is it that so many Christians use it in prayer? Is it a filler word? Do we really mean to limit the things we're praying about? Is it out of anxiety of praying out loud or distraction of multi-tasking while talking to the Lord? Why has it become the norm to use "just" so often in prayer?

Thoughts welcome :)

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