Call me strange, but sometimes I re-analyze the words that come out of my mouth. At times I ask myself, “Do I even know what that means?” Or I ask myself, “Does that even mean what I think it means.” I think I became more self aware when be began teaching baptism classes for kids and I talk about words like “Lord,” Confess” and Saved” as words that kids often hear and even say but don’t have any idea what they mean. It’s funny, really.

So, a few years ago I was praying with someone and we prayed a hedge of protection around them for safety. I think they may have been traveling or something. I can’t even remember if I prayed it or not. Later I started thinking, “What the heck is a hedge of protection and why on earth do I use those words in particular.” I can only imagine praying for someone who was maybe very new to faith or not even yet a believer and what would be going on in their head as I started praying about hedges.

I know, I know… I don’t want to put down tradition or scriptural phrases, but I really do think we can move to a new term without losing the meaning. The scripture often say that so and so begat so and so or Adam “knew” Eve, but we don’t quite say it that way anymore, do we?

So from now on, I’ve decided I’m not praying for hedges anymore. Yeah, I’ll still pray for people’s protection, but I’ll come up with something more current than shrubbery.

Before writing this post, I did a quick Google search about hedges of protection and actually came across a few interesting discussions which you can see here and here. However, I was very pleased to come across a video from comedian Tim Hawkins. Ha! I’m not the only one who thinks hedges are odd.