When You Pray to Die

My friend, I read recently that life is guaranteed to give us pain. How true. There are even times that not to live at all seems better than to live with that pain. Yes, there might be times when we quite literally are dying for the end of our sorrow, an eternal escape from hurt and fear. There might be times when we have had enough, and we desire death. And we pray to die.

Friend, I write these words not out of theoretical ideas. Yes, even now such a longing for a hasty end haunts my very soul. Others might say what pitiable and weak creatures we are to be trapped in such misery, even as our hearts are worn out from crying out day and night for an end to our pain. ‘Why can’t you just stand tall and have faith that God will help you?’ they might say to us. But you know, and I know, that it isn’t that simple.

In this dark pit of despair, I remember a prophet of God who also once cried to Him for death. Just after he miraculously defeated hundreds of Baal prophets in a dramatic showdown, Elijah was overwhelmed by fear for his life, and he fled because of Jezebel’s threat (1 Kings 19:1-8). And in hiding he cried to God, ‘I’ve had enough, Lord. Take my life; I’m no better than my ancestors!’

Sounds familiar, my friend? Of all people it was this heavyweight prophet of God (one of only three people in history to be lifted alive to heaven, and who later appeared along with Moses in Jesus’ transfiguration) that uttered what could be considered one of the darkest, most pessimistic, most despairing prayer that can be found in the Bible. Other heroes of faith like David and Job have also expressed such bleak words of supplication at their lowest points. Perhaps that is also our prayer at this moment.

And how did God respond to Elijah? Did He get angry with him because of his lack of faith? A simplistic ‘be it according to your faith’, so to speak? By all means, no. Instead, He gently woke the prophet up and gave him the nourishment he desperately needed (vv. 5-6). ‘You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies,’ David had written many years before that (Psalm 23:5), and here Elijah saw that it was literally true.

The Lord knows the limits of our strength. He told Elijah to eat and drink because He knew that without that nourishment he would not be able to make the journey (v. 7). ‘Without Me you can’t do anything’ Jesus tells us (John 15:4-5). He knows that without his continuous support, our mortal abilities are very limited. Hence the bread and water.

And what are we to do then? At times like this to some degree there is often the temptation to bring about an end to our life -and thus our suffering- by our own hands. But despite his unbearable longing that his pain would end Elijah realized that His life was not really in his own hands. It was in God’s. Indeed, this is why he asked God to end it for him instead of ending it himself like Judas did. This you and I must realize, my friend, that our lives and our hearts are in His hands.

Now when God gives us strength, it might not look enough for us to go on. The ‘feast’ that God gave Elijah looked more like prison food (bread and water) than a kingly feast. Yet that bread was still freshly baking (v. 6) and it gave him the strength to walk on for forty days and forty night straight! (v. 8) Likewise, friend, we might not be able to see anything before us that would give us enough strength to go through these suffocating moments. But I like to believe that it is enough.

My friend, I have to admit that even now my soul still longs for a quick end to this suffering, and I am wondering where this strength from God might be. But I want to believe in the grace of God that gives us strength despite our weaknesses. “We must somehow believe that unearned suffering is redemptive,” Martin Luther King said. Perhaps then, like Elijah’s, God will even turn this unbearable pain of ours not only into joy but also into a path for His loving power (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).