When You Pray, Say. . . .

I am no expert on prayer. I feel like I’m always learning why to do it, when to do it, and how to do it. As is true with any element of my spiritual life, when I start hearing the same teaching from several different sources, I begin to think that God just might be trying to teach me something.

Lately it’s been about prayer. I just heard a sermon addressing Jesus’ model prayer. The disciples asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray,” and in response to that He answered “When you pray say,” before leading into what we know as the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1-2). The pastor was making the point that when Jesus told them to pray, He told them to say something–not think it, not write it–say it.

I find that journaling is very helpful to me in many ways, and of course there are many times when I pray silently (most often in fact). However, time and time again over the last few weeks I’ve heard “pray aloud.” It makes sense. Praying aloud makes it more of a conversation. Hearing my requests, complaints, or pleas might give them further weight, or if hearing my own words causes me to grow tired of my own complaining, I might reevaluate the injustice I feel that I’ve suffered.

Praying aloud will help me deal with the distraction that I inevitably fall into when I’m praying, either early in the morning or late at night.

The wonderful thing about having a relationship with God is that it is indeed a relationship. It will differ from person to person. It will change over time–hopefully getting stronger and stronger. It will unfortunately probably ebb and flow. There is not one right way to pray, and if we take the command to “pray without ceasing” seriously, we will certainly pray in many different ways to fit the situation, but I’m thankful that He’s pointed out something that might be lacking in my own spiritual walk, and I’m excited to begin to implement it.

By the way, if you are always trying to get up earlier so that you can spend more time in prayer, the switch away from daylight savings time is a perfect time to do it. Your body clock is probably still set on the “old time” so waking up earlier will be a bit easier.

What about you? Do you pray aloud in your personal prayer time? If not, what are the obstacles to this? Do you think it’s important to include this in your relationship with God?