I only pray out loud when I want my kids to hear what I’m saying.

I know what you’re thinking — hypocrites in the synagogue and the street corner; go to your room and shut the door — but I think if Jesus had to raise children he would understand where I’m coming from. I pray out loud not because I want my kids to think I’m holy and not because I want them to admire me but because I want them to know how broken I am, how desperately I rely on the mercy and love of God.

It’s also a really effective way to send a message. “God, I’m sorry I’ve been losing my patience today. Please help me. And send your Holy Spirit to make these kids stop fighting.”

Vocal prayer, in front of other people, is an incredibly vulnerable action, so it strikes me whenever Jesus chooses to pray out loud in front of his disciples. Surely, mental prayer was something of a perpetual state for him. I imagine Jesus was ceaselessly in conversation with his Father in heaven throughout even the most ordinary of days. So, when he chooses to make those communications public, my ears perk up. 

He wants his kids to hear what he’s saying. 

In John, chapter 17, we see that he wants us to remember who we are. His disciples are about to see things that will shake the very foundations of their faith. The only way they will make it to the other side is if they remember that truth does not consist only of what we can see with our eyes. 

This is the same truth in which we have been consecrated. We belong to this truth in a way the world will never understand or accept. It is the truth we cannot see.

“I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.” John 17:14