Prayers

LISTENING TO GOD

by GLENN PEASE
01/08/22
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The quickest way to kill your prayer life is to stop listening to God. He refuses to listen to those who will not listen to him. In Prov. 28:9 we read, "One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer shall be an abomination." God has given man revelation in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and if man will not listen to what God reveals of his will, God will not pay any attention to what man wills. In essence, the man who will not listen to what God has already said, will not get any further word from him, except condemnation for his folly in having the audacity to come asking for something more than what he has given. It is a sin in God's eyes to pray when you have refused to listen. What this is saying is that Bible study is the key to prayer, for that is where we learn to listen, and listening is the prerequisite to acceptable prayer. If you don't listen neither will God.

In Zech. 7:8-14 we have a perfect example, "And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: 9 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'

11 "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

13 " 'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the LORD Almighty. 14 'I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.' "prayer is not a right but a privilage that must be earned by respect for God. not to listen to him is disresectful.

That is how they dried up their land, and that is how we dry up our effectiveness in prayer. If we do not listen to God we shut off the fountain of his grace, and block the stream of his compassion, and close the doors of heaven from which his showers of blessing fall on us. The garden of grace can quickly become a desert of despair if we close our ears to God's Word.

Someone wrote, "Imagine having a teen ager who is told to help out around the house by taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, helping with a number of chores, and he never lifts a finger to do any of them. Then he comes and asks dad for 100 bucks to go with his friend to the fair. Dad will think, of all the nerve. You do nothing that I want you to do, and now you want me to help you do what you want to do. Some foolish fathers might fall for this nonsense, but our heavenly Father does not spoil his kids rotten. He refuses to support lazy rebellion, but rejects their request as utter folly. If there are parts of God's Word that you deliberately ignore, or refuse to obey, then your prayers, however earnest, will be considered disgusting to God."

Jer 6:10 (NIV) "To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the Lord is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it."

MATT. 13:13-18 This is why I speak to them in parables:"Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
" 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'[a] 16But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

18"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:" And Jesus goes on to tell the meaning.Listen to how important listening is in the Scriptures.

 "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Exodus 15:26. and he said, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you."

Psalm 81:13. Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

Proverbs 18:13 He who answers before listening— that is his folly and his shame.

Proverbs 19:27 Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.

Luke 2:46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Jesus was a listener.

Luke 10:39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.

Acts 16:14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.

Acts 27:11 But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship.

James 1:19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Listening is a part of prayer that we do not practice well enough. Soren Kierkegaard said, "The true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God wills." Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” 

William Barclay once said, "Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest, we wait in silence for God's voice to us."

Abbott Lyman, "IF God is to be to us the Great Companion, we must form the habit of listening to God. Prayer is something else than talking to God. It is something else than asking things of him which we expect to receive. I have heard prayer compared to a draft on a bank, which the holder presents, expecting to receive the money upon it. This is a very inadequate and unsatisfying interpretation of prayer. Prayer is communion with God. It is the intermingling of our life with his life. It involves listening to him as well as speaking to him. The answer to prayer is furnished not in things given, but in life im- parted, in fellowship enjoyed, in counsel received, in uplifting, in- spiring, life-giving influence. Prayer is living in the conscious presence of God."

If I confess that I do not spend a lot of time in prayer, and then turn around and say that I spend a good many hours a day in prayer, you would assume that I am confused or lying, but there is a valid reason behind this paradox. The valid reason is that reading is a form of prayer when you do it from the point of view of listening to God. When I do Bible study, my primary motive is to hear what God is saying. In other words, I am asking God to guide me to a meaningful grasp of what he is saying. I want to hear what God is revealing, and that desire is a form of listening. What happens is that I keep reading godly authors who are also seeking to know what God is saying. They say things that don't make sense, and do not fit the context, and do not fit with the teaching of other Scriptures. But then they will say something that strikes me as a clear insight into what this part of the Bible is saying. I keep reading other authorities and they see it as well, and after most of the great scholars of history agree that this is what God wants us to hear, I can have assurance that I have a good understanding of what God meant for us to understand. That whole process is a form of listening. Now most people do not have the time or the inclination to go through this process, but they still do the same thing if they read their Bible with the same motivation. Pray as you read that God would make the text say something to you that is a practical motivation to think, will, and act in some way that pleases God. When you do this, you are doing what Samuel did when he said speak Lord, thy servant is listening.

