The lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s (thanks Tom) song “Hallelujah” speak such truth to the Christian. “It’s not a cry you hear at night, and it’s not someone who has seen the light. It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.” That is the proper way to pray. A heart that is broken and tattered, crushed and seemingly ignored is when prayer seems to be most effective and life changing. As we look through the Bible, some of the most moving portraits of prayer take place when the prayer is being dragged through life by the very God they are praying to. David is being chased by Saul, Job has his finest possessions including his very family torn from his grasp, Jesus is being forsaken by His very Father and time after time in the beginning church, these new disciples are faced with oppression daily by an empire that is willing to kill without hesitation. Leonard Cohen may have never known the God of Jacob. Jeff Buckley may have never had the Abba experience, but they truly knew the agony of answerless prayers in order to be drawn close enough to God to do nothing but pray. That prayer is probably a muffled, broken prayer. It may be a prayer that is said through tears and sobs. Most likely, it is a prayer that is said while going through hardships, trials, tough times and mediocre communication with Jesus. Perhaps it is a prayer that is laced with anger and crossness. We are irritated with God for what he has put us through. “Why, God, why would you ruin my life like this? Why would you take my spouse away from me? How could you be such an unjust, partisan and inequitable God?” We are cold, broken and distraught and the only one to blame is the One who has the right to give and take away. Just as the baffled David is composing, we float through this life shaking our fist at God blaming Him for our downfalls and mishaps. “Damn you Jesus! I need you not. Stay out and stop ruining my life. You are useless, futile and create no sense of peace and are ineffectual.”
The response we get back is not something that is comparable to Christianese. It is nothing that is heard from a pastor. No, the response we get back is something that will bring us to tears and drop us to our knees. Through the thick of it all, we hear the faintest whisper much like Elijah heard on the mountain. Through the death of a close one and the loss of a friend, we hear the faint voice of God calling to us telling us one thing. “You are my child, I am your Father. I am the light of justice though the darkness of injustice covers your world. I love you, my arms are open and I know you are broken. Now, my child, fall into me and let me heal your wounds.” No earthquake, fire or hurricane could carry such a powerful word from God. At times the only way we can hear the most needed words is through the faintest of breezes. We will be sitting in our lonesomeness, sulking in misery at our most recent loss, and God will grab us by the face, look us directly into the eyes and simply be there. At times, I feel, that nothing needs to be said by God. We simply need to rest in His open arms and feel His genuine grasp around us and whatever situation we may be going through.
More often than not, our attempts at prayer are as previously explained. We sit in a quiet room and close our eyes and fold our hands as we may have been taught in Sunday school and begin with “Dear God.” How much easier is it to pray while things are going well in our lives! We get a raise at our job or have a good date with the opposite sex, get accepted to a school or teach some great sermon one Sunday morning. When God is good, we are thankful. On the other hand, what are we like when God isn’t as “good” as we would like to have him be? When God isn’t so good to us, we fail to be thankful and curse His name. What happens when He takes away and doesn’t seem to give back? How do we respond to a lost job, broken family situation or a suffering church? This is when we draw closer to God. Through the hardships of life God draws us closer to Him allowing us to truly feel his assured grip. We don’t feel God through those hardships and thus we feel disconnected and apart from the God who is supposed to love us. I believe that is our problem. We need to “feel” God in order to pray and be loved by Him. Brennan Manning says it like this, “As I grow older, I no longer feel God as I once had. But I don’t think God wants feelings, he wants faith.” In prayer, are we driven by feeling or faith? Are we feeling good and therefore God is good? If prayer is not faithful prayer, whether in good times or bad, it is meaningless. We may as well be praying to a wall asking it to heal our friend suffering with cancer or give us direction in our life. Stray away from trying to feel God and dwell in faithful prayer. God is the God of all in all circumstances. He is the source of all things through faith. Because of this, we must have the faith that He can accomplish all things.
