A Prayer Hero

Let me state at the beginning, I am not an expert on prayer. I'm practicing and learning as I go. I know a few things about prayer, believe other things, and am completely baffled about a lot of things. One thing I know from personal experience and innumerable evidences is prayer works. Or more accurately stated, God works through our prayers. One thing I believe is God hears every prayer. What baffles me are the how's and why's. Nevertheless, just because I don't know how electricity works or how to wire a circuit, I still flip the switch when I need light. Prayer is not a switch, and God is not a light bulb, but you know what I mean.

I want to begin the conversation with a consideration of one of my prayer heroes. My introduction to meaningful, powerful, effective prayer started with a teenage boy living in rural upstate New York in 1820. I first heard about this young man when I was a teenager myself, so I felt like I could relate in some ways to his experience.

So, let's start our exploration of the prayerful life with Joseph Smith's first prayer. After grappling on his own with weighty questions of faith and which church he should join, he decided to turn the matter over to God.

He described his approach to his first prayer in these words:

In accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.
(Joseph Smith--History 1:14)

The inference in this statement is that Joseph had prayed silently, perhaps many times, for an answer to his question about religion, but the results were not satisfactory. So, he upped the ante by offering his first audible, vocal prayer.

He does not say why he had not used vocal prayer before, nor does he explain why he decided to speak out loud this time. What we know, however, is that the results were different for his spoken prayer than for his previous silent prayers. God answered young Joseph's prayer with a personal visitation to introduce His Beloved Son to instruct the prophet-to-be. The answer changed not just Joseph's life, but the lives of millions.

From the narrative, we can assume that the urgency and sincerity of this particular prayer was intensified. Perhaps Joseph had heard ministers and others offer powerful vocal prayers in the various congregational meeting he had attended. Or perhaps the power of the emotions in his heart simply could not be contained but could find full expression only in his audible voice.

As I consider my own prayers, have I wanted something desperately enough to cry aloud to the heavens and raise my voice to break the silence around me? God does not need to hear my voice. He knows my every thought and hears every silent prayer. But sometimes I may need to hear my own voice. It is true I can hear songs in my head and play music in my ears, but sometimes there is no substitute for rolling down the window, cranking up the volume, and singing along at the top of my voice.

Why does praying out loud make a difference? We can talk about this another day. For today, I'm satisfied that at least in some situations and circumstances, using our voices increases the power of our prayers. While I may not pray aloud all the time, when the Spirit says "speak", I must not remain silent.

YouTube: The Power of Prayer - Connect with God