A child groaning in pain always moves the heart of a parent. I think of my girls when they were little and sometimes got terrible stomach aches or other physical ailments. If the discomfort was severe they just couldn’t help expressing it with sighing and groaning, and sometimes tears. The very look on their face seemed to pull at our hearts as parents. We’d sit with them, hold them and get them whatever they wanted. We took special trips to the store to get important items like cough syrup, tissues, and of course, popsicles. Their anguish just went right through us every time.
There’s a very tiny verse, actually part of a verse, in Genesis that says, "At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD" (Genesis 4:26). I wonder what that sounded like? These were people who lived not too long after Adam and Eve. There were no temples or churches. They had no Bible. Their knowledge of God was very undeveloped. It probably sounded like the groaning of children. But it’s a language God the Father understands perfectly.
In the days before the mighty miracles of Moses the people of God were slaves in Egypt for 400 years. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about the lives of the people who lived and died under the oppression of the Pharaohs all those years. But we do know that eventually a cry began to ascend to God that moved His heart. Under their burden they began to groan. Here’s what Exodus tells us exactly:
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
—Exodus 2:23-25
The reason I’m showing you that God hears and responds to groaning is to encourage you to just cry from your heart and not to worry about sounding intelligent. The problem with the public prayers of ministers is that they are usually articulate and theologically advanced little performances. When we hear these it’s easy for us to feel completely inadequate about prayer, and as a result, abandon the practice.
Don’t worry about how your prayers sound. It’s okay to struggle with what to say. It’s okay to repeat simple things like “I need you!” over and over. Or to just groan. God isn’t at all impressed with our eloquence anyhow. He’s not swept off of his feet that we use a Hebrew word in our prayer or recite all of Psalm 119. The Father is not moved by the mechanics of prayer. What touches Him is when we cry from the heart like children.
Breaking through
This brings me to what I really want to say. Some of you want to have a deep prayer life but are in a place of spiritual dryness. You don’t feel motivated. The idea of sitting with God for, say, an hour is completely overwhelming. Even if you’re a strong Christian you might feel at a loss as to how to really go deeper in Christ. You pray but it doesn’t seem to get through. I want to share one of the great secrets to break out of this place of distance and disconnect with God.
Groan.
Maybe that seems like strange counsel, but trust me it works. I’ve been in a spiritual funk more than once in my walk with God, and it seems to be the only way to get out. I’m not sure how I let myself get away from God into these places where prayer becomes mechanical and bland, but it happens. I can’t just snap out of it and pray for two hours. In fact, praying for two minutes even seems hard. Everything seems hard.
The temptation is huge at this point to just shrink away from God and look for comfort in earthly things. I might do that for a while but nothing is very enjoyable without the nearness of God. So I just start groaning to God from morning till night. I’m talking about tiny prayers throughout the day like “Oh God, help,” or “Draw me close,” or “Have mercy on me,” or “Please God, I need you.” Throughout the day I sigh to Him and just look up with longing. That’s all I got when I’m in that place. It reminds me of what David said in Psalm 42:
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night …
—Psalm 42:2-3
The more I persist in groaning to God day after day it seems that my spiritual thirst deepens. There have been times when I’ve done this for months. It’s almost a feeling of spiritual sickness, and I cannot stop crying and groaning until I’m better. Eventually the light breaks through! Eventually my heart is melted, and I’m drawn near to God. Eventually the floodgates of my heart are opened, and tears and words flow out like a rushing river. I’m home.
Some of you may need to just groan and cry until the light breaks forth. It doesn’t need to be out loud and it doesn’t need to be a formal prayer time. In the quiet of your heart start calling on God. Anywhere—on your bed when you wake up, in the shower, sitting at the breakfast table, driving to the store, shoveling snow, doing dishes—just groan to God in secret. Plead with Him to pour His mercies upon you.
But why?
You may wonder why this incessant groaning is necessary. Like why did Scott have to groan for months before breaking through? Ah, great question! I’ll save this for another day to explore in depth, but just say that the process of night and day groaning humbles us and causes us to start searching our hearts. We start getting to the roots of things. We start seeing things we weren’t seeing before. In my case, that season of several months of groaning ended with me realizing I was bitter at someone. When I forgave the person the light broke through!
So if this is speaking to you my friend, just start groaning and crying to the Lord. And be searching your heart as you do this. A good prayer in a season of groaning is
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
—Psalm 139
Looking back over the years of walking with Jesus I’ve had to groan my way out of a spiritual fog many times. But listen—every time I have set my heart toward God and just cried night and day, the Lord has always “in due season” poured out His Spirit and drawn me close to Himself. Every single time. If he does that for me I know he will do it for you.
Praying for you all!