Life is broken. What do I do?
Please try the assignment at the end
My daughter is a pack rat. She gets this from her dad.
Every time we are going anywhere, she looks like a mule carrying a backpack stuffed to the gills and 14 things bundled in her arms.
Though we were headed to her soccer game and then coming straight home– she had a book and a notebook and something to draw with in case there was some downtime.
Every parent knows what happens next…
Packing for every contingency means carrying far too heavy a load. Fatigue and frustration come with the pencil, paper, extra book, and additional sweater.
Endurance is injured by carrying too much. Perseverance is hindered by holding on to things.
Christian, your life of prayer is crucial to your perseverance because the cluttered heart and stuffed brain will run out of steam. I’m not talking about a clear and peaceful mind in meditation terms of the world.
I’m talking about carrying things that only God can carry and carrying things He’s given in your own strength.
When we never pray– we never unpack.
One of the first steps I end up assigning believers in hard situations is to practice praying in lament.
Lament is a prayer from pain. We name and claim our pain before God. We make the case that something is wrong with the world, hard for our hearts, and appears to display His character incorrectly.
“You’re a good Father but how can a good Father allow His child to hear the word cancer!?” we cry.
Complaining is a sin. Lamenting is encouraged. What’s the difference?
Complaining points the finger at God and keeps a grip on our problems. We treasure our pains and hold them against God.
Lament points the finger at pain and keeps a grip on our God. We treasure our God and hold our problems up to Him.
Lament and complaint can be hard to distinguish until the final words… I like to think the only difference is ending with, “Nevertheless, I hope in God.”
When we lament, we open the backpack of life. We take out what’s hurting us and examine it with God.
Some pains shouldn’t be in the pack in the first place and our prayers lead to giving them away to God. The pack lightens when God carries the big rocks.
Some pains were placed in the pack by God and our prayers lead to reliance on His strength and perspective to carry on. The weights in our pack have purpose when we pray through them.
So, what’s heavy for you? What’s hurting your heart and weighing on your soul?
Here’s a little exercise for you:
Write at the top of a blank page, “God, my God…”
Write at the bottom of the page, “Nevertheless, I hope in you, My God.”
Write everything that is hard and heavy and wrong about that situation…
“I am upset that X didn’t …”
“I believe they should have…”
“Why have you let…”
“I feel…”
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9–10