When Prayer Is Hard

I said last Sunday that on the one hand prayer is so simple that a child can do it and on the other hand it is so complex that even a seasoned saint cannot exhaust all of its possibilities.
The reason for that, of course, is that prayer in its most fundamental sense is conversation with God based on our relationship with Him as our Heavenly Father.
The scriptures teach that when we repent of our sins, put our faith in the Lord Jesus, God becomes our Father, we become His children.
He gives us what the Bible calls a "The Spirit of Sonship."
And the Spirit of Sonship not only then enables us to communicate with God but also enables God to communicate with us and prayer becomes a two-way conversation.
And just as an earthly child can go to its Father with all of its needs and wants and longings, enter into His presence, share His needs, share His joys, know that He's loved, looked after, protected and provided for.
So the Christian through faith in Christ similarly has confidence and boldness of access to the very throne of the universe. I don't know if you've ever thought about this or thought about it very deeply but it's an incredible privilege that God provides us with through faith in Jesus.
So that's why Jesus, when you read these verses in Matthew chapter 6 and in other places in the Gospels, makes prayer sound and looks so easy. He says, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."
And in the next chapter he spells it out even in more detail when he says, "Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you for everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds and to Him who knocks. The door will be opened. Jesus makes prayer sound very easy."
That having been said most of us will have experiences in life that does it always seem to match up because isn't it true that we don't always find prayer that easy.
I have to admit to you this morning in all honesty that in view of what our family has gone through in recent years with Michael's illness and other challenges that we have faced and in some ways continued to face.
Prayer has not always been easy. There have been seasons where I have found it exceedingly difficult to pray where heaven seems like brass. The telephone line is not only busy. Sometimes it feels like it's disconnected altogether.
And I'm willing to bet there's a good portion of us here who at least at some point or another in life have had similar experiences. Yes, there are moments when prayer is entering experientially into heaven and you know that God is there and you know that you're connecting but there's those other times.
And sometimes the latter more than the former when you wonder God are you really there. I found it very interesting that after I had sort of felt led to speak on this this morning, time magazine the most current issue of last week as its cover story has a story on Mother Teresa.
The secret life of Mother Teresa newly published letters reveal a beloved icons 50 year crisis of faith.
And the article is based on a new book that has just been published and it's called Mother Teresa come be my light and it confirms rumors that have been circulating since about 2003.
That despite her public persona Mother Teresa's interior life was plagued with many questions and many doubts and much pain as a matter of fact for the last almost 50 years of her life.
She had a walk by faith and not by sight having been robbed of virtually every sense of God's presence let me give you just a couple of her quotes published in this new book part of correspondence to her spiritual advisors.
I am told she says that God loves me and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.
I utter words of community prayer she says and try my utmost to get out of every word to sweetness it has to give but my prayer of union is not there any longer I no longer pray and except for a five week period in 58 and 59 where the amazing presence of God came back to her.
The last time before that that she experienced his presence was at her call to the work that she would do in India a call that she responded to whole hearted lay.
And you say Lord what happens here why is that the interior life of a woman who is noted the world over for her great deeds of charity in your name bring it close to home you look at your own life and while hopefully the periods of confusion aren't anywhere close to what she went through.
The fact remains that even for some of God's choice of saints there are those moments are there not when as I said a few moments ago the telephone line to heaven not only seems to be busy all the time but a period periodically it seems to be disconnected altogether.
And so I want to talk with you a little bit about that why is that and more importantly for our consideration this morning what biblically speaking can be done about it what do you do when prayer is hard well let's begin by looking at what scripture says are some of the possible reasons the first is always the issue of unconfessed seen.
I say a 59 one and two behold the Lord's hand is not short and that it cannot save or is your dull that it cannot hear but your iniquities have made separation between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear the psalmist puts it this way in Psalm 66 18 if I had cherished iniquity in my heart the Lord would not have listened.
If prayer is conversation with God based on relationship then it stands to reason does it not that when that relationship is compromised our prayer is affected.
And so throughout scripture one of the first questions that God's people always need to ask when they cannot connect with God is Lord is there in my life unconfessing is there some cloud that has appeared in our relationship for which I'm responsible.
