Lord’s Library contributor Jared Helms offers commentary on prayer during difficult times and seasons via the Biblical approach below. Check out Jared’s YouTube channel and two blogs: A Light in the Darkness and Blind Faith Examples, or send him a reader response email. Lord’s Library’s Ministry Leaders Series is a collection of contributed articles written by ministry leaders on key Christian topics.
There are times when our faith is challenged by circumstances, and prayer seems useless. Our flesh and the demons never miss an opportunity to hit us when we are down, and disconnecting us from the lifeline of prayer is high on their priorities. Life is hard enough, but we are also fighting a war. What are we to do? How do we pray when we no longer feel like praying? How do we pray when it is hard to talk to God?
I believe the most difficult situation for prayer is when we are angry with God. Perhaps we had asked Him to spare the life of a loved one, and He took them away. Perhaps we lost our job, suffered a breakup, or fell seriously ill.
We do not understand what God is doing. We want Him to answer all of our questions, and give us a full account. We demand this of God, and perhaps we demand reparation as well. We blame the almighty, and we are not prepared to forgive the offense. In one sense, it is perfectly understandable, these sorts of things hurt us deeply. The pain often blindsides us and we react. There never seems to be enough time, energy, or wherewithal to consider the whole matter and formulate a proper response.
Prayer in Difficult Times
In such times, some would tell us that we can vent our anger at God, He is God after all, and He can handle it. There is a certain amount of truth in that notion, but it misses the point entirely. We have no right to be angry with God no matter what has happened.
Whatever we suffer it is much less than we deserve to suffer. God has not done anything wrong to us. Raging at God is also unhelpful. Expressing anger tends to prolong and increase anger generally, but expressing anger toward God compounds our issues even more by misrepresenting the truth to ourselves. We are acting like God is someone with whom we might contend, and as if everything He does is not just and right.
The anger feels good because it represents us as being in a position of power as if we might exercise some control through our raging. However, all we are doing is exhausting ourselves while pushing ourselves off into isolation. So, we are bound to end up alone and wearied. That is not a good place to be at the best of times. Anger makes us stupid, not powerful. Anger keeps us from hearing and understanding, it doesn’t get us answers.
We want answers, and we can and should ask for them, but demanding them is wrong. Consider the case of Job who lost everything he owned, and all of his children, and was abandoned by his wife, plunged into terrible physical pain, and then harassed by his friends. Job wanted to know what it was all about. Job did not get the answer he wanted, instead, he got an explanation of who God is, and with that Job was satisfied. We should be too.
There are a lot of things we cannot understand, but we can understand that God is always good. I know that is much, much easier to write than it is to live. Nevertheless, it is true, and because it is true it is helpful.
It is helpful because it keeps us from pushing God away, and enables us to draw near to Him for the help only He can give. That is also true when we are overcome with great sorrow, confusion, or that awful numbness of emotional burnout, anxiety, or despair, whatever tries to hold us captive within ourselves the truth will set us free. See Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
God is near to the broken-hearted according to Psalms 34:18: “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” We may feel otherwise, but our feelings do not dictate reality, God does. God holds it all together, He is always in perfect control, and so embracing Him brings us to equilibrium.
See Philippians 4:5-7: “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
God invites us to come to Him with our anxieties and sorrows. We can come to Him when our faith is weak, and find help; for remember that Jesus did not despise the man who needed help for his unbelief, but did for Him what was asked. See Matthew 9:23-25: “And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose.”
The man of all sorrows has not forgotten what it is like to suffer.
Ah, but what if Heaven has gone silent? I wish to give an honest answer here and pray the reader will not think me rash in giving it. God is never silent. He speaks through the pages of Scripture. When we speak of God being silent it has more to do with our sensibilities than with His voice. We find Him silent because we want particular information and it is not forthcoming. Scripture speaks to that. There are other times when we think God is muted because we have gone deaf. The Bible speaks to that situation as well: consider Psalms 42 and 73 for instance.
The most serious experience of silence comes from the overwhelming effects of pain. We find God muted simply because we hurt so much, and nothing seems to ease that pain. I wish very much that He could be present with each one who right now is resonating with this description.
May God send one of His servants to minister His tender mercy, and lovingkindness with physical presence. You are not the first to find yourself in the dark night of the soul. Consider William Cowper’s hymn Heal Us, Emmanuel, or God Moves in a Mysterious Way. The latter song contains these lines:
“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense
But trust Him for His grace
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face
His purposes will ripen fast
Unfolding every hour
The bud may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower:”
The same themes appear in hymns and songs throughout the ages. In the present day, we have such offerings as The Silence of God by Michael Card, The Rain Keeps Falling by Andrew Peterson, and The Noon Day Demon by Francisco Ortega among a host of others.
Past and present, the suffering in Christ sing together in chorus, and we ought to heed them. Pray through the pain as best you can. The Spirit will help you. Even a feeble cry is enough to bring the Good Shepherd at the right time. Do not lose heart beloved. My words can do but little against worldly woes, but the Word He has spoken will surely prevail. As has been said: “Earth has no sorrow which Heaven cannot heal.”
How do we recall this when we are so much consumed by trouble? Psalms 42 speaks to this very issue, and Martyn Lloyd Jones illuminates the text in the book titled Spiritual Depression. We must continually preach the truth to ourselves. Get it from the Bible, from good books by trusted authors, and from truthful songs like those mentioned above. Most especially get it from fellow believers. It is quite easy to neglect reaching out to brothers and sisters for help, just as it is easy to stop asking God for help.
God already knows all about what we are going through, but our fellow believers do not. Even those trained and ordained for ministry have no special powers of awareness to sense our distress unless we bring it to their attention. The words of James regarding illness should apply to our mental, emotional, and spiritual infirmities as well. See James 5:14: “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:”
Not only can these men preach the Gospel to us personally, they can lift us up in prayer, and bring others in to do the same. When we find it hard to pray, we can ask others to pray for us. In doing this we are actually ministering to them by giving them the opportunity to minister to us. There is no shame in such requests, it is not extraordinary weakness, but perfectly ordinary fellowship. As Paul told the Galatians, sharing our burdens is a vital part of God’s design for His church.
These steps, like every step in any discipline, are hardest at the beginning and become easier as we repeat them. Exercising our spirit is just like exercising our bodies, the weight that is too much today will soon be easily handled if we persist. That is not the news we wish for today. Still, it is a sure hope. It is sure because it is a hope in God’s work and not in our own.
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