Whats up with all the unspoken prayer requests on facebook?
Now, for those of you who did not grow up in the Bible Belt, an unspoken prayer request is usually a deeply personal request that the requestee feels is too personal to say out loud in a group setting.
I don’t know how it got started, but I know why. People want to be prayed for but do not want to get vulnerable with their brothers and sisters in Christ.
But, where does this leave the person who has been asked to be praying? They pray for something of which they don’t know how to pray and the people listening to those prayers said out loud are not edified by them at all. We can’t help this brother/sister. We can’t empathize with them. We don’t know if things are progressing the way they should (other than taking that person’s word for it). We can’t give that person advice. It leaves us totally impotent in impacting our fellow believer’s life. In fact, for all we know, we may end up praying for something ungodly or sinful.
Furthermore, what typically happens is that these unspoken prayer requests are treated more seriously than the ones that are spoken. This makes the group an unwitting participant in a practice that comes off as arrogant. And since these are treated more seriously, it becomes trendy to give an unspoken request. I have literally seen many more unspoken prayer requests on FB than spoken ones. Plus, think of how silly it seems for someone who didn’t grow up in the faith to look at believers and and hear someone give an unspoken request. That observer probably is thinking the thought we should all be thinking: “If it is unspoken then why speak it??!”
Giving an unspoken request is just like the person who says, “I have a secret, but I can’t tell you what it is.” If you can’t tell us, then why did you say you had a secret? That kind of stuff should drive people nuts, but in the case of the unspoken request, we see the opposite as true.
The question is: Why?
It’s simple, really. People don’t want people knowing their ‘binness and other people don’t want them telling them their ‘binness. But, is this the way Christians should act? Let’s consider James 5:16
"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
This verse is a slam-dunk against the practice of unspoken prayer requests. There are no levels of confession mentioned here. The finality of it leads me to believe that we are to be open with each other or not be open at all. And why are we to confess? Because the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. In other words, we will more easily see God at work in our lives when other, more mature believers are praying for us.
Now, let’s let the unspoken request go unspoken and let’s bring each other’s burdens to the Lord in prayer.
Adapted from HERE.
