Want to Know How to Pray? Complain to God

Have you ever felt comfortable complaining to God?  

I don't know about you but I was brought up to fear His wrath if I didn't do anything other than thank Him.  But now a new study says grieving and complaining when you pray  can actually make you feel more spiritual.

“Denial leads to holding grudges, fear, and festering wounds. That is not faith,” newswise.com quotes W.H. Bellinger Jr., Ph.D., chair of the department of religion in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences and The W. Marshall and Lulie Craig Professor of Bible.

Experts have studied how expressing griefs, complaints and even anger at God can help people grow rather than become spiritually stagnant, according to the web site.

I've had my moments with God.  When I struggled for years with infertility (getting pregnant twice and then losing the baby), I couldn't get over my anger at the situation.  I was careful not to blame God, but I wondered where He was, in all this, especially when I got pregnant unexpectedly at Christmas, only to learn there was no heartbeat and have to undergo surgery to end the pregnancy two days before the actual holiday.

"Where are You?" I asked.

(Two years -- and an additional miscarriage later -- I understood, when I finally became pregnant with my son.)

So how does this all work?

Bellinger talks about how the Book of Psalms, "the central prayer book of the Bible," teaches us to pray. In addition to prayers for forgiveness and thanksgiving, he notes that the way to pray of life is "as it is, not an idealistic life as it is supposed to be."

But who prays for ok, God, I bought this lottery ticket, but don't let me win? Or, as in my case when my son was three, please, God, let this be cancer (which it was)?

I think what he's trying to say, and how I have learned to deal with all the bad things that happen in life (my husband also being diagnosed with cancer, and worse, rheumatoid arthritis, that has changed both our lives), is to accept what happens and believe, as those in AA are taught, in a higher power that will somehow guide us to where we need to be, and can accept.

It's been hard but this mostly hasn't failed me, throughout the trials in my life (and we didn't even talk about my childhood, where I experienced sexual abuse!).

Bellinger says at newswise.com, "The language of these prayers in the book of Psalms is powerful and honest and may be troubling to us as people of faith, but these prayers are intimate and show great depth in the relationship with God. 

"Ancient people of faith never go beyond the ability to address God, the God who gives life even in the middle of trouble. They encounter God at the deepest level. My concern is that our prayers often stay on the surface and that our conversation with God misses some of the depth and power of the prayers modeled for us in the Psalms."

He adds that, long before there were therapists, "The Psalms taught that the way to hope is through fear; the way to real joy is through depression; the way to loving one’s enemies is through hostility. "Not around these realities but through them. Denial leads to holding grudges, fear, and festering wounds. That is not faith. Rather, speaking boldly to the One who can act, asking God to embrace pain — that is the vision of faith in these texts."

So the next time something bad happens -- you lose your job, or worse, a loved one, have a treasured relationship end, get a worrying medical report -- the thing to do, at least I have learned, is to hold on, take a deep breath and trust that, you may not see it now, but there will be a way through -- maybe not the way you want, but a way that will help you live with what has happened and maybe, just maybe, come out better on the other side.