A Prayer for Disconnected Hearts
But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:1-3
Father, I used to stand in self-righteous judgment of Jonah, and other believers like him who got angry and distanced from you. But not any more. Like Jonah, I know the right answers, I’ve got Scriptures underlined in my Bible-how you’ve a “gracious and compassionate God… slow to anger and abounding in love,” and all that stuff. But right now, those words hold little charm or power for me. I still believe I’ll go to heaven when I die, but it’s living that’s got me most concerned. I’ve known you well enough that I don’t want to disown you, but I’ve also known you well enough that your ways sometimes leave me feeling confused and angry.
So today, I bring my disconnected heart, and the hearts of some of my friends before you. Lord, help me, understand, show us… what happened, where did we lose connection with you, or did we simply choose disconnection from you?
Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh and preach, where am I afraid of going or staying? I do know that some of my friends so want to run away from their marriages. Help them Lord, I don’t understand all the issues, but please intervene, if for no other reason, for their children. When I look at some of my friends’ stories, I see new chapters of loss, reversals, trials and heartaches being written weekly. I understand why they look at the sky and cry, “Where are you God in all this?” Father, my resources are low so I have little to offer them, and my usual answers just mock my dry heart, so I simply cry out on their behalf, “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on these I love.”
Back to me Jesus, please show me in the coming hours and days what I’ve done with my heart. What’s broken that I haven’t seen? What’s sinful that I don’t want to acknowledge? What’s fearful that I don’t want to admit?
So far, every one way ticket I have bought away from your presence hasn’t really worked very well from me. I find myself saying with the disciples, “Where can we go, Jesus, you alone have the words of eternal life?” Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen