A note from Chris Adams: As a leader, do you ever get so frustrated with ministry that you even struggle to know how to pray? Has ministry gotten so difficult that you want to just quit? Do you sometimes try to sugar coat how you’re feeling so you don’t offend God? Maybe He is asking you to just be honest and cry out to Him. Read this post from guest writer Margaret Kennedy to discover another way to deal with your struggles.
By Margaret Kennedy
My “rock place” is my back porch. Right beside the porch is a huge rock that my husband so patiently allowed me to select from a limestone rock quarry. We had it loaded onto the truck, brought home, and unloaded by four men who placed it in the perfect spot. I was a woman with a mission!
Psalm 61:1-3a reads, “Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me …” (NKJV).
Overwhelmed means “to cover over with a dark shroud so that no way out can be seen.” This emotion is probably the most felt by women today and our response should be to “go to the rock” and cry out to God.
In The Power of Crying Out, Bill Gothard states, “I saw that the Bible makes a distinction between ‘prayer’ and ‘crying out to God.’ What I have noticed since that time is that He will arrange or allow circumstances to arise that seem to have no solution — and then do nothing to remove the problem.
Until I cry out.
Gothard continues by saying, “God wants our whole heart but He welcomes your voice. He has given you, as His child, the privilege of using your gift of voice.”
Psalm 62:8 encourages us to “Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him.” I have found this pouring out of my heart to God comes from an overflow — an emptying of myself and of what is inside of me. Sometimes, it has been my fears, my frustrations, my pain, my disappointments, my anger — anything that keeps me from trusting Him. Anything that leads me to the place of feeling overwhelmed by it all.
We as women often settle for “venting.” When we vent, we simply scatter our stuff all over others and remain stuck in what is bogging us down.
The word pour means “to spill forth emptying the contents of a vessel.” When we take God up on His invitation to pour out our hearts, we also enjoy the sweet release of putting it up into His capable hands.
Got a heavy heart? Why not lighten it? Go to the Rock!
Margaret Kennedy is a biblical retreat and conference speaker, who also has a call for mentoring young women on her life. She teaches a women’s class in her local church, which has been aired on a secular station for several years, and also has a daily radio program called “Threads of Hope” on a local Christian station. Margaret has been married to Ross for 17 years, and has two grown sons and five grandchildren. She is a Lifeway Ministry Multiplier and is co-author of Heart Friends: Beginning and Maintaining a Small Accountability Group.