Pray… My God, my God, why does it feel like You have forsaken me? Why does it seem You stand distant and aloof from my trials? Why does it seem Your ears are deaf to the groanings of my spirit and the requests of my prayers? I cry out by day but get no answers. I plead by night—I have not been silent. I know You are holy and sit enthroned upon the praise of Your people. There is no one else I can turn to, for You are trustworthy and the God of deliverance. I have cried out to You before and been rescued. You did not stand afar off but rewarded my faith. Yet now I feel like something less than Your child. I am mocked by the tormentor of my soul as he exploits all my fears. Into my discouragement He whispers, “So you trust in the Lord, then let Him rescue you. Let the God who says He delights in you deliver you.”
I know You fashioned me, birthed me from the womb, and gave me reason to trust in You from the beginning. Then, from being reborn I stood amazed by Your creation! I have seen and acknowledged Your existence, so do not remain distant for trouble is near and there is no other redeemer but You! Many temptations surround me, O Lord. Deceptions of the wicked one encircle me! The evil one roars with a desire to tear me apart as hapless prey. I am poured out like water and all my thoughts are confused. My heart feels heavy as wax and my strength fails me. My endurance wanes and I am questioning the resolve to fight on. I sit motionless in the dust of doubt and fear as the forces of hell press in, encircling me and piercing my mind and my heart! I try in vain to count my blessings as my tormentor looks on and gloats over me. He asks, “Has God said?” He tempts me with the lusts of forbidden fruit. Please, O Lord, do not remain afar off! O my strength, come quickly to help me and deliver my life from the failings of my flesh! Let me be found precious in Your sight and save me from the power of the forces arrayed against me! Rescue me from the mouth of the prowling Lion. Give me reason to declare anew Your name to my brothers and state boldly, “Greater is He who is in me!” In the midst of Your people, let me arise from the ashes once more to follow and worship You.
Consider… Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. This portrait of Christ’s crucifixion becomes a painfully real picture of our own circumstances at times. If we are to share in His sufferings we must be crucified upon the crosses of trial from above, attack from beneath, and weakness from within. Jesus didn’t try to hide His anguish and pain from His Father, so why should we? Christ’s relationship with the Father was a union built upon absolute integrity.There was no covering up and no superficiality involved. Jesus asked the Father to grant this same relationship between Himself and us when He prayed, “I have given them the glory that You gave me, that they may be one as We are one—I in them and You in Me.” Don’t mask the pain the One who searches the heart knows full-well is there. Honesty in the trials, like praise in the victories, is all a part of being one. That’s the integrity that is critical as life for the saint sometimes hangs in the balance.
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