Dear Sisters in Emotional Pain: 5 Soul Care Prayer Prompts to Point You to the Hope in Christ

By Kyra Gold 

For The PĒØPŁËŠ Church

[This blog post has been adapted from what was originally a message I taught at the Warriors With gathering on April 30th 2022 at For The PĒØPŁËŠ Church] 

How many of you have been feeling weary lately? Or even for a while? Maybe you’ve been growing weary or discouraged in a specific area of your life. Maybe that has been so blinding you’ve forgotten the perfect God who promises to be with you. Maybe you’ve been praying for something and have been in what feels like an extended season of heartbreak. Maybe you’ve been begging God for healing and it feels like the waiting will never end. Maybe you’ve felt helplessly stuck in the tension of knowing God is in control but feeling like everything is out of control. Maybe you do not want to admit these things because you believe you shouldn't have any issues at this point in your walk with God. Well I want to remind you that spiritual maturity does not act as a shield to pain, suffering, rejection or hardship. 

We read in Acts 14:22 // that “…We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”…”

This word for hardship we read in Acts 14:22 in Koine Greek is thlipsis. Which translates to pressure, like an internal pressure that causes someone to feel confined like there is no way out or being without options. How many of us can relate to this feeling? Feeling like there is no way out, feeling like you are suffocating, or drowning. Feeling like an elephant is dancing on your chest and you just do not want to feel anymore. This word thlipsis that is used for hardship in Acts 14:22 is the same word we see used for the word  affliction in Romans 12. ‭‭Romans‬ 12:9-12‬ // “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

Some of you may be in a disheartening, disillusioning, and despairing season of life and ministry. So when we read passages like Romans 5:12, we can think “patience in affliction?” Why would I want that? Why do I need that? Why does God command this of me? Don’t I need strength in affliction? I don’t need patience. How does that facilitate healing? How does that help me get through this? How does that honor God? I am desperate, I am hurting, I am tired and I don’t want to feel this way anymore. Sometimes I just do not want to feel anymore at all. But God provides us His great strength in the midst of us offering Him our patience while we wait for the healing for our souls. Patience will be painful because patience only grows on the battlefield and it only grows on the battlefield because it exists in a world of disruption, delays, and disappointment. 

We would have no reason to be patient without affliction of some sort, without circumstances that require and test our patience. Why? Because impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives. Patience is a war of control and our weapon in that war is surrendering to God and His Word. Which we cannot do without help from Him. 

So today, by the Grace of God, through God’s all sufficient Word and by the power and work of His Spirit, we are going to unpack some biblical steps towards long-term soul health in Christ. We are going to learn ways to acknowledge our brokenness, look to the One who heals and rescues us, and pray in the face of pain, trauma and elongated seasons of suffering. And as I share these 5 daily prayer prompts and biblical encouragement throughout this message, we are going to pour out our hearts to God in praise, petition, confession of sin and thanksgiving. 

Lord would you help us to not value relief or how we think things ought to be over Christlikeness. We know that it is in the darkest moments that the gospel of Jesus Christ shines its most brilliant light. My prayer is that as we lean in together as His people, guided by Your spirit and dependent on Your grace and help, that You would bring hope and healing in the midst of despair, spiritual depression, anxiety and brokenness in Jesus Name, amen.

Day 1: Pray that God would enable you to resist the temptation to minimize your suffering & that He would enable you to surrender to the false narrative of self-sufficiency.

To walk in the grace of God and receive the healing of the body, soul and Spirit, we have to be honest about our pain and then die to self. We must both acknowledge the depth of our pain and the depth of our brokenness and helplessness apart from Him. And we must invite people into this space as it is not God’s design that you would suffer in silence, isolation, or pride.

We read in 2 Corinthians‬ ‭1:8-11‬ // “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

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We see here, Paul telling his brothers and sisters about his pain, acknowledging that it is God who they can rely on not themselves and how God worked to bring favor and deliverance to them through the power of their prayers. You have to lay down any false reality of self-sufficiency, you have to lay down the thoughts that self-love, self-help, self-confidence, self-ambition, self-promotion, self anything is going to get you closer to the promised land. The sins of self never seem like sins. In fact, we often consider them friends but they are not our friends. But we do have a faithful friend in Jesus who says in John 15:5 //  ““I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Our weakness and limits are not in the way of what God can do in, through and for us for His glory and our joy, but our denial of limits and our delusions of independent strength are.

Day 2: Pray that God would both reveal and break down any idols in your life.

