Prayer Series Study Guide: Week 4 Praying to the God Who Let's You Down

Community Group Study Guide — Praying to the God Who Lets Down
Psalm 13:1-6

Study Information:
Suffering may be the greatest challenge and greatest catalyst for prayer. Some circumstances show our helplessness and drive us to the Lord, other times we can feel distance and disappointment, especially when our suffering is ongoing with no end in sight. Many of us have heard a presentation of the good news as “God has a wonderful plan for your life!” What if that wonderful plan includes hardship and suffering? It almost certainly does. Another challenge is that we can often put expectations on God that he has not promised us and then be disappointed or let down when he doesn’t fulfill our expectations. We can also get trapped comparing our suffering to the pleasant and joyful lives of those who do not follow Christ and wonder what  God is up to (see Psalm 73).  

The questions we all will have to wrestle with at some point in our Christian walk is how do you pray to the God who let’s you down?

Permission to Lament
Psalm 13:1-6
To lament in prayer is to go to God with our suffering and our real feelings about the reality of the hardship we face with the goal of turning our eyes towards the hope we have in Christ. That is a mouthful, but lament includes recognizing both hardship and hope. David wrote Psalm 13 as an expression of lament built around the question “how long?” David felt forgotten, God’s distance, all day sorrow, and had to deal with his enemy prospering (Psalm 13:1-2, 4). Scholars estimate that around two thirds of the Psalms include an element of lament to them. With lament we have an opportunity to remind ourselves that suffering, sickness and death are not right and will one day be undone by God once and for all, just not yet (Rev 21:4).

There are situations where we struggle to pray because suffering has gone on for so long. David voice the question we wonder with “how long?” We feel like God is unresponsive or maybe even that God is vindictive and trying to get back at us for something. We struggle with dwelling in our sorrow or as David wrote “having to take counsel in his own soul.” That could mean a variety of things because this is poetic literature, but one meaning could be that David felt alone in his suffering and felt stuck. Scholars note that every psalm of lament has a “turn” except for Psalm 88, which ends in darkness with no hope. This can remind us that sometimes things can just feel dark until the end. Yet the “turn” in a psalm of lament is the point in the psalm where the writer declares their hope in God or praise God for what he has already done. In Psalm 13 that turn is in verse 5 “But I have trusted in your steadfast love…” and the declaration of future action comes in verse 6 “I will sing to the Lord…” Lament includes hardship and hope.

Lament is not easy, but it is an opportunity to voice to God, “this situation is hard and I may not fully trust you right now but I want to.”

Finding God in the Dark Valley
Psalm 23:4
In the famous shepherd’s psalm, Psalm 23, David wrote about walking through the valley of the shadow of death and not fearing evil because God was with him. During times of disappointment and suffering, we wonder why God would allow us to suffer. There are many good answer including how suffering can drive us to hope, form our character and prevent future/more drastic suffering (think of a kid who touches a hot stove and learns to avoid that in the future). However, many times our suffering is mysterious and if we’re honest we will not have an answer this side of eternity as to why. Those are the situations we wrestle with the most.  

Psalm 23:4 teaches us that God does not take us around the dark valley, he instead takes us through it and promises to be with us in it. Can you imagine the dark valley without the Lord? If you’re a follower of Jesus you do not have to, there is never a time or place where God has abandoned you to suffer alone.

Another unique feature of Christian theology is Jesus Christ actually understands what it is like to suffer. The knowledge of Jesus in this area is not theoretical but experiential and full of sympathy. Jesus, God the Son incarnate, took on the fullness of humanity and suffered rejection, abandonment, physical anguish, emotional strain and death. When we go to God with our disappointment, lament or grief we can take confidence that Jesus Christ our advocate and intercessor knows what we’re talking about from experience.

Choosing Hope
Romans 12:12
How do we not give up hope in dark times, when God has disappointed us? Paul wrote for us to “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Hope, patience, constant in prayer. The christian story is never absent of hope.

First, we can lament. As discussed earlier, we have permission and encouragement from God to be honest with him as he knows the thoughts of our heart before we vocalize them. This lament can be an opportunity for us to articulate feelings we have deep down and bring them to God with a “how long O Lord?” Allow your lament to be honest, open and use it as a chance to remind yourself of the promise of God and try to end with praise and hope in the Lord.

Second, reflect on the blessings you do have from God and look opportunities to be grateful. No one’s story is a complete tragedy, there is always something we can give thanks for. As Paul wrote “rejoice in hope.” David in Psalm 13 remembered the Lord’s salvation and how God had dealt bountifully with him. There are certainly seasons where it can be hard or near impossible to see the good, but the good is never absent in the life of a Christian.

Finally, we can find prayers, songs or hymns from other suffering saints to guide us. As mentioned before around two thirds of the Psalms are lament and there are many christians throughout history who have suffered hardship and recorded prayers to God to guide them. When you do not know what to pray, allow the prayers of the saints to guide you to God.

Many of us will struggle with placing expectations on God that he has not promised and be let down because he has not come through the way we wanted or desired. Yet remember that Christ has suffered once and for all to reconcile us to God and the hope waiting for the Christian is resurrection, new life and God’s presence forever. We can go to God with our “how long?” knowing that the immediate future may be difficult, but God has secured our forever future in Christ.

At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.

How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week?

Discussion Questions:
Read Psalm 13:1-6

What is lament and how does King David express his lament in Psalm 13?

Do you feel like it is appropriate to lament to God? Why or why not? What barriers to do you experience when it comes to practicing this form of prayer?

How does Jesus Christ know our suffering and what difference does that make for the way you view prayer?

What can you do to seek God’s in prayer when you feel like God has let you down?