Seething in prayer, Job questions, “does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands?” (Job 10:3). In pain, the Psalmist wrestles, “has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious” (Ps 77:7-9). Rigor and authenticity mark the interaction in these examples. Prayers like this are built on a covenant foundation.
In humility, the Triune God binds himself to humanity. He ties us to him by granting us his image and obligates himself to us through his promises. God’s covenants are expressions of freedom and kindness—He comes to us, gives himself to us, and makes us his own. In covenant, God invites us to real relationship. This includes engagement in the highs and lows, the mountain and the pit, times of joy and sorrow, in calm and in anger.
Like the examples above, covenant conversation is unafraid to call God to account. This genre of prayer is marked by “you said” language as it puts divine promises before the God who cannot lie (Ex 32:11-14, Num 10:11-15, 14:17-19). Often, we find ourselves in situations where our reality does not coincide with God’s promises. Over time, a chasm of dissonance grows in our souls as our experiences contradict God’s word. What do we do in these spaces?
Scripture models the rigor of covenant engagement. It invites us to engage God in the midst of our confusion and hurt. More specifically, it shows us how to take the promises of God and hold him accountable. Walter Brueggemann captures the dynamic as he considers the prayers of Moses.
“Moses prays back to Yahweh using Yahweh’s own self-characterization; in reiterating that self-announcement, Moses reminds Yahweh of who Yahweh has resolved to be, and summons Yahweh back to Yahweh’s own self-resolve. In substance, the petition…addressed to Yahweh is, “Be your true self.” He quotes Exodus 34:6-7, taken to be God’s own utterance; thus Moses is able, because he knows the textual tradition, to pray the text back to God and to call God to account.”[1]
Martin Luther called this dynamic “praying to God against God.” At times, this is exactly what faith looks like, it refuses to lie down and rushes to God to hold him to his word.
[1]Walter Brueggemann, Great Prayers of the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster Knox Press, 2008), 18,