Did you feel that? You know, that unexpected call, that diagnosis, that accident, that loss, that illness, that broken, that hurt. You know what I’m talking about. The things that come out of left field when it’s not even game day. The things that knock us off our feet and make us thrash like crazy to get our sea legs underneath of us again. I know you know exactly what I mean because I know so many of you who are going through so many difficult things – you’ve felt the thwack for yourself or for another and you’re a little stunned.
Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. James 5:13
I read something today about this verse in James that was absolutely life changing for me. No kidding, life changing. Listen:
When we face stress of all kinds, prayer is not our last chance but our first choice. James does not promise us that our emotional pain will always go away, but he does guarantee us that God cares about our suffering. When we cry out to God and bring him into our pain, he is a “friend that sticks closer than a brother.” When we put our burden in his hands and accept the loving arms of Christ around us, then we experience comfort and gain strength to bear up under the pressure. Jack Graham
Of course, I know in my heart that prayer should be first, but…I italicized the life changing part. For some reason, I always think I must not be praying right, or must not be praying hard enough, long enough, or, my favorite — I must not be giving my hardship to God because my emotional pain in the midst of my crisis didn’t go away when I prayed. Does anyone else feel like that too? Oh, good. You see, in my feeble mind I somehow equated praying about my hardship with immediately “feeling” emotionally pain free. James says not so.
James’s statement is frankly so simple it’s hard. James is saying unexpected call-pray, diagnosis-pray, accident-pray, loss-pray, illness-pray, broken-pray, hurt-pray. Pray through the tears, the shock, the hurt, the pain, the questions, the confusion. Just pray. The tears may still flow, we may still feel the gut punch, we may still feel the pain and confusion and our minds may be whirling, but as Jack Graham says, when we pray, that’s when we bring God into our pain. That’s when we can begin to emotionally heal, be comforted and strengthened when the tough stuff comes our way.
Remember, God knows our hardships before they happen. He doesn’t need us to pray to Him to tell Him what our hardship is, He knew and knows. We need to pray to Him for our healing. Only when we invite God into our tough stuff can we be comforted and be strengthened. God wants to be an active participant in our burden bearing, not a distance observer. He enters when invited, by prayer. While relaying yet another devastating prayer request to a friend the other day, she said: “God must really want to spend time with us because He’s giving us lots of things to talk to Him about.” So true.