Psalm 22:1-5
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.
They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.
Have you ever stopped to think about how many different emotions you might feel in a given day? Love, joy, frustration, anger, sadness, surprise, fear, anxiety – can all be swirling in our hearts at any moment in time. I think I felt most of those emotions just watching the Bears/Packers game last Sunday afternoon!
We are emotional creatures, the Bible says, created in the image of an emotional God. And at the intersection of human emotion and the experience of God is the great gift of prayer.
A couple of months ago we conducted an “FBCG prayer survey” and over 1200 people turned in responses to a number of questions about their personal experience and practice of prayer. We have begun to sift through the pile of data the survey produced and believe that there will definitely be some significant “take-aways” that result!
We have learned, for example, that just over 60% of women and just under 40% of men say that prayer is “very important” to them – which seems to indicate many of us (especially us guys!) can grow with regard to our understanding and experience of prayer. The survey results seem to show that prayer becomes both more important and more satisfying the older we get – which seems to make sense as we grow more mature in both life and faith. We have learned that while many of us express our emotions when we pray – that women and people in their 20’s are more expressive than the rest of us. And there seems to be a correlation between the expression of emotion in prayer with the experience of God in prayer.
Most of us recognize these words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as among the last things Jesus said as he was being crucified. But it’s important to see that Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22! Jesus was experiencing not only the brutal physical pain of the cross – but also the spiritual pain of taking on himself the sins of the world – and thus the rejection of his Father in heaven. Jesus, therefore, becomes a model for us not only in expressing painful emotion in prayer but also in using the Psalms as a model for our own prayers.
I have often encouraged those going through extremely difficult life situations to read through the Book of Psalms thoughtfully and prayerfully until they find a Psalm that expresses what they are feeling – then to dwell on that Psalm and make it their own expression of prayer to God. I can say that because the full range of human emotions can be found right there in the Book of Psalms – expressed with surprising and sometimes brutal honesty.
Did you know you can be honest with God?
Did you know he is not afraid of your emotions – even if they are negative?
Did you know that prayer can be sad, or angry, or joyful, or even full of doubt?
Psalm 22 introduces us to the intersection of pain and prayer. This expression of personal suffering and loneliness comes to us from the life of David; was used by Jesus himself in prayer; and can put words to the anguish of our own hearts as well. While I hope that you do not need to pray these words today – I also hope that when that time comes – you will know that God is always willing to hear your cry of pain.
Brian Coffey
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7 comments:
If you have been told all you life that you should just pray for thankfulness and not hurt or disappointment or anger; how would you go about changing that? I feel guilty when I feel God has not helped me or when something "bad" happens. Which causes me to be angry. This is what I struggle with the most.
To ANONYMOUS above: I think it was David who was called in the Bible "a man after God's own heart" (or the apple of GOd's eye, was it?) God LOVED him, even though David poured out all sorts of doubts and fears and struggles and pain to God in his prayers, as evidenced by the psalms. Maybe that is one reason God knew He HAD David's heart - because David always shared it with God, even on the dark days, even when he was upset and confused and angry (or sinfully disobedient!). I think God wants ALL of us, not just the pretty parts. :) And he saved us even BEFORE we became clean by His righteousness: "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). So I know he's not about requiring that we be perfect before we come to Him! Likewise, we don't need to have all the answers before we come to HIm - He wants us to show Him our needs, even though he already knows them, as a testimony that WE think HE is capable of meeting those needs.
In regard to the above question:
I have had that experience in my life as well, and I would like to share with you how God has helped me to grow through it into a deeper relationship with Him. For me, just knowing that the Bible had examples of people doing this didn't really help me get past it. However, the following things were really helpful to me:
First, I needed to find a supportive, honest, confidential group of people to be in relationship with who were safe for me to feel my feelings around. (the book "Safe People" by Dr. Cloud was really helpful in determining this, and sadly many of my relationships at the time did not qualify). I found this very scary at first and anxiety producing. But, as I began to be able to share more and more and receive love from others who heard all the yuck in my heart, I began to heal.
Second, I found an outlet for prayer for me that was different than the way I had usually approached it. My feelings would shut down whenever I tried to speak my prayers, so I found writing letters to God to be really helpful. I am also artistic, so I found drawing pictures and writing worship songs or singing to be helpful as well. There could be other ways to do this, this is just what worked for me.
Third, I had to do some work that required looking at the way I perceived God. Sadly, I had pictured God in many ways that were more closely related to difficult and sometimes disfunctional human relationships than who God really is.
Fourth and most important, I asked God to help me with this. To show me what would work for me to grow out of these patterns that kind of kept my prayers beneath a glass ceiling so to speak.
I hope my experince is helpful to you. I will pray for you. I think this step you are taking of reaching out to others in this way is so couragous. Keep moving forward!
Tracie
Rock on Tracie! What an example of what a Connecting and Equipping church! Anonymous, I agree with Tracie that safe, honest, Christian fellowship is a huge key to getting THROUGH the learning that God intends to use as ways to grow us when we hit these difficulties. In my case it wasn't specifically with prayer, but connecting with a couple of groups of men at the church has made HUGE differences in my life.
Eric, (the previously chronic pew riding, church consumer, who missed out on the value of connection) :-)
To the first "anonymous" post, I must say that my prayer life too is largely limited to praise. I was never taught to pray this way, but it is what seems to naturally pour out of my heart when I pray. I think this is a huge blessing in itself!
Might I suggest that you think of God as your holy parent, and just as you would pour your heart out to your parent, or would want your own child to be able to pour his/her heart out to you, know that God is that parent, and wants to hear it all.
To Tracie, Eric & the rest; thank you so much for your words of encouragement! I will keep these posts handy in my thoughts as I go to God in prayer. It won't be easy at first, but theses will help. Thanks again and thanks to FBCG for having this blog. I look forward to this every day.
I just want to say how great it is that this devotional blog has become a community of sharing where people are not just reading the posts, but are actually ministering to each other and sharing their own experiences of God!
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