Reading is listening when you are praying to hear what God wants you to hear. For most people in Bible times listening was the only way they could hear the voice of God, but today we have the Bible and many aids to help us listen to God's voice. The Bible has only been available for the masses in the last couple of centuries, and so for most of history the ear gate was the only way people could listen to God's word, but today the eye gate is now available to just about anybody who wants to hear what God has to say. It takes a deliberate effort, however, and a willed focus on the art of listening. Longfellow wrote,

Let us then labor for an inward stillness,
And inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only.

We need to develop a listening spirit when we come to church, or in our private time of devotion. Eccles 5:1-2

1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

2 Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.

 Rev 3:22 (NIV) "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

ACTS 17:11 SITE, "# God speaks to us through our minds and hearts. God occasionally speaks audibly to His children when He has placed them in situations that require great faith. Thus, the miraculous aspect of a physical voice coming from nowhere allows us to believe in situations that are beyond us.

John 12:28 (NIV) [Jesus prayed,] "Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine."

Why did Jesus go out of His way to point out that the voice was not for His benefit? Because He heard God all the time. He was in constant communion with the Father. But the disciples needed to hear it, so they could have faith to believe. Remember, Jesus was about to be rejected by the religious establishment, taunted and humiliated, and executed. So God spoke audibly. God knows when we need a sure word, and works around our lack of maturity in times of great need.

2 Pet 1:16-19 (NIV) We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it

PRAYER IS OF VALUE ONLY BECAUSE GOD IS A LISTENER

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

He hears our voice, and our mind, and especially our desire.

Ps. 37:4, "Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 40:8
“I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart” (NKJV).

Romans 7:22
For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.

To delight is to find pleasure in, and so believers are to be pleasure oriented, but pleasure that is also a pleasure to God. This is called Christian Hedonism. Hedonism is a pagan concept that refers to living for pleasure, and that usually means wine, women and song. It refers to the party animal who lives for self centered physical pleasure. But there is also a world of pleasure in the spirit realm where Christians find great pleasure in finding, learning and doing the will of God. It can be just the pleasure of understanding something in the Bible. Truth gives pleasure, and discovery of it is pleasure. Ministering it to others is pleasure. Love is a great pleasure. It is fun to love people and minister to them in ways that they have need. The more pleasure we get in knowing God and doing the will of God, the more we are prepared to ask God for what we desire, and the more he is willing to hear and respond to such prayer.

Henry, " We must make God our heart's delight and then we shall have our heart's desire, Psa_37:4. We must not only depend upon God, but solace ourselves in him. We must be well pleased that there is a God, that he is such a one as he has revealed himself to be, and that he is our God in covenant. We must delight ourselves in his beauty, bounty, and benignity; our souls must return to him, and repose in him, as their rest, and their portion for ever. Being satisfied of his loving-kindness, we must be satisfied with it, and make that our exceeding joy,

(Psa 1:1-3) Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; {2} But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. {3} He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.

Delighting in God is delighting in what God delights in. (Jer 9:23-24) Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; {24} But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.

Wisdom, strength and wealth are the key foundations for mans glory. In these things he trusts to give delight and pleasure in his life. God says these have their values if you wish to travel through life in the caboose or second class. But if you want to really live with joy and delight on the highest level, you need to get your pleasure from knowing and understanding me. This means that theology is the highest science. Knowing God and his character as one of lovingkindness, judgment, and justice is the highest knowledge that man can possess, and when we gain this knowledge we will delight in it, and God will delight in us for choosing the very best life has to offer.