It's like any earthly relationship sometimes between husband and wife or parents and their children or you know two friends or two co-workers something happens trust is broken covenant is broken and heart start closing off to each other and you begin to withdraw you may carry on outwardly normally and you still talk to each other perhaps or maybe not.
But the air is chilled and and the intimacy is lost that's what happens when sin separates us from God because on the one hand our guilt makes us want to hide like Adam and Eve did.
And on the other hand God is saddened and the spirit of God is grieved and he withdraws and so then a coldness develops but for that reason though unconfessing is by no means the only reason why sometimes God seems to be so distant the place for us always to begin is to say Lord are you trying to flush out.
Unconfessing in my life is there a place where I have broken covenant with you is there a place I have broken covenant with people is there a place where the broader community has broken covenant with you because it's not always individual sin sometimes it's communal sin.
And the biblical antidote to that of course is repentance and confession scripture says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all on righteousness to good news of the gospel is that our only right of access to God the Father is through the righteousness of Jesus because even when we aren't aware of sin and even when we think we're doing pretty good.
God's standard of holiness is so high that still all have sinned and fall short of his glory and so the only reason we ever have boldness of confidence into God's presence is because of Jesus.
And when sin accumulates and that communion gets broken and the remedy is to repent it's to confess the word confess means to agree with it is to say with God I've wandered away I've been wrong I have offended here please forgive me please help me do better the promise of scripture is we're never more righteous than we are.
But we have confessed our sins and we have been cleansed from all on righteousness that's why keeping a short account with God on issues of sin is so important in terms of walking with him and remaining in fellowship with him.
So there's always the question of Lord is the run confess in in my life but then there's also a thing called a season of darkness that sometimes comes upon even the choices of God's children.
It was saying John of the cross is Spanish 16th century mystic who first coined the phrase the dark night of the soul and the dark night of the soul refers to a season where God will sometimes take his choicest children through a period where he withdraws every conscious sense of his presence in their liars.
It can last for days or weeks or months or years in the case of Mother Teresa as I pointed out a few moments ago almost 50 years.
And it has a lot of components to it and it can be occasioned by a lot of different things it can be occasioned by physical pain or suffering we live in a fallen world.
God makes his reign follow the Justin on the unjust the sun to shine on the evil and on the righteous.
And while generally we look at that in the context of God pours out his blessing on evil people as well as on righteous people the opposite is true also.
There are times when even God's children are not necessarily immune to the disasters or the troubles that come upon the world.
Almost every summer you will hear of accidents taking place on the highways and not uncommonly involved in one of those accidents will be a busload or a van of kids that are going to a Christian camp or that are going to a Christian event.
Earthquake and Peru a couple of weeks ago peace go over 500 people died of those 500 people 200 were believers gathered in a church celebrating a particular event.
And you look at those kinds of things and you say Lord how can I square this with your promise of provision your promise of protection fact of the matter is God not only promises to avert all evil for his children or he promises that he will turn it to our good sometimes there is a greater purpose that God has that we don't yet understand.
But when you're in the middle of that is little consolation and little comfort it just hurts and it hurts a lot Christians are not immune to hurt sometimes it has an emotional component we get overwhelmed in our feelings we get confused in our minds our hearts could discourage we get depressed and we experience intense feelings of loneliness.
Mother Teresa for all her busyness experienced intense feelings of being all alone and sometimes those feelings are occasion by circumstances that are stressful our resources are exhausted and we're just down on life but sometimes those deep feelings come from deep places within.
Often traumatic places where we have been wounded and God is bringing us to life and bringing us to life he's taking us back to places of pain that need to be flushed out so that we can be healed and again small comfort when you're in the middle of it because all you feel is the pain.
And then there is often a spiritual component spiritual desolation I believe that God's people can handle almost anything as long as they know they're in the will of God and God's presence is right there.
But one of the painful things that often happens when you're in the midst of physical and emotional turmoil is that God's presence at that point is not to be found and you cry out with the psalmist my God my God why have you forsaken me.
And darkness overwhelms you and you begin to wonder God are you there you begin to wonder am I even a Christian does God still love me.
Have I committed the unpardonable sin and the interesting thing biblically is that while yes sometimes sin can contribute to this situation as we said earlier and when he'd always to be open to having it pointed out to us we always have to be open to repenting and confessing and having it forgiven.
