Too Weary to Pray

How many Psalms start with the thought…

Answer me when I call you (Psa 4)

O Lord, hear me as I pray; pay attention to my groaning,


Listen to my cry for help (Psa 5), O Lord, how long will you forget me? forever? (Psa 13)


O Lord hear my plea (Psa 17), My God, my God! Why have you abandoned me? (Psa 22)


Do not turn a deaf ear to me (Psa 28), Turn your ear and listen to me (Psa 31), How long O Lord will you look on and do nothing! ( Psa 35), Listen to my pray, O God, Do not ignore my cry for help! Wake up, O Lord! Why do you sleep? ( Psa 44), Please listen and answer me, for I am overwhelmed by my troubles (Psa 55), O God, listen to my cry! Hear my prayer! (Psa 61), God, listen to my complaint (Psa 64),

For me, the most gut wrenching words have to be found in Psalm 77:

I cry out to God; yes, I shout.
Oh, that God would listen to me!
When I was in deep trouble,
I searched for the Lord,
All night I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven
By yet my soul was not comforted.
I think of God and I moan;
Overwhelmed with longing for his help.
You don’t let me sleep.
I am too distressed even to pray!
…
Has the Lord rejected me forever?
Will he never again be kind to me?
Is his unfailing love gone forever?
Have his promises permanently failed?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he slammed the door on his compassion?
And I said, “This is my fate;
the Most High has turned his hand against me.”

The anguish in these questions is deep and life shattering. The psalmist puts into words the experience of so many; from ancient biblical times to this moment – from people in the famine and war torn regions of Somolia who are watching their children die – to personal journeys and questions held by people reading these words.

The Psalmist captures the agony, confusion and struggles of:

 Joseph during his 12 years in prison
 Abraham and Sarah as God’s promise never seemed to come
 Job and his unfathomable loss
 Jeremiah as a faithful prophet who was constantly rejected and mistreated
 The nation of Israel under the oppression of multiple invaders for generations, waiting and crying for the coming of the messiah
 The paralyzed man of Mark 2 and the Blind man of John 9
 The early martyrs of the church – and the terrible sufferings and death they faced
 Parents of, and persons with disabilities, whose conditions cause ongoing pain and suffering
 Of perhaps you – if you are not where you ever expected to be, facing many private and sometimes very unwanted public difficulties that alter and make life difficult

For some, the prayers have been so long asked and pleaded for, that you have ceased to pray for them because of the disappointment and pain of unanswered pray.  An important author in the early days of Theology of Disability was Nancy Eiesland, a person with a disability herself. She grew up in a faith community that believed that if you had enough faith, you could be/should be healed. She tells of her journey and pain of those days – of both praying and being prayed for. She recounts some of those time, those prayers that came often unasked for, because it was believed maybe she herself didn’t have enough faith. It caused her to eventually conclude. later as a theologian, that she was still living with a disability.

“[We must (those with disabilities] relinquish the belief in an all-powerful God who could heal – for if he could is painful. Yet, who is this god whose attention we cannot get, whose inability to respond to our pain causes still more pain? This God is surely not Emmanuel God with us”

I certainly understand why she comes to this conclusion, although I don’t agree with it. However, we are not fair or honest if we do not seek to understand the ‘why’ of her lament. But we must understand if we apply this line of questioning further we find that God cannot be God at all.

 There is disability in the world. If God could heal - I would be healed. Therefore disability is more powerful than God.
 There is terrible hunger in the world. If God could alleviate hunger - he would. Therefore, hunger is more powerful than God.
 There is war in the world. If God could stop war - he would. Therefore, war is more powerful.
 This situation that I’m facing is terrible and God does not do anything about it. If he loves me - he would stop it. he has not stopped me, God loves me, so, I must conclude he can’t do this thing, or answer this prayer so I can continue to believe he loves me.

This might be a simplistic reduction – but at its core, I think it is a conclusion we all are tempted to contemplate in some form We have trouble aligning the love of God with the realities of what is. If we stop reading this Psalm here - because of the pain of our questions, it can only lead to despair, hopelessness and the ceasing of all prayer. But that is not where the Psalmist leaves us. He continues,

But then I recall all you have done, O LORD;
I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.
They are constantly in my thoughts.
I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.
O God, your ways are holy.
Is there any god as mighty as you?
You are the God of great wonders!
You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.
By your strong arm, you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

Interlude

What I find interesting here, is that none of the previous personal questions have been directly answered.