We delight when our children choose the highest values, and God is the same with his children. When a child chooses the highest values, the father will trust them and give them what he would withhold from a child with poor values. The responsible child and the lazy irresponsible child will both ask dad for the car at some point. Who do you suppose is going to be the first to be trusted to get it? It will be the child who delights in that which the father delights in. Delighting in what God delights in is the best way to increase your odds of answered prayer.

God delights in us when we delight in him and his will. All through the Scriptures we read that God delights in us: “Such as are upright in their way are his delight” (Proverbs 11:20). “The prayer of the upright is his delight” (15:8). “My strong enemy [was]…too strong for me…but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:17-19).

Psalm 147. Verses 10 and 11 say:

His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of a man;
the LORD delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Delight yourself in the Lord.

One of the best articles I read on this verse is by Samuel Lewis Rico

Ah yes, Psalm 37:4...

...this is an abused passage in Scripture. The Church has used it to mean this: love God more, and the more God will get you. Of course, this "more" has by the Church never meant more of God, but the more God can get you. In our materialistic age, our age (in America at least) where humans are consumers, controlled by markets measured by the NasDaq, the Dow Jones...oh, by the way, what mortage rate you qualify for? Forget your soul, what is your credit? You are plastic, a Social Security number, a percentage rate, and maybe you get a decmial point. I think you get the point.

The Church has bought (pun intended) the world's marketing ploy. We in the Church read Psalm 37:4 this way: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you more of the earthly goods you really want but don't have right now."

Is the Psalmist so foolish to think, that when you delight yourself in the Lord you will then want more of the world's things? Does the man who delights himself in his wife, suddenly want more of her cooking?, or, does he want to taste more of her love, i.e., does he want more of her!?!?

The more delight yourself in God, the more you will want God. Psalm 37:4 translates more like this: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart, i.e., he will give you more of himself." If we delight ourselves in God, won't we want more of God? The more that we "taste and see that the Lord is good!" (Psalm 34:8), the more we "feast on the abudance of your house, and you give them [us] drink from the river of your [Christ's] delights" (Psalm 36:8), the more of Christ we will want. When we delight in God, we delight in God. In fact, the more we delight in God, the more we will desire him and desire the world less. So in reality, what meaning the Church has give this verse is actually contrary to what it means.

In review: the Church has understood this verse to mean that if you delight in the Lord, the Lord will give you more of the earthly stuff you want. In reality, the truth is this: if you delight yourself in the Lord, YOU WILL WANT LESS OF THE EARTHLY STUFF you thought you once desired. In fact, you will suffer the loss of all things to gain Christ (Philippians 3:7-10, 11-14). We will pick up our cross with joy. We will go outside the gate and bear the reproach that he endured (Hebrews 13:12-14). And we will do this because we consider the sufferings of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt (America)" (Hebrews 11:25-27). Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you more of himself.

 Now, does this mean that we must always be positive in prayer?

God's Word is filled with complaints in prayer.

It was a Jewish conviction that all emotions should be expressed, and none should be
suppressed. They did not leave any feelings out of their songs just because they were negative
feelings. If they felt hate, they sang about hate. If they felt depressed, they sang about
depression. If they felt God-forsaken, they sang about it, or if they felt God was not being fair,
they sang their complaints to Him. They sang how they felt, and they felt all the emotions,
good and bad, and so they are all in their Psalms.

It is hard for us to buy into this. We prefer to sing only the positive feelings, and go to
therapy to deal with the negative ones. The Jews had no therapists, and so they had to bring
all their feelings to God. God was the one they had to deal with to have mental health. They
had to get all their negative feelings out before God. They had to lay all the cards on the table,
and be open and completely honest before God.

Only a secure people can feel free to complain to God and sing about it in worship, or
confront God with their complaints in prayer. This sounds to us like being a rebel child, but
the Psalms make it clear that it can be the way of the secure child that knows he or she is loved even if they do not understand God's ways, and tell Him so. The more intimate the
relationship, the more likely one feels free to complain without loss of love. Children develop
bad feelings toward their parents, and will on occasion blast out with words like I hate you, or
your way of doing things stinks, I wish I had been born to other parents. You can respond to
these negative thoughts with a whip, or you can say, I'm glad you could be honest with your
feelings. Let's talk about them, and see why you feel that way.

