How to Pray in Times like These

Some days, it feels like too much.

Our rage at violence.

Rage at injustice.

Rage at cruelty.

Rage at horrific need ignored by self-serving structures of power.

And beneath all of that is an honest, human question:

What are we supposed to do with it?

If we are going to engage this world at all

—and keep living—

there has to be a posture.

There has to be a rhythm.

There has to be a practice.

Jesus, overwhelmed

At the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark,

we meet Jesus in overwhelm.

He is confronting evil directly.

Human need is flooding him—pressing in, crowding him, mobbing him.

So what does he do?

Mark tells us something small, but essential:

“Very early in the morning,

while it was still dark,

Jesus got up,

went out to a deserted place,

and prayed.” 

Wouldn’t you love to know

—what did he pray???

Mark doesn’t tell us,

I think because he doesn’t have to.

Any first-century rabbi would have had a morning prayer.

Any faithful Jew would have known it by heart.

So what would the Christ pray before sunrise,

when the world feels like it is falling apart?

An ancient morning prayer

There is a morning prayer in Israel’s ancient prayer book.

It is sung in the voice of the Beloved Messiah.

The Christian Church would later recognize it as the voice of the Cosmic Christ.

Jesus would have known it.

Jesus would have prayed it.

He would not have called it Psalm 5.

He would have called it:

“To my words, turn your ear, Yahweh.”

And it turns out—this prayer is a magnificent guide for days like these.

It gives us a rhythm for loving

when loving feels impossible.

Three movements of the soul

This prayer unfolds in three movements

—a rhythm we see again and again in Scripture,

and even in the way Jesus later teaches his followers to pray.

If you followed it physically, it would move:

• from the gut

• to the head

• to the heart

Pre-verbal groaning.

Then fierce naming.

Then anchored love.

Groan.

Name.

Love.

“Discern my groaning…”

The prayer begins like this:

To my words, turn your ear, Yahweh.

Discern my groaning.

Listen to the voice of my cry.

My God, my King—to You alone I pray.

In the morning,

You hear my voice.

In the morning,

I lay myself out,

and I keep watch!

This is not polished prayer.

This is not articulated theology.

This is:

“You figure me out, God.”

"You discern what I cannot put into words.”

I don’t understand.

I don’t have answers.

I don’t even know what I’m feeling.

But I am okay with You seeing me.

I am okay with You hearing me.

That’s the difference between fear and safety.

The prayer makes a decisive move in the guts:

“To You alone I turn my being.”

The world wants answers.

The world wants reactions.

The world wants action—now.

But this prayer says:

I turn my nonsense toward God.

My pre-verbal, unintelligible being—toward God.

And I watch.

Not me.

You.

Naming what we see

Then—from gut openness—the prayer rises into speech.

It names violence.

It names lies.

It names destruction.

Not to attack—but to tell the truth.

Big emotions are like storm systems.They can take up the entire sky.

But when we name them, they condense.

They no longer take up everything.

They take up something.

That matters. Because we can only reject what we have named.

When people lie about us, we are tempted to lie back.

When people hurt us, we are tempted to use their tools.

When intimidation pounds like a drumbeat, we feel its pull—

until we name it:

That is a lie.

That is empty.

That is temporary.

That is not life.

And there is something else we must not do.

We must not pretend we are not raging!

Repressed emotion doesn’t disappear.

It lodges in the body.

It leaks out sideways.

It makes us sick.

It keeps us from absorbing what is good.

The Psalms rage because the God who created us

knows we need active release, not pretend piety.

And only then—after groaning and naming—can we ask for what we truly need:

Truth instead of lies.

Nurture instead of brutality.

Security instead of fear.

Where the prayer leaves us

The prayer ends like this:

I entrust myself to Your love.Your safe covering.

Shelter.

Protection.

Foundation.

We cannot love without safety.

We cannot forgive without first receiving forgiveness.

We cannot live this day without trusting the grace that holds death at bay.

Imagine Jesus praying this

evil confronted all day,

human need crushing in:

Jesus prays:

Here are my guts.

Here are my thoughts.

Give me what I truly need.

Let me participate in Your love.

Later, Jesus would teach his followers to pray in this same way:

Your kingdom. Your name. Your will.

Give us what we need today.

Teach us to forgive. Teach us to love--from security.

A rhythm for today

This is the only way we live:

Entrusting ourselves to God’s guidance,

God’s protection,

and God’s saving love.

Groan.

Name.

Love.

Again. And again. And again.