We Prayed for a Different God

12/31/06: When we are honest (yesterday's prayer was written on 12/31/06 as well.)

We hide the truth that dwells in our hearts,
The truth, if exposed, would reveal that we are extremely discontent with You and Your ways,
We are suffering and in pain, but You do not change the situation,
We are frustrated and angry because You aren’t as we had hoped,
We pray for a different god,
We pray for a god who would change our circumstances,
But You, Your Suffering Servant Son and the grieving Holy Spirit will not change our situations,

We pray for a god who won’t allow the continued hurt,
We pray for a god who will take away our pain,
But You are not in that business,
You allow the pain, the hurt, the suffering,
You allow it all to stay day after day after day,
This all compounded only leads to further frustration and anger,
You, Your Suffering Servant Son and the grieving Holy Spirit will not change our situations, and we are supposed to praise you for this suffering?!?!

We have a severe problem in our hearts,
We try to hide the ugly truth of the numerous things we hold against You,
But the problem is that You are the master of uncovering all hearts,
Nothing stands masked, everything is in Your presence,
We secretly wish for a different god, a god who is “nicer” to us,
All we feel is the pain of the fallen state,
The pain we inflict upon ourselves, and the pain others inflict upon us,
It is hard to like You, but easy to hate You,
Truth be told, we wish we could trade You for a different god,
How is that for truthfulness, how is that for honesty, how is that for being right from the heart?
We do not like what You do, and we do not like how You do it,
Somehow we are to praise You and all Your ways, yet we have trouble doing anything but the complete opposite,

We are too weak in our sinful condition to do anything but hate You, but we hope by Your grace that You will enable these dark hearts to pray,
We can only pray for Your help in repentance and Your help to enable us to praise,
In this rage, eyes of faith have long ago been forgotten,
We can only pray with weak and feeble voices, mouths that open, but cannot even make a sound,
We ask for our transformation when the Holy Spirit finally breaks through to our heart,
We ask for our transformation because we know You often times will not change our situation,
We ask this in the name of Jesus who knows how hard it is to cope with life and still live a life of sacrifice and praise.