Episode 10 Transcript:
Hi, my name is Jared Carter. I’m not a therapist. I’m not a doctor. I’m not even sure where I am right now (just kidding). I’m just a Christian who, like many, has experienced living with a mental health challenge. This is Bless This Brain.
I can remember when I would be in my dining room in the middle of the night, on my knees, face to the floor, crying out to God to please fix me. To please take away the confusion that I was feeling, the hopelessness I was experiencing, and to free me from the belief that taking my life was the only way to experience relief.
This was in 2018, in the months leading up to my diagnosis. It’s five years later, and for five years God has been answering my prayers.
Many of us feel like the reason we haven’t been freed from the suffering we experience is because we aren’t praying hard enough. I operated under this belief for a long time, on my knees, middle of the night, crying out to the Lord. Maybe, I would think, if I were just a little more prostrate he would fix me.
That would be a cruel lower case g, god. A god who looks down on the one who suffers because of trauma done to them, or because of genetic factors beyond their control, or even who suffers as the result of decisions they made in life, and says “Say it better, mean it more, do it right. Then I will heal you.”
Prayer is an invitation to come and experience the goodness of God. To depend on Him. Trust Him. Enjoy Him. Be comforted by Him. It’s not a riddle to be figured out in order to arrive at the right answer, a puzzle to be put perfectly together. It’s a messy invocation that invites God to work in all areas of our life.
And I can tell you confidently that He is doing that in my life, and yours. He’s working on our hearts. He’s displaying His goodness to others through us and our dependence on Him. He’s sitting with us in our suffering. He’s preparing a place for us. He’s answering our prayers in such a variety of multifaceted ways that we won’t be able to count them all until we’re on the other side of this life. There, where our hindsight will truly be 20/20.
Don’t let them win; Those who told you that your symptoms remained because you weren’t praying hard enough. Don’t let them rob you of the joy we glean when we take our symptoms to our heavenly Father and rest in his all sufficient grace, and exult in the finished work of His Son. Pray, pray fervently, pray often.
There’s nothing wrong with falling on the floor and crying out to God in the middle of the night. Such reverence and outward dependance on God is no sin when it’s a reflection of our heart and circumstances. The Lord welcomes such humility and he rejoices to lift our heads when we come to him so needy. But don’t confuse the invitation to pray this way, with a biblical mandate that praying this way is the key to unlocking freedom from your symptoms.
When you find yourself believing that you haven’t prayed hard enough, and that you suffer for that reason alone, remember what Paul, the person who wrote the most books in the bible said:
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. – 2 Corinthians 12:8-9
Lord, for our good, and your glory, Bless This Brain