Sometimes the idols in our lives are not so obvious. Maybe we’ve made an idol out of an outcome, made an idol out of a feeling we are chasing, an idol out of our calling, an idol out of our health, an idol out of our pain, an idol out of our relationships or lack thereof, an idol out of our jobs, or an idol out of our family. But we must look to Jesus as it is Jesus who is true, good, and beautiful. 

Often, the combination of prolonged spiritual warfare, relational conflict, and mental/emotional tension, rob us of intimacy with the Father. Instead of drawing us closer to Him, it instead makes relief from our pain seem more beautiful than Him. 

In the midst of the ongoing reality of pain, we become blinded to the beauty of Jesus and before we know it, we are tempted in hopelessness and start to lose our sense of His goodness. Those obstacles to our faithfulness start to seem like the only reality. We make excuses for sin because we begin to question the truth of the gospel, and the trustworthiness of Jesus. Which leads to idolatry and we start placing our hope in the things of this world. 

Idolatry is trusting in created things rather than our Creator for hope, happiness, significance and security. Idolatry is loving anything more than Jesus. Idolatry is treating anything as more important than Him, for your meaning in life, for your happiness, for your security and for your hope. Sin is not just doing “bad things” but turning good things into ultimate things because it ruins your soul, destroys community and dishonors God. 

Romans‬ ‭1:20-25‬ ‭// “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

Day 3: Pray to receive the posture to which you are called.

Our wholeness comes from Christ and Christ alone. There is nothing we can do to become whole, and there is no achievement we can achieve that will make us more worthy than the person next to us because our competency is not our sufficiency. It is God’s grace by which we take each step and as we take the lowly posture of humility, it is He who lifts us up. 

In ‭‭James‬ ‭4:4-10‬ //  we read, “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

In Christ, yes, we matter, but we are not the point. So learn to both accept and delight in your weaknesses. Don’t wait to be warn-out to start living in a worn-in gospel. Humility knows it is dependent on grace for all knowing, believing and doing for Christ. We need Christ to worship our Father. Without the blood of Jesus our worship is not worthy to offer to God and without the provision of His Spirit we could not know God or the ways in which He has called us to live for His glory and our good. 

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:1-7‬ // “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

Day 4: Pray that God would help you prepare for the pain of the not-yet, helping you recognize that part of our journey is to become what we are…

We read in 2 Corinthians‬ ‭5:14-17 // “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

We read here that we are new creations. That the Old has gone and the new is here and we also read in 
1 Corinthians‬ ‭5:6-8‬ // “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

What do we learn in these two passages? We are both a new creation and still being purified. We are becoming what we are. So much of this Christian walk is learning the gospel balance of celebrating the already and joyfully anticipating the not yet. As you continue to mature in the faith you realize that you are almost always in a season of both rejoice and lament. It’s rarely ever just a season of one or the other. It is typically a “both and” not an “either or.” 

Some more biblical passages that beautifully ad clearly depict this tension, found also in 2 Corinthians:

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:8-11‬ // “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭6:3-13‬ // “We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also.”

Day 5: Pray that God would enable you to have a deepening satisfaction in Him by connecting your head and heart to the glorious hope of heaven.

What has helped me overcome the emotional pain of life and ministry over the years has been connecting my head and heart with a deepening theology of God, a deepening theology of His promises and a deepening theology of the glorious hope of heaven.

Revelation‬ ‭21:1-4‬ // “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.””

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What hope does everlasting life hold for us? It reminds us that this present fallen world is not all there is. That soon we will live with and enjoy God forever in the new city, in the new heaven and the new earth, where we will be fully and forever freed from all sin and will inhabit renewed, resurrected bodies in a renewed, restored creation. 

Conclusion // 

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭1:3-7‬ // “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

Lord, would You heal us of our doubt, would You heal us of our pain, would You heal us of our unbelief. Would You free us to know all we really need in life is You, and what You choose to give us, Lord. Would You increase our joy, peace, and trust in You. Would the pain that can so easily distract us actually be used to point us back to You, our truest love, and deepest treasure. Would Your truth sing louder to our hurting souls than our despondency. Would You usher praise on this place because the gospel is more precious to us than anything or anyone. In the midst of what can feel like daily drawing, would You help us to know that You are writing stories larger than our understanding because Your ways are higher than ours. Bring healing Lord to us, to our kids, to our friends, families to our churches, to our being. In your perfect and all satisfying Name, amen. 

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭62:1-8‬ // “Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. How long will you assault me? Would all of you throw me down— this leaning wall, this tottering fence? Surely they intend to topple me from my lofty place; they take delight in lies. With their mouths they bless, but in their hearts they curse. Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”

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