What do you do when God breaks your heart? What a weighty question for today! I look around and I see so many people who are hurting. So many who have journeyed in prayer through many trials and tribulations, disappointments and failures, loss and betrayals, all kinds of hurts. Is there a firm foundation when we are left waiting for the answer or worse, the answer comes and it is “No?” I was thinking the other day how very important it is for us to address this issue as believers because if you serve the Lord for any length of time this will happen. You see, we often talk about the wonder of answered prayer. We are quick to broadcast when God has “come through” for us but rarely do we openly proclaim, “I’m still waiting!” Or worse yet, He said, “No”. We are ashamed of the rush of emotions that come with this kind of disappointment so we bottle it up, never daring to say, “I’m angry, I’m bitter, I don’t understand...why?”
I have admitted on more than one occasion that prayer is something that is allusive to me. What I mean by that is truly, I don’t understand much about prayer. The type-A side of me has tried on many occasions to put prayer into a box or turn it into a tried and true method but alas, it will not concede to my efforts! My own prayer life can easily be divided into a before and after sequence. I have not always had this issue with prayer. Before, I used to be very heavy on prayer and less on study. I would have to set time limits on my prayers in order to have a few minutes daily in the word. However, after, the very opposite is true.
The shift occurred a few years ago when things in life began to take on a dramatic turn of events. I would say up to this point that tribulation in my life was scant with the exception of consequences that had fallen on me because of sin I had committed. But suffering for the sake of making me more like Jesus (aka sanctification), even when I hadn’t done anything to warrant it, was not a familiar concept to me.
I felt early on that prayer was my token way of communicating with the Lord on many levels. Time spent in Thanksgiving, time spent in praises, time spent in repentance and a lot of time spent in supplication, in other words, I had a long list of requests! However, let me clarify that not all of these requests were for selfish gain, although some were. Some of my requests dealt with healing illness, saving the lost, growing ministries, providing jobs, saving marriages etc; Prayers that were for the benefit of others and the furtherance of God’s kingdom.
During this time I began praying over two very specific things: one was healing for a friend and the other was a career that I was sure the Lord had been preparing me for - He had even lined up an interview that I had not persued or prompted in any way. The desire of my heart for both of these requests was so strong that I was sure they would be answered in the affirmative. The answers came nearly within a month of one another and both were a clear, resounding, “No.” Not maybe, not wait, but No! I was devastated. I was bitter. I was angry...at God and my heart hurt! Then, to place a nice big cherry on top, Kraig lost his job. At the time, we had no way of knowing that this would take us into a long, hard 18 months of despair. We were hopeful that things would turn around quickly. Little did we know.
In that time I felt that I could not trust Him with any prayer that stretched my faith ever again. If it was out of the realm of possibility then I did not want to let Him have it. I truly felt like the little girl who has had her heart broken and cannot afford to let anyone else touch it for fear that the next time it might not be repaired. I just kept thinking, “But you COULD have! You could have done this anyway you wanted to and you didn’t! You deliberately chose to break my heart! Who can serve a God like that?” Although I knew in my Spirit that I could not turn away from the Lord completely I cut my prayer life to nil. I thanked Him for blessings and continued to ask for forgiveness but I was so bitter that I refused to ask for anything that required any faith whatsoever. I can even look back in my prayer journal and see the anger and hurt that resided just below the surface in every journal entry. Deep within me I wanted to cry out in desperation but for fear or pride or both, I refused.
What made things worse was to look around and see others praying and claiming great feats of faith through their prayer lives. It was as if they were picking up their direct line straight to the throne and dialing in whatever it was that they desired from the Lord. What was it that I was missing? Had I lacked faith? Indeed, God doesn’t need my faith to fulfill His purpose. It pleases Him but He doesn’t NEED it. I really had turned it every which way in order to find my fault for the failure, for the answers that never came but in the end I really had no other explanation than these trials were simply God’s will for our lives at that time.
To be continued...
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