And the fact of the matter is that not infrequently this dark night of the soul this spiritual desolation has nothing much to do with sin.
It's part of a deeper mysterious process that God takes us through and so I find Psalm 44 17 and 18 very interesting all this happened to us as the psalmist.
He's tested all the woes his nation has just experienced all this he says has happened to us though we had not forgotten you are been false to your covenant.
Our hearts had not turned back our feet had not strayed from your path be careful both in judging yourself and in judging other people.
You don't become one of the friends of job who think you've got it all figured out why somebody is going through what they're going through you may be right but you may also be wrong God moves in mysterious ways is wonders to perform.
Now what happens when we go through seasons of darkness like this whether a day or a month or a year or many years is that we are confronted I think by two temptations in particular Allison carefully the first temptation is simply to give up on God altogether.
Somebody gave me to read a copy of the Wayne dog Chapman's book you can run but you can't hide some of you recognize him I gather he's got a program on A&E he's a bounty hunter it's not a book I greatly recommend to you it's pretty rough though this guy claims to be a Christian in fact the name dog is God backwards.
And came from his mother or his friends because he was such a religious kid his his mother was a godly woman who raised him in the faith took him to church and so on and taught him this.
That God would always protect him now you got to be careful with your teacher kids because what happened he's in grade seven.
He gets the snot beat out of him by a gang of kids who mock his faith he tells them God doesn't want you to do this they tear his Bible in half they leave him bloodied in wounded on the pavement that only physically but also in his heart he goes to school tells the vice principal what had happened to him vice principal doesn't believe him.
And so his heart breaks something hardened inside him and that was the beginning then of a downward spiral into drugs and alcohol and into sexual promiscuity that he said to fight all his life and that ultimately ended up with him behind bars for a murder that he and his gang were instrumental in committed.
The world is full of men and women whose naive notions magical notions if you will of who God is.
Disappointed their hearts and their response was to say well I can't believe that you're there and they become atheists for all practical considerations because they live as if God's not there so there's always the danger.
Following the advice of Job's wife which is the cursed God and die and the second temptation that we face in those moments of darkness is to look for comfort outside of God.
The book of Jeremiah said many years ago they have forsaken you the true and living fountain and they've you now sisters for themselves and we can all identify it with that God's not there to meet the deep needs of my soul he seems to have abandoned and forsaken me and so what will I do well I've got to find help and comfort elsewhere and so I start entering into illicit relationships.
I start making partners with those who don't really share biblical values I turn to drugs and alcohol and sexual addiction addictions in fact become the in product of this longing to get rid of this pain in my soul that I don't know how to identify and I believe one reason the Lord sometimes places us in these seasons of darkness.
Is to flush out what lives in the inside at the core of our being will we love the Lord our God with all of our heart with all of our soul with all of our mind or will we curse him and will we die.
Ultimately you will recall that was the issue in the book of Job.
Job was a man who was amazingly blessed of God the devil comes to God and God asks him have you seen my servant Job how he serves me wholeheartedly and the devil throws his challenge in there anybody would serve you if they were blessed the way that you're blessing him take away what he's got.
And we'll see what lives inside and the whole story of Job then unfolds to demonstrate whether or not Joe will love God not because God is blessing him and he feels good about it but simply because God is God and he deserves our worship and he deserves our praise.
Sometimes it's unconfessing sometimes it's simply a season of darkness but there will be times in your life and in my life where prayer is hard we find it hard to connect with God and we wonder now what do I do so how do we handle it.
While biblically speaking we need to learn to stand on the truth the truth of scripture Ephesians 614 stand firm then with a belt of truth buckled around your waist but of the most liberating experiences I've ever had in my own life was one of the early stages of my Christian life.
It took me through what in retrospect was about a two and a half year period that I think I could legitimately call the dark night of the soul.
And one of the things I learned in that darkness was that how I felt had no bearing on the truth I couldn't feel God I couldn't see him I couldn't connect with him it felt like darkness was enveloping my soul in its deepest places and its deepest levels.
And suddenly adorned on me with revelation that no matter how I felt about things truth was still truth God is still on his throne.
He still rules over all the universe in Christ he's still my father in Christ he still loves me in Christ he has committed himself to blessing me in Christ I am his child and he will never abandon me.
