Prayer

There have been many times in my life where I prayed and was left without answers or the action I wanted.
There have been many prayers where I felt the absence of God, Who I thought would be so close to me at that time.
There have been many questions I carry about prayer. Like, why do some people seem to have a significantly higher rate of postive outcome prayers?

Parker Palmer says:
”The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain it’s loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without hope, faith and love.”*

I have found that I can now hold both. There is space and grace for both. I used to believe that if I doubted, I lacked faith. I was not strong enough. I did not believe hard enough. It was exhausting and only bore the fruit of overwhelm, guilt and shame.

Can you think back to a time when your faith was so tested that you didn’t know if you could follow God anymore? You doubted if you had what it took to be His child or if you even wanted to be anymore. Was God who you thought He was? The cost was too great. The pain too deep.

There have been a few for me, but none as difficult and painful as when my mom died. She died suddenly from a brain aneuysm in her 40’s while at church, seven months after Dean and I were married. It was a horrible dream we were woken up into. I questioned everything I believed about God, Who He was, How He loved, His expectations of His children who loved Him.

Jenna was gently asked: “What reason could God give you?” She shares: “The truth is there was nothing. And that realization left me with a choice to make. I could embrace the mystery or run from it. Could I make peace with not knowing why my prayers were unanswered, or would this be the experience I define God by, the one experience that overwhelms all the others I’d had along the way? Could I continue to trust God without having answers and reasons? We are all going to face painful disorientation at some point, and the challenging invitation is to trust even in the darkness. Pain and suffering have the capacity to deepen you and transform you, but they have the capacity to destroy you. I realized the pain I was carrying was destroying me. *

Even in the midst of that incredible pain of losing my mom, I knew in my heart that I didn’t want to leave God. I knew the love and acceptance I felt from Him but I also couldn’t reconcile those things with Who I thought He was now.

“We have to invite God - the very One who broke our trust - into the muck with us.
We invite the One we are labeling ‘perpetrator’ to be our healer.
It’s the most courageous of all choices.”
~ Tyler Staton*

Finding my way back to God was a long journey. I found Him to be patient with my doubt, humble with my accusations and loving with my fear.
He was just as comfortable being with me when I praised Him or when I stumbled through the darkness trying to find Him.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Matthew 7:7-8

I haven’t always found that to be true in my life. Have you?
At times, I have found that Scripture a little annoying and maybe even a bit of false advertising.
I’m asking, seeking and knocking and nothing. I’m getting nothing. Well, I am getting frustrated but I don’t think that’s the point.

The invitation Jesus extends here is for us to be persistent. To keep asking. To keep seeking. To keep knocking.
Why?
”Prayer is a journey that starts with need and ends in relationship.” - Tyler Staton

If Jesus is letting us know we need to be persistent that means we may not get the answer on the first knock, the first time we ask or seek. We may need to keep at it. All the while trusting God for the outcome. Even when it gets long and we are impatient. Even when it’s hard to keep believing. Even when it gets dark and we stumble.

I don’t know where you are at in your prayer journey - if you’ve been asking, seeking, knocking for years and still waiting. Or if you have seen some requests answered. Or if you are stumbling in the dark trying to find God, your God, Who promises to never leave you and is always with you. Maybe your trust is faltering. Maybe your rejoicing.

God wants us to “have a seasoned, resilient faith - to be a people who dance with God through miracles and bear with God through mystery.”*

So keep asking, keep knocking, keep seeking chosen one of God. He hears you. He sees you. He is with you.

Have an amazing day!
All My Love ~
Jodi xo

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*excerpts taken from Tyler Staton’s book: “Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools”.