Wait is a Four-Letter WordSample

 Day 4: When Prayer Becomes a Battleground

During one of my waiting seasons, I was tempted to give up on prayer. I would show up for my prayer time and just sit, saying silently to God, Well, we both know what I have to say. Now it’s your turn. I was frustrated, bewildered, hurt. 

Waiting creates a unique set of struggles in our relationship with God. We may feel:

• vulnerable

• out of control

• ignored by God

• insecure with God

• distant from God

• under a curse from God

• disillusioned by God’s promises

• resentful toward God

• sinful before God, searching our hearts for hidden sin

• guilty about how we feel toward God

Prayer, once a place of refuge, gradually begins to feel like a battleground: our will resisting God’s plan. Our plea rattling heaven’s gates. We might even stop praying altogether. 

Thank goodness we are not the first of God’s people to suffer through confusing times in our walks with God. Others before us have also had to find a way to pray through pain, and we have some of their prayers recorded in the Psalms. The Psalms introduce us—more, they invite us—to an entirely different kind of prayer. Freely they roam the full gamut of the human experience, soaring to heights of joy and diving to depths of despair. They mirror our own doubt, despondency, fear, confusion, weariness, and sense of abandonment.

If you have hit a wall in your prayer life, borrow the Psalms. Listen as they whisper (and sometimes shout) your own fears. Find comfort in knowing you are not alone. Let the psalmists speak your fears and give voice to your hurts.

Let prayer remain our refuge year after year, however long we wander in the waiting wilderness. Let us never give up on prayer, even when God feels far away. If we run out of words, let us sit and keep company with God, knowing that even in the silence, He sees, He hears, and He cares. And when our waiting season ends, however it ends, let us celebrate with the One who has seen us through, heard us out, and never left our side.