When Prayers Feel Like Voicemail

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've got my phone again.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Remember this from last week where I talked about the
trauma of a phone crashing when you're going through the
airport gate and looking for a boarding.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Pass and it's not there.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, I have another smartphone moment, okay?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
And have you ever called somebody.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
And instead of picking up, it just goes straight to voicemail?
And you know when you call this person, Every time
you call this person, it.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Goes to voicemail. It always goes to voicemail.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
And you're standing there and you're looking at your phone
and you say something like, so, this is what we're
doing now, this is what we're doing now, And you
know that the person saw the call.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
But they refuse to answer.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Tell me, have you ever experienced prayer kind of like that?
You articulate your heart.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
A message of significance, You pour out your heart to God.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
You may even cry a little, and like.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Nothing happens, nothing but silence, not even the courtesy of
a seene notification from Heaven or the message. And then
you start wondering, is God is God ghosting me? Am
I being ghosted by God? Because if we're honest, there

(02:13):
are those seasons when it feels like every prayer.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Just goes to voicemail.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
And you're not the first person to.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Feel like that.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
David David, who the scriptures talk about how he was
a man after God's own heart, David felt the same way,
wondering where on earth is my prayers?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Where are they going? Psalm thirteen is a phenomenal psalm.
It's brief, it's to the point, and has an intriguing
beginning and ending. And it begins with David saying, how
long Lord will you forget me? Will it be forever?

(03:12):
How long Lord will you hide your face from me?
That is not a peaceful Hallmark card kind of an expression.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
He's frustrated.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It's not the kind of prayer that you would embroider
in a pillow. It's the kind that you would cry
into a pillow. And when I think that's in the Bible,
what's wild about it?

Speaker 1 (03:52):
God put it there. It's not been edited out.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
It's not like all of a sudden God says, Oh,
that sounds a little too emotional for scripture, so why
don't we clean it up?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
It is there, I believe.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Because God wants us to know that God can handle
our honest.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Emotions. Now, some of us.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Have been raised to believe that faith means keeping it
all together, don't question God, don't get mad, and by
all means don't doubt. So we put on our church faces,

(04:51):
our smiley church faces, and we can pretend that everything
is fine even when we're falling apart.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
David didn't do that. He didn't do that. He ranted,
he vented, He unloaded on God. You know what, God

(05:22):
wasn't offended, not at all.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
I guess that if God can part the red sea.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
God can handle your bad mood, if he can bring.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Lazarus back from the dead, he can handle your tears,
he can handle your anger, he can handle your why.
Faith doesn't mean pretending you're not hurting, don't go there.

(06:04):
Faith means you bring that hurt to God instead of
hiding it. And that's example we have from David. If
you think about it, faith.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Is a doorway.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
To be honest that you can't heal by hiding it.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
So don't pray prettier, pray truer. Okay, pray truer.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Because honesty is the first step to.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
A stronger faith.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
And have you ever noticed that in our human relationlationships,
when honesty is on the table, it always deepens the
connection that we have.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Like maybe a friend might say, Hey, I.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Have been struggling, and when we hear that, we don't
pull away. When I hear, hey, I've been struggling, we
lean in. We lean in because we want to hear it,
we want to be about it. And the same thing
is true with God. God doesn't draw back from honesty.

(07:36):
God draws closer for honestly, lets us see God again
in the midst of the mess. Now what I think
is intriguing in this little psalm Psalm thirteen. David does
not end the psalm with laments or words of sadness.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
It ends with a choice and.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
A decision, a decision made. Faith is always a decision.
So how does he end this brief, little.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
Journal entry of his prayer to God?

Speaker 2 (08:30):
He writes, but I trust in your unfailing love. My
heart rejoices in your salvation. What a dynamic in just
those few verses. Now notice this, the circumstances they've not changed.

(08:56):
It's the same circumstance. He's still waiting, he's still hurting,
but his decision.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Changed.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
And that's okay, because faith is it about feeling good.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
It's about making a decision. And he chose God. Now,
how about you?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
I think it is intriguing that when a child is born,
or when we're born, they say, oh, we look like
our parents. I happened to think with Adeline Richards with
her baptism a few months ago. When she came up
for baptism, I thought, oh, Adeline.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
You kind of you. You look like your mom Beth,
and feel feel looks like Ted. They feel you you
look like your dad.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
My son looks like me, One daughter looks like my
wife Mercedes. Another daughter looks like my mother. And always
say that, oh that baby looks like this. Well, think
about this. When you're born, you look like your parents,

(10:24):
but underscore this, when you're born you will look like
your parents. But when you die, what do you look like?
You look like the decisions you make. What you decide
is how you're going to look when it's all over.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
How do you feel about that? How do you feel
about that?

Speaker 2 (10:52):
What is your decision? What is your decision for the Christ?
What is your decision that you want to be known for?
As we think of God's institution, the church for what
it is, when you keep praying through silence, when you

(11:16):
keep showing up, when you keep saying, but I trust
as David did, probably even with a shaky voice.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
That is what Heaven calls faith. So I got a
challenge you can call that.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I'm going to call it an opportunity for you to
consider this week where we can put David's model of
praying in rough times when it seems like our prayers
go to voicemail. Another way of looking at it, to
do what I call a create a how long journal?

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Okay, how long journal? Would something like this.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
You get your notebook or whatever app you use on
your device for note taking, and each day I invite
you just to.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Write out your rawless prayers, unfiltered stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Maybe you have to lose language you wouldn't say in public,
and tell God exactly how you feel, just like David did.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Write it out.

Speaker 6 (12:33):
The doubt, the frustration, the waiting, no edits, no edits,
no filters, just real talk with God, which is what
prayer is, It's conversation.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
And then try this on in each prayer. In the prayer.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
With a line of trust, which is exactly what David did.
You would write your prayer and then then conclude it
by writing something like right, but I trust you.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Anyway, I trust you anyway.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Right, But I know you're working.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
I know you're working even though I can't see it,
but I believe you haven't forgotten me. Something powerful will
happen when we're honest to God like that and we
make a decision.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
That will reflect how we look when all ends. What
are you going to do about that? How will that
affect your life?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Because when we do that, something shifts. You might not
feel different overnight, but your perspective, oh, it's going to
start to change. You're going to begin to realize that
prayer isn't a voicemail.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
It's a conversation. It is a conversation. Even when it
feels one sided. God's listening.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
God is working in the background. God is not ignoring
your call. God is preparing, is preparing an answer.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
And you just can't see it yet. But God is working.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
So faith that works, which is what we're looking at
in these weeks.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Faith that works.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Doesn't pretend it persists, Okay, it persists. So this week,
be honest, be real, be persistent, because faith doesn't just work.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
When life is good. Come on, faith works when life doesn't.
Would you please stand for prayer. Let us pray together.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for not hanging up
when we call. You're just working while we wait. Bring
you the parts of us that feel unheard, unseen, or unanswered.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
We lay down our.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Frustrations, our waiting, and our wondering, and we pick up trust,
even if it's small, even if it shakes. Teach us
that faith isn't about having the right words. It's about

(16:38):
bringing you our real ones. It's not about feeling strong,
it's about holding.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
On when we feel weak. So help us to keep
showing up, to keep talking.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
To you, to express raw and that which is real
in our lives, and help us to end every prayer
with this simple truth. But I trust you still, even

(17:18):
when I can't see it yet.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
In Jesus' name, Amen,