How to pray when you cant tell if that was God

Something got in. Maybe weeks ago, maybe last Tuesday. A thought arrived and it didn't arrive the way your own thinking arrives, and it hasn't left. It might have been a line in something you read that stopped you. It might have been while you were doing the washing up, hands still in the water, tap running. Whatever it was, it had a weight on it, and you thought, that might be God.

And you've been over it since. In the car, in the shower, lying there at half past eleven with the phone face down. Some of those times you were sure. Some of those times you could see exactly how you built it yourself, out of a podcast you half heard and a thing you already wanted. Both readings fit. That's the problem. Both readings fit perfectly, and you can't get outside your own head far enough to check.

So you've stopped moving. Whatever it was, it asked something of you, and you can't act on it until you know, and you can't know. Nothing has gone wrong today. You just can't tell.

Here's what doesn't get said about that.

You won't take it to God, because taking it to God is the thing you don't trust. The whole question is whether your own head is generating the answers. So if you ask him, and something comes back, you'll be right where you started — sitting there checking whether that one was real either. It feels like asking the same broken instrument to test itself.

And underneath that, quieter, there's a worse thought. That other people seem to know. That they say he told them things and they say it easily. And you've been at this for years and you can't identify one clear word with any confidence at all. Which either means you're doing it wrong, or means it was never happening, and you don't want to find out which. So you don't ask. You just keep turning it over on your own.

There's a prayer for this, and it isn't a prayer for certainty.

David wrote Psalm 143. He's being hunted — he says the enemy has pushed his life to the ground and made him live in dark places. He's not asking to be told whether he heard right. He's asking to be shown which way to walk. Here it is, all of it.

Hear my prayer, Yahweh. Listen to my petitions. In your faithfulness and righteousness, relieve me. Don't enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no man living is righteous. For the enemy pursues my soul. He has struck my life down to the ground. He has made me live in dark places, as those who have been long dead. Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all your doings. I contemplate the work of your hands. I spread out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you, like a parched land. Hurry to answer me, Yahweh. My spirit fails. Don't hide your face from me, so that I don't become like those who go down into the pit. Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning, for I trust in you. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my soul to you. Deliver me from my enemies, Yahweh. I flee to you to hide me. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness. Revive me, Yahweh, for your name's sake. In your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble. In your loving kindness, cut off my enemies, and destroy all those who afflict my soul, for I am your servant.

Look at what David asks for, because it isn't what you've been trying to get.

He doesn't ask to be told whether he heard correctly. He doesn't ask for a sign to confirm the last one. He asks to be caused to hear. Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk. Every verb in that prayer is God's work, not his. He is not standing outside his own head trying to verify a signal. He has handed the whole business over to the one who can do the causing.

That's the move. You've been trying to authenticate the message. David is asking to be led. Those are different jobs, and only one of them is yours.

And notice where he starts. Before any of that, he says don't enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no man living is righteous. He doesn't clear himself first. He doesn't establish that he's the sort of person God would speak to. He assumes he isn't, says so, and keeps asking anyway. The asking doesn't wait on the qualifying.

Then there's the word in the morning. That's not poetry. It's tomorrow. He's asking for something he doesn't have tonight and won't manufacture tonight. He's asking for the next day and leaving the timing alone. Which means the prayer is compatible with going to bed still not knowing. That's built into it.

And there's a line here you might reach for wrongly. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your Spirit is good. That is not a promise that you'll get a clear inner voice on demand. Read it again — it's a request, not a report. David is asking. He's still asking at verse ten, several verses after he said his spirit was failing. Nothing has arrived yet in this psalm. He asks anyway, and the psalm ends without telling us he got it.

Where does it end? Not with him certain. It ends with him still calling himself a servant while the enemies are still there. My spirit is overwhelmed within me, near the start. For I am your servant, at the finish. The situation between those two lines does not change. What changes is that he's told someone.

So here's the one thing, tonight.

Say the actual question out loud, with you in it. Not "help me discern your will." Say the real one.

God, something got in and I don't know if it was you or me.

Name the thing. Say what you thought you heard.

Then ask David's question instead of yours. Not tell me if that was you. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk. If your own words won't come, use his — he wrote them down, and they've belonged to whoever needed them ever since.

You may go to bed no clearer. David asked for the morning, and the psalm doesn't tell us what the morning brought. What's different is that the question is no longer only in your head. It's been said to someone.

Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning, for I trust in you. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my soul to you.

He asked. He didn't get told, not in the psalm. It's in the book.