Praying aloud can be scary particularly in a group setting where others can agree or disagree.
Fear in Prayer
Praying out loud can hit the root of our insecurities. We fear man. We fear our own pride. But it is as we pray anyway that we begin to find true healing. What better way to find freedom from the fear of man than in prayer to God.
Remember, if you have turned from your sins and put your trust in Jesus Christ you have become a child of God (Romans 8:16, 1 John 3:1-3). This makes talking to God aloud no more strange than talking to a human father. Praying aloud forces us to view God as our Father for how else could we even approach Him?
Viewing God as our Father by no way diminishes his grandeur. Jesus knew the perfect balance when he prayed in this way “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Mathew 6:9b-10
Pride in Prayer
Sometimes people refrain from praying out loud because they don’t want others to think they are proud. This is a poisonous blend of pride and fear. The antidote for this toxin is faith and action.
We don’t want to be the pharisee who prays on the street corner just to be heard by men. But the solution is not to hide in fear. That is the Devil’s solution. The Kingdom path is the path of faith and action.
You won’t overcome this challenge until you start praying out loud. Ask God for humility. Fear God. Focus on Jesus. This takes a mental discipline that you only learn through practice.
What do you think?
- Are you afraid to pray out loud? Why do you think that is?
- For those of you who overcame this fear how did you do it?
Some folks have never prayed out loud. Yet they speak out loud to people, just not God. Is it possible for someone like this to be saved?
Praying out loud seems necessary for salvation.
“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:8-10
God is omnipotent he knows all .which also includes what you are tinking good and bad so I believe he will save all of us ,which brings to mind the mute God saved one in a bible verse I read it would be a sad day if we got left behind because it was not said out loud.some praise God privetly ,some with song, some in their sole , some out loud , I think God does not care as long as we are thinking of him. Amen
I believe that you can confess it at any time in your life, that you are a Christian / follower of Christ. There doesn’t seem to be any timeline in the scripture. But a responsible person, leading another to Christ, should certainly have a person confess it at that time.
I helped my parishioners to overcome all the ordinary fears of praying out loud by explaining how to construct their prayers following the standard collect form (found copiously in the Book of Common Prayer, but also a very common form among Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran liturgical texts. The biggest hurdle (and, it wasn’t that big) was to get them to jettison the tedious evangelical notion that the only prayer worth praying is the one that is made up on the spot. No one would ever speak this way to a man whose power can determine of your life will be happy or grim. Yet, somehow or the other, speaking this way to God is not only okay, but good! Go figger.
Anyway, the collect form is simple; obvious, when you see its logic; and exceeding powerful in its ability to focus one’s prayers and to avoid wandering all over the landscape.
In the Prayers of the People in each Sunday’s worship, individual parishioners offer their petitions and thanksgivings in collect form, confident that their prayers are lucid, focused, honoring to God, and edifying to those who hear.