Dear Missionary Lady,
Greetings in the name of our great God. I hope you will indulge me. I have started a new Bible study that I am calling “How to pray during a trial,” and I thought it might be of interest and help to some of you. This will stretch out over a few months; below is the introduction.
“Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray” (James 5:13). The Bible is not ambiguous about what a person needs to do in times of suffering. He should pray. This is a must. On the one hand, praying in times of trouble seems almost so expected and reasonable that it should not even have to be stated. Even casual Christians and unbelievers resort to prayer in times of trouble. For devout Christians, prayer should be completely expected. It should be as natural as breathing. It should be automatic, a gut response.
On the other hand, James (through the Holy Spirit) felt it necessary to give the instruction to pray in times of trial, and he stated it very emphatically. He urged that prayer must be done, implying the possibility that someone might not think of prayer in spite of his suffering. He might not focus on prayer with the proper intensity. He might neglect the one thing that is especially needed. He might not deliberately choose to pray. There are several practical reasons why prayer might be neglected even in a trial.
First, sometimes the trial is so overwhelming that it absorbs a person's time, attention, or energy. Every moment may seem to be absorbed in the practical actions required to deal with the troubling situation. The mind might be so consumed with evaluations and decisions that it would require diligent effort to divert the thoughts to prayer instead. Fatigue might be crippling, so that any type of serious thinking and concentration is difficult. In short, life is so demanding that there is nothing left for prayer.
Second, it is easy for a sufferer to expect others to uphold him in prayer. He may feel helpless to pray for himself or to be able to pray enough to make a difference in his situation. It may seem that the only answer is for dozens or even hundreds of others to do the praying for him. Certainly others should pray, but this does not release the sufferer from the need to also pray.
Third, a Christian can fall into the sense that God already knows his needs. He may feel that he has already prayed, perhaps multiple times, and that additional praying would be nothing but repetition. After asking God for help and dedicating the situation to God, the believer may pull back on the amount of prayer, seeing it as redundant, unnecessary, or even pointless.
Fourth, sometimes a trial can weaken a Christian’s spiritual sensitivity. This is often due to some variation of frustration, hurt, anger, or bitterness. Perhaps almost imperceptibly and even against his desire, a believer might allow his negative experience to reduce his spiritual fervency, leaving him less enthusiastic about spiritual things and therefore less inclined to pray. He might not be giving up on God, but perhaps he has settled into a mindset of just waiting for this trial to be over, and in the meantime, he is just drifting.
Fifth, a believer might have given up on prayer. This is somewhat related to the previous point, but more specific. A Christian has perhaps prayed fervently without seeing results. Maybe this is not the first significant trial he has gone through and prayed over. It seems like prayer doesn’t matter, because life continues to be filled with troubles, and his prayers for the current trouble have had no apparent impact.
Sixth, a Christian might feel like he does not even know how to pray within his current context. He doesn’t know what to ask for because he doesn’t know God’s plan. He struggles even to understand his own heart. He may even turn to prayer attempts but finds himself without words. His prayer times end quickly because he feels incapable of expressing his heart.
Regardless of the reason for the lack of prayer, the Bible’s instruction stands. “Let him pray.” When it comes to the final reason of inadequate expression, the Bible has the answers, just as it has for all of life. The Bible urges prayer in times of suffering, and it is filled with instructions and content that help a believer know how to pray and what to pray during difficult times. The best way to know that one is praying appropriately is to pray for things that God Himself instructs, teaches, or expresses as His desires. If a believer prays for what he knows God already intends to do, he can have great confidence in seeing the answers to those prayers.
God’s truth in this regard is not insignificant. The amount of applicable content is vast. The variety of truth is robust. Truly, times of suffering are complex, but God's Word is more than sufficient to address every angle. My own sense, as I examine God’s available resources for guiding prayer, is that I wish I had focused on these truths much earlier in my own times of suffering. The truths have not been alien to me. Gradually over the years, I have prayed according to these truths more and more frequently, but I now realize how much more effective my prayers could have been. I see that my journeys through suffering could have been more bearable and more profitable if I had prayed more consistently according to the insights that God provides. I am aware that when I have prayed these biblically-based requests, I have seen God answer them.
This outcome should not be surprising. If God admonishes us to pray in times of suffering, then it stands to reason that the prayers mean something. God intends to do something in response to those prayers. He intends to ease the suffering and accomplish His work through the suffering in part due to those prayers. God would not urge us to pray if the prayers didn’t mean anything. So, believers, “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.”
I sought insight on how to pray during suffering primarily by looking at what the Bible has to say about suffering and trials, with the majority of the content coming from the epistles. As I studied this material, I divided the focuses of prayer into multiple categories. There is no particular order to my arrangement, except what seems logical to me. One category is not necessarily more important than another category. All of the categories are important, and we should be praying from each of them regularly. The various categories keep us focused on the right things, on God's designs and His glory. The categories also help to protect us from the dangers inherent in a time of trial.
The categories and specific requests are guidelines or prompts. Our praying, whether in suffering or in ordinary life, cannot merely be formulas or repeated prayers. The whole point is that they have to come from the heart. If they become a checklist – “I prayed something from each category today” - then the heart of it is missing. Each category contains various verses and prompts. This is primarily to represent accurately and with reasonable completeness the truth that God shares. Humanly speaking, we know that not every verse strikes the heart the same way each day. A verse that is very special one day might not touch our hearts the next day, but a different verse might. Whereas repeating the same thing over and over can become empty repetition, variety can be refreshingly meaningful. Thankfully, God’s Word gives us a lot to choose from.
I pray that these lessons will be a help to you as you walk through whatever God chooses for your life. Be encouraged that prayer matters!
Love in Christ,
Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
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