How many of these feelings do you experience on a regular basis?
- Pain
- Fear
- Doubt
- Distrust
- Betrayal
- Hurt
- Anger
- Sorrow
- Worry
Emotions are real. They need to be felt and not suppressed, but they are not meant to consume us. Outside of mental illness, too often we let heartbreaking circumstances keep us from seeking God. Work your way through Psalm 13 -
1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
David provides snapshots of his feelings throughout his psalms. You will notice a pattern though – he works through his hurts and directs his confidence towards God.
Pain should bring us into prayer, not lead us away. When you have a relationship with Christ, you have a right to call on him.
Avoid perfecting your prayers. Be real. Go ahead, use harsh words and vent anger during prayer. Get away from the idea that prayer has to sound profound. Waiting until your prayer can sound profound is just another tactic Satan uses to keep you down. God wants to hear you – not a deep, thought-out, or forced prayer that you think sounds nice.
3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
If you do not seek God through Prayer, Satan will work his way in and will consume your life. He is good at what he does. You will not have the energy to get out of bed because of sadness. You may be irritable with your children or spouse. Your work will suffer. You will barely function in a fog throughout the day. You will think these are necessary feelings in your life and will blame God for the experience.
What you do not realize is that Satan is behind these feelings. Stop and recognize that this is the enemy consuming you. But, it will not stop until you tell God, in your words, what you desire.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
Take a look at the definition of “unfailing” –
Uhn-fey-ling [adjective] not failing; not giving way; not falling short of expectation; completely dependable; inexhaustible; endless.
David treated God as his completely dependable friend. He trusts His inexhaustible love. He asked for light – clarity for the next step – to create a plan or determine a path.
If you have junk in your life, pray this prayer. Do not make it perfect – just real.
“Hey, God, I’ve got a lot of crap going on. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be miserable. Tell me, show me – however you want to do it – what do to next.”
Let Satan keep the “profound” sounding prayer. Just keep it real with Christ.
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