By Doug Creamer

Hard Prayers

            Have you ever prayed and felt like God wasn’t listening? Maybe you felt like your prayers were just hitting the ceiling and bouncing back down. I think we get this feeling because it seems like nothing is happening. We pray and we pray but there are no results…that we can see. We ask God, we beg God…but there is no answer. How do we move forward on other things that need prayers when we feel like this one important thing to us hasn’t received any action from heaven?

            Unanswered prayers give birth to doubt. Struggle. Sometimes God feels so close we imagine we can touch Him. Then there seems to be those times when we feel lost in a desert wandering around looking for Him. Do you even hear me, God? How long, Lord, will you leave me alone? Don’t you care that I am hurting?

            King David, a man after God’s heart, felt this way. We hear David’s cry to God in Psalm 13, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” That sounds pretty desperate. We don’t know what drove David to write such words but we can hear the pain in his voice. In a way, David helps us to know it’s okay to express our laments to God.

            In the first two verses of Psalm 13 David offers his complaints or laments to God. In the second two verses David lays out his petitions to God. In the final two verses there is a transformation that occurs. David reminds himself of God’s great love. How could someone who loves us so much that He gave His Son to die for us ever leave or forsake us? We need to remember that in those dark moments. We need to remember all the ways God has come through for us in the past and know that He will not leave us in our present circumstances. He WILL come through for us. He has not forgotten. His love will sustain us.

            The next thing is truly amazing. David commands His heart to rejoice and praise God. Think about that. David is in a rough place, a place that He just complained to God about a few verses earlier, and now he is commanding his heart to rejoice and praise God. Did David feel like rejoicing? NO! Was his heart in it? Probably not. Imagine Paul and Silas in prison, bound with chains after being beaten. They chose to rejoice and praise God. Then their prison doors were opened and the jailer tended to their wounds. Paul and Silas shared their faith, still in pain from the beating, and they got to see the jailer and his family get born again!

            Paul and Silas learned from David that we have to rejoice and worship God even though our circumstances aren’t fixed. We praise and worship because we trust Him with our circumstances, knowing that He is going to help us work it out. Our family experienced several losses over the last year or so and there were times I didn’t want to worship God. I was hurting inside but I commanded my soul to rejoice and worship anyway. It was hard. I did it with tears. It was a sacrifice of praise. Those are so beautiful to God, when we worship Him even when we don’t understand all that is going on. We trust Him to be at work even when we can’t see Him working.

            Does that mean the pain goes away? That the suffering ends? That healing is given? That deliverance has come? NO! It means that we trust Him even when, especially when, we don’t understand what is happening. When it looks like things are out of control we have to run to Him and cling to Him and have faith that He will work everything out for our good. It doesn’t look possible with the mess before us, but He is the God of the impossible!

            I want to encourage you to pray…especially when it feels hard. God hears every prayer! Nothing has escaped God’s attention. God is working even if we can’t see Him working. God knows what you need. Maybe it feels like He is testing you, but that is only because He wants to draw you closer. He wants you to learn that He is your provider, your healer, your deliverer, and your friend. He is your comforter through your pain. He doesn’t promise you will understand but He promises never to leave you. He is a good, good Father who has incredible plans for your life here and with Him in heaven.  

Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041or doug@dougcreamer.com