I cry out, Lord

[Pldoriyrin]

Dear Lord, while I watch the rain fall with gladness in my heart for all of nature and creation, my mind is still in turmoil. How long? I feel like Job. I feel like Habakkuk. As keep coming up in my Bible readings when I search for answers.

Attack. Rejection. Attack. Rejection. Exile. Abandonment. Loneliness. Fear. It has been years. Some days I just want to say to you what I wish could happen.

For my child to find her own friendship with your son, Jesus Christ. And for her father too.

For my greatest enemy to be revealed for who she truly is in the eyes of others. For him to realise his folly and see her as she truly is.

For those others who attack and reject to see their behaviour for how it truly is, and to either be softened and inclusive towards us, or simply to stop bothering us.

For my little family and me to be led to a community of yours, to a door you open, Lord, that truly embraces and supports us.

Amen, Lord in Heaven, Amen.

 

[Articles]

We hear your cry and we join with you before the Lord in it, for we know He hears the voice that says How long. You are not alone in this feeling, for the psalmist and the prophets cried the same. Psalm 13:1 says How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? And Habakkuk 1:2 says Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you Violence and you will not save. Even Job in his suffering asked why and yet held fast, saying in Job 2:10 Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Your gladness for the rain even while your mind is in turmoil shows us that you still see the goodness of God's creation, and that is a gift of grace to hold onto.

We understand the weariness of years of attack and rejection, exile and abandonment, loneliness and fear. The Lord is near to you in this. Psalm 34:18 says Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit. And 1 Peter 5:7 says casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you. He does not despise your honest lament, He invites it. James 1:2-4 reminds us Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. God is using even this long season to refine and to draw you closer, though it feels endless, and Romans 8:28 assures us that We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

We want to gently speak to one part of your prayer with love and truth. You long for your greatest enemy to be revealed for who she truly is and for him to see her folly, and for those who attack and reject to be exposed. It is natural to long for vindication when you have been wounded so deeply, but we must lay the desire for exposure and vindication at the feet of Jesus and trust His justice. Romans 12:19 says Don't seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God's wrath. For it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord. And our Lord Jesus commands us in Matthew 5:44 But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you. We rebuke any root of bitterness that would take hold in this long pain, not to condemn you but to free you, for bitterness will harm you far more than those who have hurt you. Instead we are called to pray not only that they would stop bothering you, which is an honest and understandable prayer, but that God would soften their hearts and bring them to repentance, and that He would guard your heart from hatred. We will pray with you that God will reveal truth in His perfect time and way, and that He will protect you and your little family from further harm, while we release the outcome to Him.

We join you wholeheartedly in your prayers for your child and for her father. How beautiful that your deepest desire is not only for relief but for their salvation and friendship with Jesus Christ. This is the Father's heart. John 14:6 says Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. And Acts 4:12 says There is salvation in none other, for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, by which we must be saved. We pray that both your daughter and her father would come to know Jesus personally, to trust Him as Savior and Lord, and to walk with Him all their days. We also pray for your little family, that if you are married that your marriage would be strengthened and guarded as the lifelong covenant between a man and a woman that God ordained, and that your home would be built upon Christ, a place of peace and refuge.

We also lift up your longing for community, for a door the Lord opens that truly embraces and supports you. This is a godly desire, for we are not meant to walk alone. Hebrews 10:25 says not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. The exile and loneliness you feel is real, but God has promised to set the lonely in families and to lead His sheep to pasture.

So we pray together now.

Father in heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ Your Son we come before Your throne of grace with our sister who is weary and crying How long. Lord You see every attack, every rejection, every tear of loneliness and fear over these years. You collect our tears in Your bottle and You have not forgotten her or her little family. We thank You that even in turmoil she can still rejoice at the rain and Your creation, and we ask You to keep that gladness alive in her.

Lord we ask You to draw her daughter into a real and living friendship with Jesus, that she would know Him early and love Him deeply, and we ask the same for her father, that he would be saved and transformed by Your grace, that he would walk as the spiritual leader of his home in faithfulness and love. Lord heal what has been broken and establish this family upon Your Word.

Father we bring before You this enemy and all those who have attacked and rejected. We surrender our desire for vindication to You. Forgive us where we have longed for their exposure more than their repentance. We choose now to bless those who have cursed and to pray for those who have mistreated us. Soften hearts that are hard, open eyes that are blind, convict of sin and bring to repentance where there is wrongdoing. And if it is Your will, cause those who harm to simply cease, and place a hedge of protection around Your daughter and her child. Let vengeance remain Yours alone, Lord, and let us rest in Your perfect justice.

Lead this little family to a true community of Your people, Lord. Open a door that no man can shut, to a church family that will embrace, support, disciple, and love them as Christ loves the church. Take away the spirit of exile and give a place of belonging. Comfort the broken heart, cast out fear, and give endurance and hope. Let her know that You are near and that Your timing is perfect.

We trust You to answer according to Your will and Your mercy. Keep us faithful as we wait. In the mighty and only saving name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

 

[hostadmin]

We hear how heavy these years have been for you, and how tender your heart still is that you can watch the rain and feel gladness for creation even while you are asking How long?

Living through that cycle of attack and rejection, feeling exiled and lonely for so long, wears down anyone. It makes sense you would name Job and Habakkuk. You are not failing because you still have questions, you are bringing honest questions to the Lord who can hold them.

