I always thought "The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" meant you had to put up with God, even if you didn't want to.
I figured "he maketh me lie down in green pastures" was kind of like when your parents made you go to bed early.

Cat the heathen

The grown-ups in my church had a strange prayer based on Matthew 6:9:

"Our Father, who aren't in heaven. How will it be Thy name?"

(If He aren't in heaven, where are He?)

Vicki J.

at the end of a prayer in school assemblies i thought you had to say amen really loudly otherwise you would get in trouble with the teacher. We all used to sit on the floor in assemblies and i thought you had to bend over as much as possible (so your head was really near your feet) otherwise the teachers thought you weren't praying

bend and break

when people at church would say amen during a prayer in agreeance to what had been said in the prayer, i used to think they said amen because they thought the prayer was over. You can imagine how proud of myself i was as i was smarter than a bunch of grown ups and ALWAYS said amen at the right time. 0=D

smart and naive

When I was little my grandmother made me say this prayer at night before going to sleep "..and if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." This prayer scared me because I was afraid I would die in my sleep, and also that God couldn't stop it--so I was afraid to fall asleep and would lie awake in the darkness for hours tryng not to fall asleep.

scaredy cat

When I lived with my dad, he told me to say my prayers every night before I go to bed. He meant EVERY night. And for the longest time I thought if I didn't say my prayers before I go to bed, then I would die in my sleep. So I actually did that EVERY night, until I lived with my mom and saw she didn't die when she didn't say her prayers.

anon.

When my parents and I were praying to God, I thought they were saying:

"Our father who does art in heaven, Harold be thy name, thy kingdom come, I will be done with dressings made in heaven. Give us our jelly bread and forgive us our trash baskets and forgive us who put trash bags among us. Lead us not into Penn Station but deliver us some e-mail."

Anon

When I was little I used to believe that the phrase "delivers us from evil" referred to God putting the entire human race into a big yellow envelope and sending us away somewhere evil couldn't reach us.

digital dragon

A four year old friend of mine was very proud to have learned the "our father" at church, and so she was reciting it to me. She ended it with "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us with evil."

Well, i dont know what god SHE's praying to....

Chris-Mass.

that I could throw my problems up in the sky and God would reach down and catch them.

DeQuendre

As a young Catholic child, I knew I needed to bless myself with the sign of the cross before and after my prayers. For some reason I believed the before-prayers sign of the cross got God on the line (like a telephone call) and the after-prayers one hung up the phone. I'd lie in bed wondering if God was still "on the line." I thought that until I was 17!

Anne Oljar

...and, of course, I always believed that we asked God, in the Lord's Prayer, to "lead a snot into temptation."

David Moreau

I used to think that 'Grace' at the table went: Gone is Great! Gone is Good! Let us spank him for our food. Amen...

Drake Healy

When I was little I used to think that if I didn't do the sign of the cross before praying God would not listen to me, so when I would forget to do it I would start praying all over again even if I was almost finished.

Josie

I used to believe that prayers were like phoning God ie when you made the sign of the cross it was like dialling the number and after you said your prayer you HAD to do the sign of the cross to hang up or God would still be able to read your mind and he'd know if you were doing or thinking anything bad. I also believed that if you were interrupted during your prayer you would have to stop and make the sign of the cross to hang up and THEN you could attend to the interruption. I was about eight years old when I started to doubt this belief but then one day we were saying prayers in class (Catholic school) and the teacher made us do do sign of the cross but then another teacher came in and our teacher just stopped. My friend leaned over and whispered to me and said "Be good, God can still hear us because we didn't hang up". Thus my unusual belief was reaffirmed for another year.

Norah-Ireland