Prayer is one of the greatest blessings God has given us. Through it, we can draw near to Him, enjoy His presence, gain a heavenly perspective, experience transformation, ease anxiety, and receive assistance for our everyday needs. Knowing this, most of us only ever consider prayer as a positive activity. Rarely do we think about, or even want to acknowledge, the times when praying hurts. Sometimes this hurt is a normal part of communicating with God. On other occasions, prayer is painful because we pray in an unhealthy way. In this article, I want to consider five ways prayer can hurt. These are:
1. Prayer can hurt when God is silent.
One of the most painful experiences in prayer comes when you are facing something troublesome, and you pray and pray and pray, yet there seems to be no answer from God. There just seems to be painful silence. That was the experience of Job. Job had lost his children, lost his wealth and lost his health. He was in emotional and physical agony. Yet what he found especially painful was the silence of God. At the height of his distress, Job says this about God, “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living”. (Job 30:20-23)
When God is silent, it is difficult to know what to think. You don’t want to have terrible thoughts about God, but neither does your suffering always make sense. In wrestling with this tension, you can end up feeling angry, confused, tired and downright scared even to contemplate God when He is silent. You might even wonder if he has finally abandoned you. The writer of Psalm 77 was certainly struggling with such things when he wrote, “I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated and my spirit asked: “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”
Even Jesus felt the pain of abandonment from His Heavenly Father when he cried out while on the cross, “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Being divine, Jesus knew that His Heavenly Father hadn’t ultimately abandoned Him. So why did He say this? It might be that He was reminding the hearers of Psalm 22. However, since Jesus had to suffer as a human for the sake of humanity, it may also have been His human side reflecting emotional distress from His tortuous experience along with extreme loneliness as He bore the sins of the world. As Jesus hung on the cross, it was likely the first time that He, from all eternity, had felt disconnected from His Father. Yet God had to sit back and let it happen so that He could give hope to the world.
It is clear from the passages above that there will be times in life when we will experience God’s silence. It may be the result of sin, but not necessarily. Sometimes it is simply something that serves God’s purpose at the time.
As painful as it is waiting for God to respond and make His presence known again, we must continue to trust Him and lean into His promises. When we seek Him, groan for Him and keep turning to Him – even when He remains silent – several things happen to us. We naturally move away from sin. We demonstrate faith and a desire to have Him in our life. We grow in our ability to wait patiently. We deepen our understanding of who He is. And we also eventually learn that He is reliable and answers our prayers on His terms, His timing and His way.
2. Prayer can hurt when we approach God with an inaccurate understanding of Him.
We will always live according to our knowledge of God (Romans 1:18-32). If we believe in a God who is distant, then we may try all sorts of things to get his attention, like crying out, cutting ourselves and offering human sacrifices (1 Kings 18:2029). If we believe God to be cruel, then there is a good chance we will be as well. If we think God is like genie, we will lack respect for Him, ignore His will and expect Him to be at our beck and call. However, if we conclude that God is harsh, judgmental and ready to zap us the moment we sin. We will find it difficult to approach Him knowing that He sees all our sins. For many Christians, it’s this last view of God that troubles them greatly. They know they are to pray to God, but they find it difficult to do so because of their intense fear of Him. These people are likely to find that prayer increases their anxiety rather than relieves it.
To gain the most out of prayer, we need to have an accurate Biblical understanding of God. One that understands that God deserves our utmost respect (Matthew 10:28) but at the same time is someone who is merciful and loves it when we come boldly to Him through Jesus (Hebrews 4:14-16).
3. Prayer can hurt when it becomes an avoidance strategy.
There are times when all we can do is pray. However, there are other times when prayer becomes a way to procrastinate because we prefer not to do the hard work ourselves to bring about an outcome or because we are too afraid to take action. When we pray for something but fail to take any action, we are setting ourselves up for frustration. It makes us no different from the sluggard described in Proverbs 21:25-26. His cravings bring him to death because he is unwilling to do what is required to fulfil his dreams. It also makes us like the sluggard mentioned in Proverbs 26:15 who is inactive due to irrational fears. When you pray as an avoidant strategy, don’t be surprised when you wake up years down the track and realise you have lived an unfulfilled life. If anything, spending time with God in prayer should orientate us towards taking appropriate faith-based action. So, if you are sick, pray about it but then see a doctor. If you want good grades at school, pray and then study hard. If you have learning issues, pray and then seek the help you need. If you want a job, pray about it, then put in your applications. If you would like a spouse, pray about it and then get busy meeting lots of people. Also, accept that rejection is part of the process. If you want to raise healthy God-fearing children, pray for them, develop good routines, set healthy boundaries, be an example and teach them about God.