Psalm 77 is one of these negative complaint type Psalms, and Asaph, who was apparently
gifted at lamenting and complaining, has a whole series of pessimistic questions in verses 7
through 9. "Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?

8 Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?

9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?"

1. Will the Lord reject us forever?
2. Will He never show His favor again?
3. Has His unfailing love vanished forever?
4. Has His promise failed for all time?
5. Has God forgotten to be merciful?
6. Has He in anger withheld His compassion?

How is that for a half dozen depressing thoughts for the day? Asaph is obviously not very
high on the reading list for positive thinkers. He is the patron saint of the pessimists. It would
be fascinating to hear the tune to which his gloomy message was sung. It was not likely a very
bouncy or lively piece, but more likely similar to a funeral chant. We might have tough days
when these awful questions enter our minds, but we don't want to sing about it in public, or
call God's attention to such treasonous thoughts.

Have you ever complained to your mate after a restless night and said, "You kept me up all
night with your coughing or snoring, or your tossing and turning?" Most mates have done this
at sometime or another. But who of us has ever had the audacity of Asaph to blame God for a
sleepless night? In verse 4 he point blank fires these words at God: "You kept my eyes from
closing." In other words, it is your fault God that I didn't get a wink of sleep. Asaph seems to
have a gift for complaining to God. He wrote a dozen of the Psalms: Psa. 50 and Psa. 73-83. If
you read them, you discover he was the expert in the complaint department, and a specialist in the art of pessimism. He is the author of much of the blues songs in the temple of God.

If I write a song to sing that went like this:

Lord you just don't seem to care,
And you don't answer my prayer.
I'm feeling so low and in despair,
Because life is so very unfair.

You would think its been too long since my last vacation, and you would recommend I get
away and rest my weary mind. But the fact is, this kind of blues song was sung in the temple
on a regular basis. The Jews were really into the blues. They sung about how they really felt,
and they often felt down.

 Asaph was not likely ever the life of the party. He was Israel's pessimist par excellence. How in the world could God's people allow Asaph to be one of their song writers? And why would God allow this sort of thing to be a part of their hymnal that they used in their worship of Him? They actually set this stuff to music and sang it to the Lord. It is obvious that we have lost an awareness of how negative emotions can be a positive part of worship and praise.

We would never dream of looking for a person who is often depressed, and asking them to
write out some of their feelings so we could sing them in the morning service. The very idea
would be anti-spiritual if we did not have so many examples in the Bible. This is a Biblical
pattern of worship far more frequently referred to and illustrated than dancing, lifting the
hands, or speaking in tongues, but you don't hear of many groups who are bragging that we
complain more in our worship than most others do, and so we are more Biblical than most
other Christians who only rejoice in worship.

First, lets face the reality that every kind of personality can be used of God. Asaph does not
seem the type we would want to run our music program, but both David and Solomon chose
him to be the chief singer and music director for the tabernacle and temple. Almost all the
music we have in the Bible was arranged by Asaph, and when he died his sons carried on the
orchestral and choral arrangements. He was the music man of the Old Testament. Spurgeon
writes of Asaph, "Asaph was a man of exercised mind, and often touched the minor key; he
was thoughtful, contemplative, believing, but withal there was a dash of sadness about him,
and this imparted a tonic flavor to his songs. To follow him with understanding, it is needful
to have done business on the great waters, and weathered many an Atlantic gale."

In other words, his songs are not always relevant for all times. They are songs for the
suffering and the depressed. They are songs of sadness, anger, and frustration. They express
what you feel when you feel terrible. The question then is why is it good to sing about how you
feel when you feel terrible? Wouldn't it be better to just stay home, brood, and mope around
until the clouds break and the sun shines again? Then you can come to church again and
rejoice. This is how we think, but this is not how God thinks, and thus, not how the Hebrews
thought. Worship was to them not only a praise to God, but it was therapy for them. Worship
had a dual purpose: to exalt God and glorify Him, and to bring healing to His people.

