I have been struggling with disappointment and anger toward God. I went to a prayer rally at my church recently, and the pastor said, “We laugh at lies.” One of the lies he had us literally laugh at was that “prayer doesn’t work.” We all laughed out loud. I tried hard to join in, but that has been one of the splinters in my side lately: a relationship I was very excited about, which seemed like it came in answer to prayer, ended. God knew how trepidatious I was to pray for that relationship in the first place, to allow myself to hope and dream. So why did he open the door wide and let me walk right through it and off a cliff? Why didn’t he protect me?

I found help from the book of Jeremiah. Like me, Jeremiah was single and childless. God commanded him not to marry or have kids as a symbol of the barrenness and desolation of Israel.

I turned to Jeremiah 15, because I knew there was a verse there that described how I felt: “Will you indeed be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail and are uncertain?”

God’s response to Jeremiah was sobering, and it put me in my place. The Amplified version was particularly eye-opening:

If you return [and give up this mistaken tone of distrust and despair], then I will give you again a settled place of quiet and safety, and you will be My minister; and if you separate the precious from the vile [cleansing your own heart from unworthy and unwarranted suspicions concerning God’s faithfulness], you shall be My mouthpiece (Jer. 15:18-19, AMP).

Wow. God is so good at reminding me of what is true. I still have many questions and an aching heart. But I recognize that, if I don’t return, if I allow my questions to separate me from God, I am only adding to my pain.

Even if it’s by an act of my will, I do laugh at lies concerning God’s faithfulness. He does have a plan and he is good, even when I can’t understand what he’s doing. “Illumine my darkness,” oh God. Help me “arise from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept me – rise to a new life” (Psa. 18:28; Isa. 60:1, AMP).