Lord, when you favored me,
you made my royal mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
Psalm 30:7
Praying each day gives us the best perspective from which to learn about the ever-changing landscape of this relationship. We get to build today upon things the Lord taught us yesterday as we grow, in an accumulating way, according to the “lessons” of prayer. We also learn about the fluctuating experiences of feeling lost and found in prayer, and how God uses both these experiences to form us.
Prayer comes quite easily to us on some days. The moment we close our eyes we somehow fall into the slipstream of the Spirit and feel carried and buoyed by the obvious presence of God. It is very easy at such times to feel we have a handle on this business of praying—that we finally know how to do this. Our new-found ease at prayer seems to suggest that we have come to a different level of maturity.
But there are other days when we are more in a state of fog. There seems to be a wall blocking our access to God or to ourselves. Perhaps we feel rushed, or impatient, or are carrying more doubts or anxieties than we realized. For whatever reason, we are unable to rest in the invitation of prayer.
The Psalmist recognizes both these experiences of prayer as normal—from the delight of God’s favour to the dismay we feel that God might have hidden His face from us. What marks our spiritual maturity though is not which side we experience most often, but more how we interpret what we are experiencing in light of our relationship with God.
When the Psalmist is unable to find God as he had hoped, he is dismayed. He doesn’t overly analyze his situation. Nor does he blame himself, or assume that this is a situation he can change. He simply expresses his dismay to God. His very disappointment becomes his prayer—a lament that expresses his feeling of being lost, exiled as it were from God’s presence.
On the other hand, the Psalmist is just as quick to acknowledge the experience of his “mountain standing firm” as resulting from the Lord’s favour (v. 7). He sees this blessing purely as gift. There is no sense of personal achievement here. No self-congratulation is warranted. It is simply and solely the favour of the Lord that has granted him, on this particular day, the relationship that he longs for in prayer.
Only through a daily familiarity with the ebbs and flows of prayer can we come to appreciate how God uses both these experiences to form us and to purify our desires for Him. Both are gifts that can edify us. In the one—the experience of dismay—the Lord increases our longing, and our prayer becomes a lament. Through the other—His favour alone—He satisfies it, and our prayer becomes one of gratitude for the gracious gift of God’s presence that we have received.
Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:
- How does God use your practice of daily prayer to teach you not only through His presence, but also through His seeming absence? What patterns do you see in your response to these two experiences?
- When prayer comes easy to you do you feel it is because you have done something right? When prayer is difficult do you presume it is your fault? How can you receive both these experiences more as gifts than as the result of achievement or failure?
- Consider the fact that when the Psalmist feels that God has perhaps hidden His face, “he doesn’t overly analyze his situation. Nor does he blame himself, or assume that this is a situation he can change. He simply expresses his disappointment to God.” How is this different from how you react to a similar experience in prayer?
FOR PRAYER: Present yourself to the mystery of prayer, not knowing whether prayer today will be easy or hard for you. Prepare yourself beforehand to accept either experience as from God, anticipating that, at the end of your prayer, you will either be thanking Him for His favour, or you will be expressing your longing for Him through the dismay of not having been able to be with your Lord as you had hoped to.
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