The healing can happen when we feel forgiven of our sins, and when we feel God's love and
care through His people. But what we forget is that healing can also come through confession.
Confession is the catharsis of getting all the poison out of our spirit. We get so much
contamination in our soul that we are full of irritation and frustration. We get angry at life, at
God, and at His people. We are full of spiritual poison that saps the joy out of our life, and
makes us bitter and resentful. The Psalms of lament and complaint tell us this kind of negative
pollution needs to be poured out so we can be cleansed, and filled with a new spirit. It is like
an oil change in your car. You get the old stuff out so you can have a fresh supply of clean oil
that will protect your engine. If you did not have a way to get the old out, it would lead to a
break-down. If your car can get sick without getting rid of its inner pollution, so can you.
The God who built us this way is telling us by these negative Psalms that we have to get rid
of the poison or we will have a breakdown. Our health on all levels: physical, mental, and
spiritual, depends on our being able to remove the pollution from our inner life. How do we do
it? We complain to God. We sing about our anger and frustration, our envy and jealousy, and
all the negative feelings that we harbor in our soul. Here is the amazing thing, modern studies
are revealing that what the Hebrews did for all those centuries in worship took the place of
psychologist, psychiatrists, counselors, and therapists of all kinds.

Dr. Morgan Jensen, of the Yale Psychology Department, found that women with breast
cancer die far faster when they cannot be honest about their complaints. They are the ones
who smile and say they are fine, even though their world is collapsing. Since this is how
Christians really feel they should be, it means Christians would tend to die faster than those
who, like a good Jewish woman, could complain her head off about the unfairness of life. Her
realistic facing of negative facts and emotions actually helps her live longer. We would never
dream of giving a Christian friend who is dying of cancer a collection of the songs of Asaph.
But the fact is, we could be giving them life by doing so. We are locked into the superficial
theory that only positive thoughts should be our food in time of crisis. We follow the theories
of men and ignore the Word of God, and by doing so we rob people of the therapy that could
be healing.

Dr. Siegal says the best chance of winning the battle with cancer is being totally and frankly
honest about the enemy. It is a frightening monster that we need to fear and fight with all our
might. Those who smile and pretend there is no battle suppress their emotions, and in doing so they die more quickly. Asaph would be crying out, "Why my Lord? Why do I have to be
rotting with this stinking disease? It isn't fair, and I feel cheated and disgusted with the whole
lousy plan!" He would not be saying this continually, for he would also be praising God for the life he has, and for his family, and for the service he has had the privilege to perform. He
would express his thankfulness to God also, but would not suppress the negative emotions
when they came. The result would be, he would have a better chance of survival.

Dr. Siegal says, "Lack of emotional outlet is a common theme in the history of cancer
patients. It is probably the reason cancer is more common in convents than in prisons: In jail
you can at least act out your frustrations." The Hebrew people had a powerful preventative
medicine right in their hymnal. They could go to church and sing out their awful negative
feelings, and they could get rid of the stress and poison that could damage their bodies and
minds. They got rid of their poison, but we store it up, and the result is, Christians have lost a
major tool for good health right in the Bible.

Now let's be clear about this. Pessimism and depression are not good things. They are just
real feelings that all people, including God's people, have. It is not a blessing to have them, but the point is, when you do, it is okay to sing about how you feel. Asaph is not recommending that you feel down, forsaken, and cheated by life. He is recommending that when you do, you are to be honest about how you feel, and tell the Lord just how you feel. You say, “I'm going to pour out all this poison before you because it is there, and I want to get rid of it, and who else but you can take this putrid poison and cleanse me, and make me whole and happy again by filling me with your Spirit in place of this awful one I now have?”