In Christ he hears me whether I think he's hearing me yes or no in Christ he takes my groanings my inarticulate groanings that I cannot even express.
And the Bible says the Holy Spirit intercedes for me as a matter of fact you know one of the things that we learn in the Christian life is that our effectiveness in life and ministry is often totally unrelated.
To how spiritual we feel or how much we think we are aware of God's presence I remember Keith Green a lot of you know Keith Green many years ago before he died in a plane crash.
And the concert is hard cold as anything walking by faith play in music to the Lord say Lord this isn't going anywhere it's getting to the front of the stage and it's just dropping down.
Gave an older call people touched by this scores and he said well thank you Lord that was clearly you and not me.
And I think sometimes the Lord puts us in those places just to show us that the transcendent treasure belongs to God not to the earthy vessel in which the treasure lives.
We need to learn to stand on truth and I would recommend that if you ever find yourself in those places of darkness those places of testing go back to scripture find a number of promises where God promises his blessings to you in Christ and then stand on those blessings come hell or I water.
And declare this is the word of the Lord that's how Jesus fought the devil in the wilderness with his temptations it is written.
And when he to stand in hope he was 1023 let us hold unsurvingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful I've learned over the years that as long as we can see light at the end of the tunnel it is amazing what we can go through and put up with.
And hope and people perish and they give up and the hope of which scripture speaks is not just you know the power of positive thinking it's not just well let me try to psych myself up and pretend a reality that I cannot see.
And hope in scripture is the conviction based on our relationship with Jesus that God has begun a good work in us and in renewing creation is going to bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ.
Hope is the conviction that dark this season may be after the darkness comes the light.
Hope is the conviction that tears may carry for the night but joy comes in the morning and though this trial seems to go on forever and though it seems like I cannot reach out to God and God is no longer interested in me.
There will come a time when God will turn the tables and he will again show his face and he will bring about his blessing a lot of critics when they read a book of Joe they say the ending of the book of Joe was unrealistic because Joe gets back double of everything that he had lost and they say that's just not how it works in the world.
But they don't understand that for those who God loves and who are called according to his purpose God makes all things work together for the good and if not in this life that in the life to come nobody who has put their hope in God is long term going to be disappointed.
And one set of verses that often speaks to me when I go through those periods of doubts and questions and difficulty is 1 Peter 5, 10 and 11 where God says through Peter and after you have suffered a little while.
The God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore established and strengthened you to him be the dominion forever and ever.
Notice the verbs he himself will restore he will establish and he will strengthen you to restore is to put the broken pieces back together.
If you've ever gone through extended illness or emotional turmoil or spiritual warfare or conflict you will know that when that lasts long enough what it does is it breaks something deep on the inside.
You lose sight of who you are you lose sight of your direction you lose your confidence you wonder what good am I and what good is life and you begin to spiral down and part of God's grace in Christ is that when God has broken what needs to be broken because it was put together wrong.
His promise is to start putting it back together he restores what is broken that's the whole emphasis of the gospel he gives us a new start and a new beginning.
And one of the things that I pray to God I will never cease to be excited about as you know is when I see that process happening in the lives of other people as well as am privileged to experience that to one degree or another in my own heart and my life.
He will restore says Peter not only but he will also establish that is to say he not only puts the pieces together but he helps us to regain our equilibrium if you've ever gone through times or seasons of testing where all of life is falling down around you.
Then you know that life becomes extremely uncertain you're always looking over your shoulder you never know where the next blow is going to come from that again is why people spiral down in hopelessness and despair Jesus not only starts to put us back together.
But he restores our inheritance he establishes us he brings back as he did to Job all the things that had been taken from us. He helps us to rediscover purpose and identity and direction in our lives.
And then he not only restores he not only establishes but Peter says he strengthens strengthens the weary hands strengthens the weak knees scripture God by his grace comes along in the power of the Holy Spirit and he pours out upon us his life and his strength and his ability and out of out of the ashes of our chaos.
And the ashes of our broken ass new life emerges for the glory of God resurrection life resurrection life that nobody can touch nobody can tear down nobody can take away from because it's been tested by fire and it has survived the fire by virtue of God's grace in God's life after you have suffered a little while.
