Praying Before Men

One of Alma’s concerns about the Zoramites was the way that they prayed.  They got up one at a time on their Rameumptom, expressed their superiority to all other people in a supposed communication with God, and then got down, “never speaking of God again until they had assembled themselves together again to the holy stand” (Alma 31:23).  They were praying to be seen of men, not heard of God.  This was clearly on Alma’s mind as he taught the poor among the Zoramites who thought they could not worship outside the synagogue. 

He spoke much on prayer to them and quoted this passage from Zenos: “Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee, to be heard of thee and not of men, and thou wilt hear them” (Alma 33:8).  Alma wanted the Zoramites to know that God would be merciful to them if they prayed in sincerity with the desire to be heard of Him, not men.  God will probably not show us great mercy just because we say a few words in prayer so we could be seen of others; mercy comes to those who “cry” unto the Lord without the ulterior motive of being admired by other hearers.  Jesus of course emphasized this principle in the Sermon on the Mount: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.  But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:5-6).  I like the description given by Daniel Tyler of hearing the Prophet Joseph pray, and I think Joseph exemplified this principle: “Never until then had I heard a man address his Maker as though He was present listening as a kind father would listen to the sorrows of a dutiful child. … There was no ostentation, no raising of the voice as by enthusiasm, but a plain conversational tone, as a man would address a present friend. It appeared to me as though, in case the veil were taken away, I could see the Lord standing facing His humblest of all servants I had ever seen.” (Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 127).  Joseph was not praying so that his fellow brethren would hear; he prayed in order to speak to God.  I think it’s easy for us in public settings such as Church to worry more about what people are going to think of our prayer than what we are actually saying to God.  In the BYU Scripture Discussions on the Sermon on the Mount, a professor told the story of President Kimball who once went to say the prayer at Congress.  Apparently there were not many in attendance that day, and someone apologized to President Kimball saying, “O that was a beautiful prayer.  I’m sorry there were not more here.”  President Kimball responded, “You don’t need to apologize.  I wasn’t praying to them.”  That’s the kind of attitude we should have in all of our public prayers.