Offering Up Honest Prayers

We have a friend who's going through stage four cancer, so she's dealing with that question “Will God heal me?” A lot of us hope, pray and believe for miraculous healing. There are others who are inclined to not ask God to change his will, and they just trust in his goodness and sovereignty.

Whichever way you lean toward, you have to deal with pain, sorrow and suffering of what you’re experiencing. David knew this feeling. He wrote, “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long? Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love” (Psalm 6:2-4, ESV). Another translation of that says “I am sick, heal me for my bones are troubled. My soul is also greatly troubled. Deliver me from those who are coming against me. In death, there is no remembrance.“ He has enemies in his life, and he's afraid to die. There's this cry in David's heart and the other writers who contributed to the book of Psalms. They're all facing reality directly with God.

Growing up in the church and being a pastor of churches in various places, I’ve noticed our Christian experience is oftentimes very superficial. “How are you?” “I'm fine.” “How's the family?” “They're great.” The tip of the iceberg looks kind of pretty, but underneath there's sin, sickness, fear of death, sorrow, enemies coming up against you.

These teachings in the psalms are about the underneath stuff. They’re honest about ‘These are the problems I'm facing, and God wants to hear my problems. He knows I have them anyway, and he knows what I feel in my heart. If I'm angry at him but I don't want to say it, that's foolish because he already knows.’ God is looking into our lives and saying, “I know you're angry, so your choice is to either repress that anger and pretend it's not there or acknowledge and surrender it to me.”

The psalms give you the opportunity to see what this looks like in action. Here's a man after God's own heart who had great reverence for God and yet could be really honest and speak about these tough issues. Be honest, Christians. Be forthright with God and with one another.