Jesus wants to help people pray their problems. Every request in the Lord’s Prayer starts with some kind of problem. We say, “Hallowed be your name” because his name isn’t being hallowed as it should—which is a problem from heaven’s perspective. We request, “Your kingdom come, your will be done,” because his kingdom does not seem to be here, and his will isn’t really being done. That’s a problem. Then there’s a provision problem that leads to us ask “Give us this day our daily bread.” A then a guilt problem that causes us to plead, “Forgive us our debts.” And because we have a problem with evil, we ask God to “Deliver us from evil.”
This isn’t, of course, the only place where problems are prayed. When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, they prayed their problem. They “cried out to God.” Similarly, you “cry out” when you have a big problem. When Hannah was burdened by her childlessness, she prayed her problem with tears (1 Sam. 1). When Nehemiah heard that the walls in Jerusalem were broken, he cried out to God in prayer (Neh. 1). When Peter was one day away from being executed by Rome, the church prayed him out of prison (Acts 13).
The book of Psalms is filled with examples of people praying their problems. In Psalm 69, the writer pleads, “Save me God, the water was risen to my neck.” The writer of Psalm 5 is so overwhelmed by his problems he can’t find the words, so he says, “Consider my sighing and I’ll watch expectantly.” Psalm 51 is based on a guilt problem where the author is looking for grace. In Psalm 22, the writer feels forsaken. In Psalm 55, the writer feels betrayed by a friend. The Bible shows people praying their problems over and over.
Thankfully, Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden…” (Matt 11:28). What makes you “weary” and “heavy laden”? Problems.
Do you pray your problems?
Most people don’t. Most people initially either try to run away from their problems or run to their problems—flight or fight. Those that run away from difficulty, usually try to escape to some other, safer world. Whether that “other world” is online, at the gym, with comfort food, or in a bottle, it never solves problems and sometimes creates new ones.
Those who run to the problem in their own strength typically just overwork, get angry, burn out or burn things down. Sure, they can handle more problems than most, but everybody eventually runs into more problems than they can handle on their own.
Jesus doesn’t want you to run away from or to the problems. He wants you to run to the Father with your problems. When you learn to pray your problems, you learn the secret to praying “without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Your prayers are unceasing because your problems are unceasing. Whether your prayers seem little or big, God wants his children to bring every one of them to him. Because with each specific problem prayed, they give the invisible God an opportunity to become visible in their lives. So, turn your problems into prayers.
What problems do you need to pray?
Here’s an awesome truth. When you pray your problems, you turn your problems into platforms. What’s that mean? It means that when you ask God to do something in regards to a specific problem (like asking him to solve a financial, health, relational, or professional problem) you turn that problem into a platform where you can see something of God that you couldn’t without that problem.
That’s what the Apostle Paul is trying to explain to the Corinthian Christians in 2 Corinthians 12. After saying that he asked God to remove a problem, one that he called a “thorn in his flesh,” God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Paul points God to his problem and God points Paul to an experience of his grace and power. Where is God’s power, something everyone wants to experience? It’s experienced most in our weakness, in our problems. Problems are platforms.
This truth is the reason why the Apostle Paul goes on to let the Corinthian Christians know that he actually looks forward to the next problem because he knows that when God is brought into our problems through prayer, problems turn into platforms that enable us to see and experience God in a way that we wouldn’t without those problems. He says, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). He is “content” or “delights” in what? Weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. I’m not sure what your list of “things I like to avoid” is, but my guess is that things like these are on it.
Why does Paul feel so differently about his problems? Because he sees something we don’t see. He understands that problems can become platforms when we pray our problems. And when this happens, it changes how you view your difficulties. You see that God uses your problems to prepare you for his power and presence.
Paul, of course, didn’t look forward to every aspect of those problems. He wasn’t crazy, although he certainly sounded a bit like it in this passage. Earlier in this letter to the Corinthian Christians he let them know that he’d been tortured for Christ and that there were times where he and his companions were “so utterly burdened beyond [their] strength that [they] despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, [they] felt that [they] had received the sentence of death. But that was to make [them] rely not on [themselves] but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor 1:8-9). Did you see it? There were parts of the problem that he hated. Those parts made him “despair of life itself.” But, he says, in that awful experience, God was extending grace that enabled him to grow—learning how to rely even more heavily on the God who “raises the dead.”
Paul prayed his problems and it turned his problems into platforms. Do you do the same?
This post includes content from my book, 21 Days to Childlike Prayer: Changing Your World One Specific Prayer at a Time.
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