Pouring out your soul to God

I have found the current Sermon series on Prayer really helpful. It appears that all Christians seem to struggle with this aspect of their faith journey.  Hearing some of the Bible stories of those who were faithful in prayer even in the most desperate situations is really encouraging to us. Hannah’s situation in 1 Samuel  in particular spoke to me. 

For many years Hannah had been praying for a child, staying faithful in prayer even though her situation seemed hopeless.

 There are times when the problems we face overwhelm us so much that we don’t know where to start with our prayers, and even maybe question where God is in this situation.

I recently watched a programme titled “Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children” and it quite literally broke my heart. When faced with trying to bring this to God I was simply lost for words, the issues are so complex, the suffering so great that I really did not know where to begin.    One little girl was 9 years old, too poor to attend school or, on some days, buy food, she was nursing her dying mother, looking after her 1 year old sister and racked with pain herself as she was also HIV positive. I could not get the image out of my head and was quite honestly left feeling pretty hopeless.   

When discussing another matter with a Christian friend she told me about some words that were given to her through prayer “What breaks my heart should break your heart”. It took a day or so for this to sink in but I suddenly understood that God can call us to action by making us feel the way He feels about suffering, by literally breaking out hearts. When we call to Him in desperate, heart-felt prayers, pouring out our souls, it is often the times when we feel His presence most.     

There are times in my life when I have hit a barrier and quite simply dropped to my knees knowing that I desperately need God’s guidance. At these times you stop trying to control the situation yourself and hand it to God, and often this can represent a new beginning.

For Hannah her prayers were answered after such a time of desperate prayer:

After being beaten and humiliated how must Jesus have felt as he was taken for Crucifixion, and during the extreme pain and suffering his desperate prayer from the soul was:

 

As we approach Easter and remember the ultimate sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross my prayer is that God keeps driving us to action by touching our hearts and forcing us to our knees to ask for His guidance.