These are strange and difficult times. 2020 has been such a hard year for everyone, and we’re only halfway through! We started off with the threat of war with Iran, incredible political division with the primaries and Trump’s impeachment proceedings, and the shocking death of Kobe Bryant, all before the world came to a grinding halt with COVID-19. Now, as we begin to reopen America under the looming shadow of a potential 2nd wave, the world is torn apart again by racial division.
Despite all of this chaos and hardship, we all still face our own problems. Financial hardships, family illness, job stress, none of it ever stops despite the chaos around us. It’s completely overwhelming.
As a believer, I know in times of hardship I should go to God in prayer. If I’m honest, however, it's hard to know what to pray for. I can pray for world peace, the end of illness, and global prosperity. That would take care of everything right? But the tension all Christians struggle through is “If I pray big prayers and God doesn’t answer them, what’s the point of prayer? Why pray when prayer doesn’t do anything?”
In the face of such uncertainty, many Christians avoid the hard questions or simply give up, praying prayers with no faith that God will answer. When all of this gets too hard, we run away, stop praying, and avoid church and faith altogether except for Christmas and Easter.
I think the root of our problem is we have forgotten who God is. In our attempts to understand Him, we have created many different theologies and rules about who He is and what He does. We think “If I act ____ God will think/act/say _____” or “When ____ happens, that means God is _____”. Think about it- those blanks are too easy to fill! The real truth is, no matter how systematic a theology, no matter how many verses are quoted in defence of any idea, no rules we make for God ever really fit. God is just too big for us to define!
Unlike many of our scientific pursuits, we cannot control God through study and understanding. You can read the Bible in every translation, every theology book written, and spend hours in contemplation, but you still won’t get it. God just can’t be contained in human understanding.
No matter how hard you pray, how well you live, or how much you know, God will always do what God will do. He is God. We just don’t come close.
When we accept that God cannot be contained or controlled by our rules and understanding, we can finally approach prayer with a sense of real surrender. We remember that we don’t pray to accomplish things. Prayer is not about results. We pray because God is good, and we love Him, or we want to grow to love Him. We pray during crisis for the same reason we call friends or family. We just want to talk about it with someone we trust. We talk about our pain and frustration because it helps us feel better, and because we innately understand that it is in the process of relationship that we find comfort, peace, and perspective.
So when you approach God to talk about your struggles, imagine that He is a close friend, a loving parent, or a mentor. Approach Him with familiarity, love, and respect. Share your thoughts and feelings. Tell Him what you want to happen, not because you expect Him to do it for you, but because you love Him and you want to share.
This prayer is not one that intends to accomplish something, but to love someone. God is love, and love does not disappoint.