So Peter the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore establish and strengthen you tell me if that isn't an incredible promise and the word of hope for God's people.
So we stand on truth we stand in hope and then we need to learn to walk it out faithfully. Hebrews 1036 you need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God you will receive what he has promised.
Stories like Mother Teresa's dark night of the soul lasting for 50 years is seized upon by atheists and agnostics as proof positive that believers are deluded I don't know if you're aware of this but the two top sellers in recent weeks in the Toronto star list of nonfiction books are both books which challenge
everything that you and I and other Christians around the world believe the first book is the God delusion by Richard Dawkins.
He is an evangelist if you can believe it for atheism and the second book is God is not great by Christopher Hitchens.
They seize on this and they say see Christians are just deluding themselves if even the holiest of the holiest cannot have a relationship with God then everybody else is just living in an imaginary world.
What they don't understand is that quite the opposite is true because you see faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.
As the story of Job illustrates anybody can love God when it feels good and there is a reward don't ever think that the greatest height of your spirituality is when you are in your prayer closet and the power surges and you're connecting with God
and you come away charged and fully ready to engage life. Don't ever think the greatest height of your spirituality is when you sit here and you receive the good things of God's house and you're stirred in your soul and you say yes I want to follow you.
Those are wonderful experiences never to be minimized always to be embraced gladly but they're not the epitome of spirituality. The epitome of spirituality is when darkness has enveloped your soul.
When everything inside you says Lord what am I doing this far? When everything inside you says this is costing me my everything when then you still say as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane nevertheless not my will but yours be done.
That is the epitome of spirituality and it's when Mother Teresa ten years into her suffering had a discerning counselor who told her number one you cannot change your feelings.
Number two it's not your responsibility just because you don't feel God doesn't mean he's not there.
And number three you've asked to share in the sufferings of Jesus and maybe this is the answer to your prayer to take up your cross and follow him that she began to understand there was purpose to what she was going through.
Now there may be all kinds of other explanations and there may be all kinds of other reasons but the point is the epitome of spirituality was not when she heard the voice of Jesus call her to this ministry and she said yes Lord I will follow you the epitome of spirituality was when she carried her cross faithfully to complete the mission that had been entrusted to her by Jesus.
Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm not saying that it's wonderful to experience darkness so that we ought never to be afraid of the darkness.
I'm just saying that if faith is the assurance of things hope for the conviction of things not seen our faith is tested at those moments when we see the least and feel the least and yet can receive God's grace to say Lord I will follow you wherever you lead me.
Now we stand at the start of a new church season programs are going to gear up a lot of us are going to be involved in a lot of ministry next Sunday morning Lord willing we're going to have commissioning and kick off for kids up and and we're going to launch a new DVD that Trevor Crow is put together to equip us for outreach.
And I'm hoping and praying that as the year progresses there will be many seasons where we experience the sweetness of heaven where we're joy and with gladness we can step into the into the fray knowing that God is with us and we can see God move and we can see the powers of darkness pushed back and we can see the kingdom of God come and glory and power.
But I would be surprised if some of us at some point or another didn't find ourselves in the kind of place where we say to ourselves I wonder what I'm doing here I wonder where God is I wonder why things are so hard.
Maybe I'm on the wrong track maybe the whole church is on the wrong track and yes we always have to be open for what the Lord will show us in places where we miss the mark but don't just assume that because there is darkness in your soul or the line to heaven seems to be busy and you can't get through that God isn't there that he isn't hearing you and that he isn't pleased with you.
We walk my faith, we stand on truth, we stand in hope and we seek to fulfill and to discharge the mission that God has placed before us knowing that what all has been said and done the less reward we get into here and now.
Wonderful and precious as that is the greater will be the reward in the age to come.
Blessed be your name and the land that is plentiful.
We're streams of abundance, blood, blessed be your name.
Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place, the walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name.
Every blessing you pour out, turn back to grace.
Every darkness closes in more, still I will say. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name.
Blessed be your name when the sun shining down on me and the world's all as it should be, blessed be your name.
Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering, there was pain in the offering, blessed be your name.
Every blessing you pour out, turn back to grace. When the darkness closes in more, still I will say.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name, blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your glorious name.
You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.
You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name.
Oh, blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your glorious name.