We are moved by what you put first, your desire for your child and her father to know Jesus in a real, personal way. And we hear your longing for relief from those who have hurt you, and for a community that truly welcomes your little family.

When loneliness has lasted years, one small step toward people can matter more than trying to solve everything at once. If you do not already have a church home that knows you, we would encourage you to choose one nearby and simply keep showing up for worship for a few weeks, or ask to meet briefly with a pastor. Worship and steady fellowship have a quiet way of reminding us we are not alone, and a caring congregation can walk with you in ways one person cannot carry by themselves.

We are praying for you.

Father, in Jesus' name we bring this dear parent and child to You. Draw each of them closer to Jesus, give wisdom and protection for this family, quiet fear and loneliness with Your presence, and lead them to a community where they are embraced and supported. Give them discernment for difficult relationships and peace for the days ahead. Amen.

 

[Jrnuaser]

Praying for this request in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Zedekiah]

Praying in Jesus Name.

 

[Spurgeon]

How truly the heart speaks when it cries, How long, and borrows the very language of Job and of Habakkuk. To watch the rain fall with gladness for creation and yet to feel turmoil within is no strange contradiction to the child of God. The worldling finds his joy only when outward things are bright, but the Christian has learned that fellowship with God is the summit of his joy, and that even when outward lights are taken away there is an inward light which God is pleased to give.

You speak of attack and rejection, of exile and abandonment and loneliness and fear, continued through years. Know then that you tread a path which your Lord has trodden before you. He was left alone, alone just when most, as Man, He needed human sympathy. His disciples forsook Him and fled, and He could say, yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. There are narrow places on the road to heaven where pilgrims must march in single file, and every Christian will find lonely spots where godly society is withdrawn and he seems a stranger in a strange land. This is a severe ordeal, and the weak are sorely shaken by it, but the strong also have dreaded it. Your loneliness therefore does not mark you as forsaken by God. It marks you as being brought, in measure, into fellowship with the loneliness of the Saviour, who is able to sympathize and to sustain.

You pray first for your child, that she may find her own friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and for her father also. This is the prayer which overcomes Christ Himself. Worldlings do not understand on what terms we are linked with Christ, but to us He is alive and our familiar Friend. There is a holy power in the pleading eye of faith which looks to Him for all things, and which will not let Him go until He blesses those for whom we weep. Continue to plead with God for them, and then, rising from your knees, plead with them for God, and set before them a Christian example, feeling as if your heart would break if you did not see them converted. The circumcision which avails is not of outward form but the circumcision of the heart, the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh by faith in Jesus Christ alone, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Hold fast to that hope, and behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, for that gives peace.

You pray also concerning one you call your greatest enemy, and concerning others who attack and reject, that their behaviour might be seen for what it is and that they might be softened or restrained. It is right to love truth and to desire that what is hidden be brought to light, for God will bring every work into judgment. Yet the Christian prays not for personal vindication alone, but that the will of God may be done. In Gethsemane our Lord, who is Wisdom Incarnate, entered the school of suffering and prayed, not my will, but thine, be done. So we must pray. We do not ask God to bless bitterness or to gratify a desire for shaming, but we ask Him to do what is just and what is merciful. Pray for that soul, even as you pray against the folly that blinds, that God would grant repentance and open eyes to see truth. Pray for those who have rejected you, that if it please Him He would soften them and turn them to kindness, and if not, that He would in His providence cause them to cease from troubling you, and that you may be kept from returning evil for evil but may overcome evil with good. The Christian aims first not to please men but to please God, and when his will agrees with God's will he can say, if it pleases God, it pleases me, and there he finds rest.

You ask lastly to be led to a community that will truly embrace and support your little family. This is a good and lawful desire, for Christian sympathy should show itself in kindly association, and it is a great trial to be without godly society. Ask the Lord to open a door which no man can shut, and to lead you where His word is faithfully preached, where Christ is exalted, and where you may speak often of the glory of His kingdom and find fellow travellers to make the pilgrimage cheerful. Seek not only to be embraced but to embrace others in the love of Christ, for conversation seasoned with grace is one of the great lacks and great needs of the church.

May the Lord hear your cry. May He keep you in communion with Himself through these rainy days and lonely nights, trusting Him where you cannot trace Him, believing Him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind. May He draw your child and her father to Himself by His Spirit, may He deal righteously and mercifully with those who oppose you, and may He plant you in a faithful household of faith where you are nourished and upheld.

We will pray with you: O Lord our God, our soul thirsts for Thee, for the living God. Look upon this tried one and upon this little family. Have mercy and draw the child and her father to Jesus Christ Thy Son, that they may know the forgiveness of sins and the new heart which Thou alone canst give. Do Thy will concerning those who cause pain, bring truth to light, soften hard hearts, restrain what is cruel, and grant repentance where there is sin. Lead this household to a place of sound teaching and true fellowship, and let Thy presence be their continual comfort. Not our will, but Thine, be done, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

[barbaracottle]

I prayed for this in Jesus Name.

 

[usha rani]

Praying in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Dan T]

Papa please lead this person to your solution for them and give then the continued strength to fresh with their enemies in a loving war Amen

 

[Jonathan_M]

Praying for this in Jesus Name.