The Cheater's Prayer

Recently I came across something posted by a mocker commenting on Christian athletes praying before a game. He found it hilarious: Don't they know the other side is praying, too? He worked on the assumption that the only subject of a prayer before a game would be victory. He assumed that people who pray are the simplest of simpletons: don't they know that the other team is praying too? He thought he -- clever as he was -- had spotted something that those silly religious people had never considered. Had such an obvious thing never crossed their minds? 

In my experience among Christians, there are certain kinds of prayers that are considered unworthy prayers. There are prayers that are never offered, ones that are presumed to be offensive to God. Examples would be athletes praying to do better in a competition than would be merited by their performance, students praying to do better on a test than would be merited by their preparation, and other things that are in a sense the desire to cheat. At times like that, the prayer itself is generally left un-prayed in the belief that it would be an affront to God's holiness even to ask such a thing. The prayer is left unspoken not on the grounds that a competitor might ask the same thing, but on the grounds that it is unspiritual and unworthy. 

There is an etiquette to prayer not to use prayer in a cheap or self-serving way. Someone might well pray before a test: for calm and focus, for a clear mind. It's the difference between approaching a teacher before the test looking for the answer sheet (cheating), or approaching a teacher before a test looking for the time  and place of that review session (seeking better mastery of the course materials). So one way to recognize a cheater's prayer: Is it looking to gain success without earning it? 

I looked up a sample prayer before a competition, and the first sample I found was this: "Lord, let all glory today be yours and yours alone and let me score, win, lose, etc., in humility and giving all praise to you." That is another way to recognize a cheater's prayer: Is it looking to avoid loss or seek glory for the person praying, or for God?