Has the Lord rejected me forever?
Will he never again be kind to me?
Is his unfailing love gone forever?
Have his promises permanently failed?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he slammed the door on his compassion?

Yet, the Psalmist seems to find a way to hold these unanswered personal questions in a tension of sorts. On the one hand, I have this reality that I am facing that seems to put into question God’s ability to hear and respond to me. On the other hand, I look into the past including Creation itself and see the work and presence of God throughout history. The Psalmist goes on to remember,

When the Red Sea[a] saw you, O God,
its waters looked and trembled!
The sea quaked to its very depths.
The clouds poured down rain;
the thunder rumbled in the sky.
Your arrows of lightning flashed.
Your thunder roared from the whirlwind;
the lightning lit up the world!
The earth trembled and shook.
Your road led through the sea,
your pathway through the mighty waters—
a pathway no one knew was there!
You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep,
with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.

We could add to this to the Psalm, we could say,

“We remember when you came to earth as man, born of a virgin to walk among us. We remember when you spoke the words of Father God, when you took upon yourself the sins of the world, my sin; when you granted to us the gift of eternal life …”

We could add the continued move of God’s hand over the last 2,000 years. It leads us, as it led the Psalmist, and Job, and Jeremiah, and a host of others, to look in the face of unanswered questions to hold firm to hope in the face of what seems to be today’s unanswered prayers. Ultimately, we know that the answer to these questions is ‘NO’

Has the Lord rejected me forever? NO!
Will he never again be kind to me? NO!
Is his unfailing love gone forever? NO!
Have his promises permanently failed? NO!
Has God forgotten to be gracious? NO!
Has he slammed the door on his compassion? NO!

Does it take away the reality of what I face today? Perhaps they will be answered in time. We certainly can see that from Biblical history God is not ‘slow in responding as some might think of being slow’ (see 2 Peter 3:9). The difficult reality is that although Jesus heals the paralytic in Mark 2, he did not heal all paralytics. Jesus heals the blind man of John 9 yet he did not heal all those who were blind, and so forth. Does this mean that Jesus’ love and compassion and awareness of all other paralytics and those who were blind did not exist? – certainly not. Does it mean that God is preferential or has only limited healing powers (can do one at a time)? No it does not. It does mean that we all hold deeply personal questions and hurts for which at the moment we do not have answers. I believe we do more damage by attempting to answer them. As a Pastor I get lots of questions: “Why did God…?” “Why doesn’t God…?” I must admit, as a young pastor I tried to find and give answers to those questions. So much so, in fact, that it caused a crisis in my own faith. I have come to the place that sometimes the only real answer that I can give to some of those difficult unanswered prayers with integrity is “I don’t know, but this is what I do know”:

He said let there be light and there was light!
He said to the sea part, and it did!
He said to His Son go walk and die, and he did!
He said “I am the resurrection and the life” and he is!
He said, “My child, your sins are forgiven you” and they are!
He said “you are not yet what you will appear to be” and I will one day be!

I can tell you, He has not rejected you; He has not slammed the door on His compassion for you even though for the moment, it certainly feels that way. He walks with you, in the midst of all your unanswered questions. Even though you have forgotten or lost the will, or are too afraid or in pain to pray about this thing. He has given you a comforter, who is continually groaning with words too deep to be understood by human ears but is constantly heard by God. He gives us promises such as found in Isa 40:30-32

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Your faith is not in question when you question God’s ability to hear – or struggle with what appears to be no forth coming answer. The greatest examples of our faith struggled with the same question– Christ himself, when teetering on the ragged edge of life and death, cried out” My God, My God, why have you forsaken me…” And for those terrible indescribable moments, it seemed God had. We know in this moment, God did not – He stood beside His Son feeling and experiencing the pain and agony – knowing that although for the world, for the disciples, for Christ’s mother, for His enemies, this appeared to be final defeat and all hope was lost, that God had failed to hear and answer, nothing could be further from the truth. God had answered the prayers of His people, before the foundations of the earth itself. God has not rejected and shut the door of compassion on you. The truth for the Christian is that victory is both coming and already here. Hold firmly to hope till its full revealing.

Anyway, I was just thinking.

Neil