DAY 1 - Tell God the Truth
Audacious Enough to Pray Again
Five Days of Honest Persistent Prayer
Bring one real prayer with you through these five days. Maybe it is a name, a diagnosis, a relationship, an addiction, a decision, or a place in your own heart that has not changed. Do not study prayer only as an idea. Bring God the need that still hurts.
You are not trying to discover a formula that forces an answer. You are returning to relationship with your Father. Read slowly. Tell the truth. Ask boldly. Leave the outcome in his hands. Then come back tomorrow.
Main truth: Audacious prayer returns to God when the answer is still nothing.
Pastor Daniel
Day 1 Tell God the Truth
Read slowly Psalm 13 and Psalm 62:8.
Psalm 13 begins with words many believers feel but hesitate to say: “How long?” David asks it four times. How long will I feel forgotten? How long will I wrestle with sorrow? How long will this situation continue?
God allowed those questions to remain in the Bible. David does not pretend the silence is easy. He does not call darkness light or tell himself the wound should not hurt. He brings the whole thing to God.
We sometimes think mature prayer begins after we calm down, understand the lesson, and find the correct words. Psalm 62 says to pour out your heart before God. Stop giving him the edited version. Tell him what is actually in you.
God already knows. Prayer is where we stop hiding what he already sees. Disappointment becomes dangerous when it teaches us to say nothing.
David eventually says he trusts God’s unfailing love. He trusts God and still asks, “How long?” Faith can do both. The question is where you will take the truth.
David refuses to hurt alone. He takes the hurt to God.
Think Honestly
• What part of your disappointment have you been afraid to say to God?
• Have you confused sounding faithful with being honest?
• What conclusion about God have you attached to the delay?
Practice
Write your own four-line psalm. Begin each of the first three lines with “How long?” Let the final line begin, “But today I will...” Do not force a happy ending. Choose one honest act of trust, even if it is simply, “But today I will keep talking to you.”
Pray
God, here is what hurts. Here is what I do not understand. Here is what I am tired of carrying. I will not hide behind polished words. Receive the truth of my heart and keep disappointment from turning into distance. Amen.
Five Days of Honest Persistent Prayer
Bring one real prayer with you through these five days. Maybe it is a name, a diagnosis, a relationship, an addiction, a decision, or a place in your own heart that has not changed. Do not study prayer only as an idea. Bring God the need that still hurts.
You are not trying to discover a formula that forces an answer. You are returning to relationship with your Father. Read slowly. Tell the truth. Ask boldly. Leave the outcome in his hands. Then come back tomorrow.
Main truth: Audacious prayer returns to God when the answer is still nothing.
Pastor Daniel
Day 1 Tell God the Truth
Read slowly Psalm 13 and Psalm 62:8.
Psalm 13 begins with words many believers feel but hesitate to say: “How long?” David asks it four times. How long will I feel forgotten? How long will I wrestle with sorrow? How long will this situation continue?
God allowed those questions to remain in the Bible. David does not pretend the silence is easy. He does not call darkness light or tell himself the wound should not hurt. He brings the whole thing to God.
We sometimes think mature prayer begins after we calm down, understand the lesson, and find the correct words. Psalm 62 says to pour out your heart before God. Stop giving him the edited version. Tell him what is actually in you.
God already knows. Prayer is where we stop hiding what he already sees. Disappointment becomes dangerous when it teaches us to say nothing.
David eventually says he trusts God’s unfailing love. He trusts God and still asks, “How long?” Faith can do both. The question is where you will take the truth.
David refuses to hurt alone. He takes the hurt to God.
Think Honestly
• What part of your disappointment have you been afraid to say to God?
• Have you confused sounding faithful with being honest?
• What conclusion about God have you attached to the delay?
Practice
Write your own four-line psalm. Begin each of the first three lines with “How long?” Let the final line begin, “But today I will...” Do not force a happy ending. Choose one honest act of trust, even if it is simply, “But today I will keep talking to you.”
Pray
God, here is what hurts. Here is what I do not understand. Here is what I am tired of carrying. I will not hide behind polished words. Receive the truth of my heart and keep disappointment from turning into distance. Amen.
Posted in Daily Devotional