Unhitching from the Unspokens
You’ve been there. The inevitable question enters the room, usually asked at the end of your group’s meeting. It holds the power of making a room quiet and heavy: “Any prayer requests?”
The ceiling fan drones on, and the walls creak as group members find themselves lost for words. A few people fidget with their fingers or Bible. Then, without warning, a word emerges:
“Unspoken.”
As if the room could get more silent, now it does.
Wordless Intercession
I’ve grown up hearing unspoken prayer requests all my life. In summary, it’s a device used by Christians to acknowledge a need for prayer without divulging the details of the request. I’ve seen it in a Southern Baptist church, an Evangelical Free church, and a church with no denomination; the unspoken has no one home. Usually, the spirit of the unspoken prayer request is, “I have something heavy on my heart. However, I’m not ready to talk about it.”
As a pastor and someone who has led various small groups, I still run into the unspoken prayer request here and there. For a long time, I felt the best response was to let sleeping dogs lie while conjuring up some fitting, ambiguous prayer for that person. I believed this was the right way to respect someone’s privacy while also giving a nod to their need for prayer.
Yet I am coming to believe something different. Sharing an “unspoken” seems not only unprofitable to its requester but detrimental to the spiritual community. There are instances, of course, where practicing discretion is wise. But I worry that the people of God are prone to hide behind the shadow of the unspoken prayer request—not out of prudence—but out of fear, out of shame, and even out of pride.
There is a better way forward for praying in community than word-less intercession. Our faith is built upon the words and sentences of the Bible. The truth we believe is not wordless but rather full of words. A group that speaks its prayer requests encourages and challenges and sharpens one another. Here are four reasons we need to unhitch ourselves from the unspoken.
To get us honest. Perhaps no place in Scripture better illustrates an honest heart before God than the Psalms. There is something about the authenticity, the grit of the book of Psalms, that makes us gravitate to their example. Eugene Peterson once put it this way:
Good poetry survives not when it is pretty or beautiful or nice but when it is true: accurate and honest. The psalms are great poetry and have lasted not because they appeal to our fantasies and our wishes but because they are confirmed in the intensities of honest and hazardous living . . . It is honest prayer (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 75).
One potential danger of letting unspoken prayer requests fester is that they do not push us into honesty and authenticity but into privacy and secrecy. And the more we traffic in secrecy together, the more difficult it proves to live in the light with others (1 John 1:7). Voicing our requests gets us honest with ourselves and helps us get honest with people around us.
To enable the burden-bearing of Christians. Paul wrote that for Christians to bear the burdens of one another is to “fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). That’s no small statement. Paul bases this argument on the conclusion that “the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14).
“To love your neighbor is to bear their burden. But how can we bear a nameless burden?”
To love your neighbor is to bear their burden. But how can we bear a nameless burden? How can we properly shoulder a load of uncertain weight?
The unspoken prayer request not only leaves one alone in his burden-carrying, but it actually makes such an essential task impossible for Christian brothers and sisters. When we invite others into the context of our burden—walking in the light with them—what happens? “We have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7). Naming our need forges empathy with our neighbor.
To practice repentance. Often, the word “unspoken” seems to be our public code-word for a private sin struggle. We can feel some embarrassment at the prospect of bringing the dark chambers of our hearts to light. More often than not, “unspoken” is our tactic to collect prayer while saving face.
We fall for the lie that “unspoken” will salve our conscience. But treating our sinfulness as abstract truth does little to advance us in actual repentance. Thomas Watson argues that true confession requires us to “particularize” our sin:
As it is with a wounded man, who comes to the surgeon and shows him all his wounds—here I was cut in the head, there I was shot in the arm—so a mournful sinner confesses the several distempers of his soul . . . By a diligent inspection into our hearts we may find some particular sin induced; point to that sin with a tear (The Doctrine of Repentance, 30).
Honest acknowledgment and assessment of our sin is the good soil from which repentance can grow. When we practice repentance in an obvious way, it not only keeps us accountable to follow through without our about-face but also encourages others to practice repentance themselves.
To help people pray. We often tell someone going through a tough time, “Let me know if you need anything.” While well-meaning, the offer is loose and imprecise. But telling someone, “Let me know if I can bring you dinner this week,” identifies a specific need and gives our words definition.
If we want to encourage a culture of prayer among our spiritual community, vague words and unspokens will not help. God may know the entirety of our prayer request even before it is on our tongue, but others don’t. We must help people know how to pray. Specificity does this.
Near the conclusion of his letter to the Romans, Paul desires that his readers will “strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf” (Rom. 15:30). This is exactly what we all want when asking for prayer. But then Paul helpfully gives his audience specific words and topics to pray through “that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company” (Rom. 15:31–32). In praying together, we invite others to see God’s providence and redemption.
“Prayer journals can serve as a sort of “archive” of the particular ways the Lord has been faithful.”
I know of several people who keep a prayer journal. It’s a place to document various prayer requests but also a space to highlight how God answered those prayers. Prayer journals can serve as a sort of “archive” of the particular ways the Lord has been faithful.
But what if we brought that mentality off the page and into our life together? What if our times together were their own type of archive, where we could recount his wonderful deeds (Ps. 75:1)?
Imagine the speaker of the unspoken coming back weeks later and saying to the group, “I wanted everyone to know that God answered my unspoken.” We may be happy, but we’d miss out on some of the recounting, wouldn’t we? Our gratitude would lack color and vibrancy.
Use Your Words
Are you struggling to speak your prayer requests to God and others? Consider this. Your Creator numbers every hair that you comb (Luke 12:7), counts each tossing and bottles every tear that you cry (Ps. 56:8), and sympathizes with every temptation you face (Heb. 4:15). He calls you “intricately woven” and has determined your life to the calendar day (Ps. 139:15–16).
We worship a God of precise attention. He knows you better than you know yourself—and in spite of knowing you to this degree—he loves you. You can come to him in full confidence and honesty and receive his full gentleness and provision.
Let’s follow the admonition we often give our children: use your words. The Lord has given us the Church to help us know how to pray, how to stay oriented to God, how to repent. What if it’s your obedience to utilize the gift of words that will help someone actually pray on your behalf? What if your willingness to share compels another? What if your authenticity helps people see more clearly the reality of both God’s holiness and compassion? Is your community ready for that kind of spiritual vitality?
If so, then let’s begin. Any prayer requests?
Zach Barnhart currently serves as Student Pastor of Fountain City Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is married to Hannah, and they have three children. You can follow Zach on Twitter or check out his personal blog, Cultivated.