{"id":12923,"date":"2020-04-08T21:49:09","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T01:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12923"},"modified":"2025-08-20T13:39:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T17:39:38","slug":"praying-in-crazy-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12923","title":{"rendered":"Praying in Crazy Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During this pandemic, I’ve heard people say they don’t even know how to pray.<\/p>\n

I’m thinking about the Psalms lately as I think about praying. I do believe there are many ways to pray — but some of those ways are to pray like the psalmists.<\/p>\n

I’ve been looking at laments lately<\/a>. An interesting thing about laments is that in the Psalms, they generally spend a lot more time telling God what the problem is than they do telling him what they want him to do about it. It’s almost like praying is more for our benefit than it is for God’s.<\/p>\n

Over the years, I’ve often been told to pray specific prayers, because then you can see when God has answered. I’ve been told to name it and claim it.<\/p>\n

And yes, we’re supposed to lay our requests before God with thanksgiving. There’s nothing wrong with telling him what we want to happen. He’s said, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”<\/p>\n

But what is the difference between asking God and telling him what to do?<\/p>\n

Take a look at the Psalms. They pour out their hearts to God about the big mess they’re in, and then they ask God to act. They ask God for help. They aren’t usually terribly specific about what form the help needs to take. In fact, it seems like they actually trust God to figure out what should be done.<\/p>\n

I think about when my husband left me. For years, I prayed that God would bring him back. It took a long time before I realized that I wasn’t trusting God. I was telling him what I thought needed to happen.<\/p>\n

God did answer my prayers for help. He granted me protection and security, a new job, a new home, and a church family that cared about me. He took my relationship with himself to a whole new level.<\/p>\n

In fact, he graciously granted me an abundance of blessings I’d never thought to ask for.<\/p>\n

There was a key moment for me when I realized that “standing for my marriage” wasn’t actually trusting God. Could I trust God to help me and bless me when I was not deciding what the outcome had to be?<\/p>\n

Take a look at some Psalms. You can almost page through and take your pick, but I’ll point out a couple where it’s really striking. <\/p>\n

Look at Psalm 44. The psalmist goes on for 22 verses about how bad things have gotten. Then they end with these four verses:<\/p>\n

Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
\nRouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
\nWhy do you hide your face
\nand forget our misery and oppression?
\nWe are brought down to the dust;
\nour bodies cling to the ground.
\nRise up and help us;
\nrescue us because of your unfailing love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another good example is Psalm 10. This one is a more complete lament, and it’s got the “Words of Assurance” section after the “Petition.” In fact, out of 18 verses, there is only one where he asks God to do anything, and that verse is short and sweet:<\/p>\n

Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
\nDo not forget the helpless.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So this is an idea for praying during this pandemic. I’m not saying this is the only way to pray. But as an exercise, try pouring out to God all your worries and all the ways things are not going well.<\/p>\n

And then ask him:<\/p>\n

Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
\nDo not forget the helpless.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It doesn’t hurt, after that, to continue with the form of the lament<\/a>. Remind yourself that you really do believe that God can handle this. Make some promises about how you’re going to celebrate when God brings you through!<\/p>\n

But I for sure don’t know what God should do about this global pandemic. I’m glad that I do trust that he knows, and that he will have mercy.<\/p>\n

But you, O God, do see trouble and grief.
\nYou consider it to take it in hand.
\nThe victim commits himself to you;
\nyou are the helper of the fatherless.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Walk with us, Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During this pandemic, I’ve heard people say they don’t even know how to pray. I’m thinking about the Psalms lately as I think about praying. I do believe there are many ways to pray — but some of those ways are to pray like the psalmists. I’ve been looking at laments lately. An interesting thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,65,51,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-thoughts","category-laments","category-prayer","category-praying-with-the-psalmists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12923"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12935,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12923\/revisions\/12935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}