Praying When You Suffer (Part Two)

“When life is easy, pray. When life is hard pray.” “Pray hardest when it is hardest to pray.” Yesterday, I wrote about how we can pray when life is difficult using the ACTS acronym (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication) – Even in the midst of suffering, we Adore the Father and we make Confession for sin. Today, I want us to consider how we can give Thanks and make Supplication in the midst of suffering.

Thanksgiving

It might seem like an oxymoron to think about thanksgiving in the midst of suffering; after all, we may feel as though we have nothing for which to give thanks. Paul understood the value of thanksgiving in the midst of suffering. From prison, Paul wrote: “I do not cease to give thanks” (Eph 1:16); “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you” (Phil 1:3); “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:17). If Paul gave thanks in a Roman prison, surely we can give thanks when we are suffering.

For what can you give thanks when your world is falling apart?

• You can thank God that you have a God who cares.
• You can thank God that you have people who love you.
• You can thank God that you have doctors who are able to help.
• You can thank God that you have a God who has all power.
• You can thank God that He will work all things for the good of those who love Him.
• You can thank God that you have an eternal home in the heavens.

Make a gratitude list and name all of your blessings. Keep it handy. Pull it out and thank God for your legion of blessings when suffering befalls you.

Supplication

God knows our needs before we ask Him, yet He wants us to come to Him in humility and pray. We can take all our concerns before the Father: Peter says that you can cast “all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7). Someone once asked me to pray for a sick pet – I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard; that is, until I remembered Peter’s words – I can take all my anxieties to God because He cares for me.

Please feel free to take every single anxiety before the Father’s throne, no matter how big or how small or how silly it may seem to other people. God cares for you, and He invites you to lay every burden at His feet. For what can you pray when you are suffering? Here are some ideas:

• Ask God to relieve your pain.
• Ask God to strengthen you in your struggle.
• Ask God to help His light to shine through you.
• Ask God to bless your caregivers.
• Ask God to bless your family who suffers along with you.
• Ask God to bless researchers that a cure might be found.