You crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals . . .

Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.

Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? . . .

How long, O LORD, how long?

People of other ancient religions prayed. They made requests, offered worship, even cursed their enemies. Only Israel, in all the ancient world, prayed this kind of complaint prayers.

For good reason, because only Israel in all the ancient world believed that the great God who made the heavens and the earth cares that we are in pain and he can be expected to do something about it.

This is what makes these prayers so powerful — and an important part of our spiritual life. When we are passionately honest with God, when we are not indulging in self-pity or martyrdom but are genuinely opening ourselves up to God, when we complain in hope that God can still be trusted — then we are asking God to create the kind of condition in our heart that will make resting in his presence possible again. And God will come. But he may come in unexpected ways.

Lewis Smedes was a teacher of mine in seminary, one of the best writers and preachers I have ever known. Even though he was brilliant and accomplished and devoted to God, he suffered from a sense of inadequacy that at times grew into deep depression. At one point in his life he stopped preaching because he felt unqualified. God came to him through two avenues. One was a three-week experience of utter solitude, where he heard God promise to hold him up so vividly that, as he put it, he felt lifted from a black pit straight up into joy. The other avenue he describes this way:

I have not been neurotically depressed since that day, though I must, to be honest, tell you that God also comes to me each morning and offers me a 20 milligram capsule of Prozac. He clears the garbage that accumulates in the canals of my brain overnight and gives me a chance to get a fresh morning start. I swallow every capsule with gratitude to God.

I love the picture Lew paints. I used to think that taking Prozac would be a sign of weak faith in God. But what if Prozac might be, not a substitute for God, but his gift? What if refusing might be spurning his hand because of pride? Maybe God is present in wise doctors and medication that makes synapses and neurotransmitters work right. Maybe weakness is really refusing-out of our own blindness and stubbornness-the help that God is offering.

The Kind of Person God Is

Job is quite convinced that God has left him, and he complains that what he really wants is a chance to square off with God mano-a-Dins.

"If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!

I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments."

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