The goal is not to have a mess of sorry saints who are full of complaints, but rather,
victorious saints who have gone beyond their complaints to a spirit of rejoicing. If you always
take the shortcut and go right to praise without getting the poison out of your system, you can
rob yourself of the joy of praise, for you will still have the suppressed anger and bitterness in
your soul. Your praise will not be real, for the negative feelings will be there cutting down the
energy of your joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength, but when a major portion of your
energy is devoted to keeping your inner negatives suppressed, you will have very little left to
empower your joy. You are draining away your power source. Get the negatives out and
expressed so you can have your full capacity for rejoicing.

Dr. Howard Macy, who got his PHD from Harvard, and who is an outstanding Quaker
scholar, writes in his book Rhythms Of The Inner Life these words we need to hear.

Many modern teachers gloss over this reality. From
the Cathedral of the Perpetual Smile to First Happy
Baptists, there are plenty of people who would mistakenly
have us believe that the life of faith is basically one long
joyride. To sustain this illusion and the quest for the Holy
Grin, they transform the church program into a religious
amusement park hawking a thrill-a-minute, fun-filled
experience, complete with emotional roller coasters,
religious variety shows, verbal trick mirrors, and more.
Such teaching is a half-truth at best, a shoddy imitation
of authentic joy in faith. Both the Scriptures and our
experience refute it.

The fact is that the life of faith includes struggle.
We suffer dryness and "the dark night of the soul."
We hear the piercing question, "why?" and blush at
not having a tidy answer. We cringe and cry out when
life seems hollow and unfair. We smart under the sting
of mockery and lies aimed at us. We sometimes plead,
"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
But even when we see the struggle in ourselves, we
are tempted to conceal rather than disclose it. Sometimes
we even put on our brave face before God. After
all, to admit struggle seems to be admitting that we have
failed as disciples. So while we feign joy, we trudge on,
silently stooped by our burdens, and we secretly waste
away. What we need to do, instead, is to unmask our
struggle and despair and to learn, as people of faith, how
to encounter them.

At this point the Psalms are a helpful guide, for songs
of struggle-the laments-are the most common type of song
in the Psalter. The Hebrews singers often sang "the blues,"
and the way they did it can teach us about our own times
of darkness and how to open them to the light."

I do not think the blues will ever be as popular in the church as it was in the temple, but we
now have the whole Bible available to us in print. We don't have to go to the temple where
there was just one copy. We can benefit by the psychology of the Bible in our privacy. All we
need to learn is that it is okay with God if we are honest about how we feel. We don't have to
like how we feel, or want to so feel, but if we do, we can share that honestly with God, and He
will not be offended. The people He loved the most, often felt rotten, and they told Him so.
Moses said to God, "Why do you treat your servant so badly?..." "If this is how you want to
deal with me, I would rather you killed me!..."(Numbers 11:11,15) Elijah, Jeremiah, Job and
others complained, argued and even accused God. They trusted God's love enough to know
He loved them even with their negative feelings, just as a good friend would. They knew that in the end all would work out and God would come through, but they felt terrible at the time, and they let God know they did not like His timetable on doing things.

When Jesus cried out on the cross that He felt forsaken, He entered the human world of
depression and despair. The overwhelming negative feelings that can enslave the minds of
men had their hold on Him. He was loved by the Father and was soon welcomed into the
Father's presence. His complaint, however, was legitimate, and it was how He really felt in
baring the sins of the world. We are being Christ-like and wise to bring our complaints to
God, for if we don't get rid of the poison in His presence, we will make ourselves sick, as well
as make those around us sick of us. The way to perpetual praise is to get rid of the poison of
complaint. Sometimes even complaint can be positive, as we see in these lines by Cowper.

Lord, it is my chief complaint
That my love is weak and faint.
Yet I love Thee and adore
O for grace to love Thee more!

May God’s Word help us all understand that complaint has a valid place in our prayer life
when we are going through hard times that we do not understand. It is not lack of faith, but
confidence in God’s love that enables us to complain to Him, and know that He will heal the
negative feelings and give us peace.