A Prayer for the Discouraged
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Psalm 42:1-3
Gracious Father, it’s an enormous gift that your Word gives voice to every season, circumstance and emotion I will experience in this “already and not-yet” journey to gospel-wholeness. In my felicity and in my despondency, and in everything in between, you are with me and you are for me. You don’t love me more when I have a dancing heart. You don’t love me less when I have a doubting heart. Indeed, with kindness you drew me, and with an everlasting, unwavering love, you hold me.
Gracious Father, it’s an enormous gift that your Word gives voice to every season, circumstance and emotion I will experience in this “already and not-yet” journey to gospel-wholeness. In my felicity and in my despondency, and in everything in between, you are with me and you are for me. You don’t love me more when I have a dancing heart. You don’t love me less when I have a doubting heart. Indeed, with kindness you drew me, and with an everlasting, unwavering love, you hold me.
Today I bring my discouraged, weary heart to you, and I bring some of my deeply hurting friends with me. Lord, sometimes it feels like life is just too much. The hard providences, the difficult people, the aches and pains of this tent I live in called “my body”, cars and plumbing that break down, friends that bury their wives way too early, children that seem allergic to the gospel, mounting bills and decreasing resources, and a world…even family members who say, “Where is your God in all this?”
Tears in my coffee, in my beer, on my sandwiches, in my cereal, and dry tears when there is no heart water left. Lord Jesus, you know what this is like, you better than anyone else. For you took the ultimate combination of assaults, somersaults, and insults on the cross, for me and my friends. It’s your cry, “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”… that assures me I will never be forsaken, NEVER, even when life mocks my assurance. It’s your thirst on the cross, that assures me that my thirst is only fleeting, though at times it feels fatal. Indeed, as I pant for you Jesus, you are running to me with the living water of the gospel. Thank you, on my behalf, and that of my very thirsty friends.
