Praying Through The Pain, Easier Said Than Done.

Prayer through your hardships.  I know I am not the only person that has had a hard time understanding or accepting this idea.  As Christians praying when times are hard for us it what we are expected to do.  We listen to preaching and teaching that tells us when we pray through our hardships that we will be filled with peace and even though the storm is raging all around us nothing will seem to matter.

But.  What if that just simply is not happening?  What if you are depressed, hurting, sad, fearful, broke, jobless, lonely, addicted, or a combination of all of these things and you pray and pray and pray and pray....but the peace still does not come?

Do you find fault with yourself.  Since God is perfect and He is love, then there must be something wrong with you right? Or is it the way that you are praying? Or do you some how feel that you are the only one in the planet that God does not love because He has not shown up for you the way He has shown up for everyone else?

And then you get even more depressed.  Because God is supposed to love everyone but since what your doing is not working then God must not love you!

You could also be that person who no matter what is going on you simply cannot pray through your hardships.  Life is just too hard, things suck way too much, you’ve gone through too much, or been disappointed too much.  You feel you cannot muster up the energy to pray because if you do and it does not work, then you somehow feel disappointed again.

Is this you? Does any of it sound familiar?

Well if it doesn't, then I guess I am the only human being that has ever been faced with hardships and not wanting to talk to God about it because I do not want to hear His happy go lucky answer.

I know you may be thinking I am bold with the way and am speaking but you have to understand that this is me and God’s dynamic (read my blog here on praying).  I have come to learn that I do not need to be a sugar plum gum drop when I go in front of God and pretend that everything is alright when I know (and He knows) they aren't.

I have come to think that God laughs at my stubbornness sometimes and pays my little hissy fits no mind.  But to me they matter, sometimes I want to scream things are falling apart! HELP!

God’s answers are always not yet, there will be some more hardships, the time where things will change is near.  But as day in and day out comes and I see no change, I get mad at God.  I feel that He is lying to me.  Even though I know the Bible says that God cannot lie, I feel somehow God is lying to me, after all things are not going my way. So I have to blame someone.

I still have pain, struggle, and all the rest of the up’s and downs that life has to offer.  And unlike the prefect Christians prancing along all around me I have no peace!

Have you ever heard the expression that people forget to pray when things are good and pray when things get bad.  I am the complete opposite, when things are good for me, me and God are like BFF’s. But when they are bad, I pray through my hardships for a little while, but when its get harder or I see no peace the last thing I want to do is pray about it.

I feel like God could have controlled what that person did to me, how they treated me, how they are cheating me, when I am low on money, or things do not work as fast as I like.  After all He is God, He can do anything.  Why can’t He do something for me now?

Instead of praying though my hardships I even have gone through the Bible, quoting scripture back to God to remind him of the areas He is not meeting in my life.

All of which I am sure God gets a kick out of, seeing as how He was there and I was not.  But true to form, when I am going through something I know it all, and I feel it my obligation to tell God how He needs to hurry it on up and fix things.

I am sure I am the only one that has gone through this. I am sure that I am the only one who has went through a hardship and feels like God has let me down.

I want to be honest and let all those wonderful Christians out there who feel they are less Christian because they cannot skip through the dandelions when they are on the verge of being evicted, when they have lost a love one, when they have been hated, persecuted, and done wrong; that they are not alone.

 I understand you when people tell you to pray through your hardships and you just want to give a laugh and scream back at them “It’s easy for you to say, your life is perfect!.”

I am sure God has thousands and thousands of years of practice with us people acting and behaving the same way.  So rest assure that your temper tantrum, is not going to phase Him or make Him love you less.

My point is no matter how much I go into my little frenzy and puff my face up like spoiled brat.  I still know God loves me and He will always be there for me.  My attention seeking behavior with God is just that.  Attention seeking.  It may be the wrong way to go about it, but it’s my way of acting out to remind God that I am still here and not to forget about me.


As backwards as that may seem, when you have these little fits, I bet this is the motivation behind them as well.  You want to remind God that you are here, that you are suffering, and you want Him to fix it...Now!

You can never control God or His timing.  And even if you do not feel like jumping for joy on your bad days.  It’s okay.  One thing that you need to understand that God is there with you.  Whenever you are ready to talk, He is there, and He is ready to understand and give you the answers that you seek.

God has not forgotten about you in the midst of you pain.  You have to keep in mind that He sees your future so to Him the mood you are in is just temporary and eventually you will see brighter days and get over it.  Provided that you just stick with Him.  I know that is not the easy answer to your torment.  But it is the true answer.

So whatever it is that you are going through, seek God, and trust Him. Even when it is hard and even when you do not want to.