Suffering & Hardship
I begged God to spare me from this and it happened anyway. How am I supposed to trust him with the next thing?
“I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not.”
Job says plainly that he cries out and is not answered, that he stands up and God only looks at him. This is a man of exemplary faith describing unanswered prayer in the bluntest terms available to him. The book does not correct him for saying it. Scripture is willing to record the experience of praying into silence rather than smoothing it over for the reader.
“Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
In Gethsemane Jesus asks for the cup to be taken from him, and it is not taken. Luke says he prayed more earnestly and sweat like great drops of blood. The request was refused, and an angel came to strengthen him instead of rescuing him. Whatever else this means, the Son of God prayed a prayer that was not granted, and he was not abandoned in it.
A path forward
Say to God directly that he did not do what you asked. That sentence, prayed rather than swallowed, is the difference between honest faith and a slow quiet drift away.
Write down what you actually believed prayer guaranteed. Some of what broke may have been an expectation you were taught rather than anything God ever promised.
Keep praying about small things while the large one stays unresolved. Trust rebuilds at the size you can currently manage, not at the size of the thing that damaged it.
Closing verse
“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?”
- Psalm 56:8
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