Yes, we are to pray, but we are also to move forward in faith, doing what we can to achieve good things in this life.
4. Prayer can hurt when we have false expectations.
Personally, the times when I have felt most disappointed in God have been when I have approached Him with false expectations. Sometimes I have come to Him expecting an immediate answer. And other times, if I am honest, I expected a miracle. During these moments of prayer, I was impatient with God and expected Him to respond dramatically. Of course, when God didn’t come through as I wanted, I found myself frustrated and angry. That was particularly the case while praying for friends and people I cared about who were sick and dying. To some extent, my feelings were natural, but now as I look back, I can see that part of my struggle and pain in prayer in those moments came because of my false expectations.
When we approach God in prayer, we need to recognise that God owes us nothing. Although God is gracious and loves it when we pray to Him, He also is under no obligation to answer our prayers exactly how we have determined He should. He responds according to His timing, will and wisdom. By accepting this, we will find that we are much more satisfied with prayer. We will see prayer not as a way to manipulate events or demand our own way but as an expression of confidence in God’s sovereignty, love and wisdom.
5. Prayer can hurt when it becomes spiritual nagging.
Sometimes there seems to be a fine line between persevering in pray and nagging God. When we read about the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8, we can come away thinking, “If I just bother God enough, he will relieve my fears or grant me whatever I want”. The problem with this type of thinking is that it fails to consider the nature of the type of persistent prayer Jesus is speaking about in this passage. He isn’t simply speaking of repeating the same prayer over and over again until God removes all our fears or gives into our selfish demands. Instead, He is speaking of the importance of seeking justice even if it seems like God is not paying attention to the evil that might be happening to us. Unlike the judge in Jesus’ parable, God is very concerned and eager to rectify any wrongs done to us during this life. And He will at the right time. So, the point is to keep praying until God brings justice – which could be judgment day.
Perpetually repeating our prayers until God acquiesces to our whims and wants treats God as if He were one of the pagan gods. That is, God isn’t really interested in our wellbeing and therefore requires a lot of meaningless speaking to get His attention (Matthew 6:7-14). The reality is, God cares deeply for us and is attentive to the prayers of His people. He doesn’t need us to nag Him to get His attention or to get Him to meet our needs.
Another issue with the nagging God approach to prayer is that it doesn’t account for God sometimes saying no to our requests. Sometimes we need to accept that God’s answer to our prayers is no. Jesus, after requesting three times for His Father to remove His cup of suffering, finally had to accept His Fathers no and moved on to do His will. (Matthew 26:36-46). Paul, likewise, prayed three times to remove the thorn in His flesh. Once it was clear that God would not remove it, Paul accepted God’s decision and ceased praying about it (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Although Jesus and Paul stopped praying about these specific issues, that doesn’t mean they gave up on prayer all together. They just focused their prayers on other matters.
Now why I am saying all of this? Well, sometimes repetitively praying about the same issue can lead to mental and emotional pain. On top of that, it can lead to a lack of faith and result in disillusionment with God. Also, for those who are highly anxious, repetitive prayer can become a compulsive activity that feeds anxiety.
When our prayers start to become more harmful than helpful, perhaps it is time to re-evaluate why we keep asking the same thing over and over again to God. I mean, are you praying because you are concerned about justice or are you merely unwilling to accept God’s answer of no to a general request? Or has your prayer become a compulsive behaviour that is feeding anxiety? In these situations, it might be best to either accept God’s no and move on or to transition from asking God to thanking and praising Him for the care He is already providing.
Final Thought: Sometimes praying can hurt. It can hurt when we experience God’s silence, but it can also hurt when we approach God with an inaccurate understanding of Him, as an avoidance strategy, false expectations and as a way to nag Him to meet our everyday wants and wishes. Rather than feeling guilty if we fall into some of these more troublesome approaches to prayer, we should reflect upon those moments when we have succumbed to them and change how we approach God in prayer. When we do, we will find that prayer becomes much more satisfying as our relationship with God deepens.
