Here I was, hunched over once again, alone, eyes shut tight. Hands clasped. Sometimes mouthing the words, sometimes out loud. Other words stayed in my mind, not daring to enter the outside world, lest I not be able to reclaim them. A great weight on my mind, pressing down even on my soul - and I, not having the words to express it...

The darkness pressed on me with special persistence in those days - a learned self-image, besetting sins, and yes, general anxiety. Graduating seminary didn't help - no class I took held a candle in that darkness. I had read through the Bible multiple times. Still darkness. Hours in prayer. Still darkness.

Resolving some of those besetting sins - that should have helped, right? I mean, that's what we are taught very often in the church. "You want to be closer to God? Deal with the sin you know about!" But the reality? Deal with that sin, and you discover ten more that were there all along.

Others would tell me to learn proper theology - I needed to realize who I was in Christ, after all. Ok, let's do that: in Christ, I am accepted. In Christ, I am sinless. In Christ, I am a brother in the family of God. None of that changes the type of existential experience I describe above.

As time went on, I began to consider that darkness to be more of a fog, and the ongoing journey there turned into a book of meditations. But those hours in prayer, earnest as they were, did not resolve my fog. The neural networks, learned patterns, and engrained responses that are a large part of my fog don't just go away.

A lot of us don't know what to do with prayer. If we don't get what we're asking for, sometimes we look first to how we're maybe doing prayer wrong. But then we have to get honest with ourselves, and understand that God is his own person, and he does what he wants. So, we must turn ourselves to pray as best as we are able with the understanding that we have, and trust God to do what is good and right.

But it is very hard to understand, isn't it, when the dark night of the soul persists for years on end, even when you have prayed against it. It doesn't square against what we've been taught in the church about following God - follow the formula, and he will enrich your soul.

R. A. Torrey wrote a book on prayer, called (you guessed it) "How to Pray." He wrote, "How often the church and the individual get right up to the verge of a great blessing in prayer and just then let go, get drowsy, quit." For those of us who pray and pray and pray against that darkness and fog in our souls, we certainly seek that great blessing, don't we?

But after a while we can feel as though we are the only ones starving for food in a land of plenty. We see those who have gotten their miracles. The anxiety compounds, if we let it. If the solution to all of this were that we would need to be more earnest, more dedicated, more willing to spend more hours in prayer... If we, who deal with that level of persistent fog in our lives, pursue that path, it will consume us.

I had a friend once, many years ago, who wanted a friend to get saved. My friend showed greater dedication to that desire than I have ever seen before or since. He fasted for nearly two months in prayer before he was finally convinced to move on.

As a church, we need to step back a little and retrain our hearts on why we pray. The anxiety I'm talking about is a general one that affects all aspects of life. The specific manifestation of it in prayer is one that ties us to a results-oriented perspective. We have one strong reason to pray, though, that has nothing to do with our needs or desire for results: Jesus did.

If the perfect son of God, incarnate in human flesh, needed to pray, then we should too. Of course he was "better" at it than us, as with all else. But realize this, and then give yourself permission to let go of the idea that earnestness, piety, or hours in prayer turn the hand of God.

I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again: it takes a trained and experienced eye to see the difference between the motion of the Holy Spirit and budding mental health situations. Look around your church, at those who pray with the greatest feeling, dedication, and tears.

Some are driven by the Spirit. Others are desperate for relief from their fog.

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