I am going through rough times, and often get responses with what I should pray for. Things like strength to get through the situation, patience, etc. If I am truly honest, I don't want any of that. My heart's desire is for the painful situations to be removed. If I prayed for those things, I would be lying to God about what I want. I don't care what possible good could be gotten out of the problems. I no longer care what God wants to accomplish. I don't want his comfort. I just want them gone. So should I follow the advice and pray for what I don't want at all, for any reason, or stick with the more honest, but more selfish prayer?
Life can be ugly and corrupt. The Lord gave us emotions and sometimes they can be very ugly. Yet this is how we feel when we are in pain. You are not alone, here is an instance from scripture.
Israel as a nation was judged. Their country was crushed and the survivors were forced to live in distance lands to their home. You can feel the bitterness of their pain. Remind you this is a Psalm in the Holy Scriptures. (Edomites are a nation that come from Jacob's brother Esau)
Psalm 137 ESV
"By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
3 For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song
in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget its skill!
6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy!
7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,
down to its foundations!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
blessed shall he be who repays you
with what you have done to us!
9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!"
Babylon was the conquering nation, it is their "little ones" the psalmist wants to see dashed against the rock. A really ugly request.
I wanted to share this with you to let you know that it is OK to be sincere with God about how you feel. All honestly God already knows.
Remember that "Vengeance is mine.." (Deuteronomy 32:35) says the Lord. Don't take matters into your own hands. Pray that God will work it out for you.
Just remember one thing, that Christ(Jesus the anointed one) was rejected, humiliated, despised, abandoned, and even put to death. He knows how you feel more than you know. Sometimes he will use the pain to teach you how to have compassion for others. When the time is right, he may ask you to learn to forgive your enemies. So you can be truly free of them.
