A Prayer of Lament and Hope for Ministry to the Sexually Broken

Father of deep mercy and God of all grace, I come to you with a prayer of lament that has long been kept silent in my heart. Its fragile words attempt to express the grief of ministering to the sexually broken, but often sound insufficient. Still, dear Father, I now offer a prayer of lament and hope—a plea for myself and for my brothers and sisters who also seek to express our painful longing and need for your mercy as we care for sexually broken souls.

Sorrows arise in my heart as I contemplate how sexual sin continues to destroy lives. So many seasons have passed, but no matter how often I seek your face for hope, lament after lament has followed my footsteps as I hear a knocking on the door of my office and know that a particular kind of pain will break the room’s quiet. I tried to fill this space with good books, well-sung melodies, and beautiful pictures that would remind me of you, hoping to find solace and to give each traveling soul a path to walk in the light. I tried to understand evil and how to lead people in repentance, hoping that the theology I master can be enough to quench the burning coals of sexual immorality. But this grief, often unspoken, is a burden that I still struggle to bear well in suffering. Why, Father, have you placed a broken man like me in a ministry where I am incapable?

A Prayer of Lament for the Sexually Broken

So, here I am, Father—yet again praying and yet again lamenting as the world and culture preaches something foreign to the gospel. I also pray for my fellow laborers, my brothers and sisters who share this grief over the sexually broken souls they seek to help. Our hearts are heavy as our days have been filled with men and women carrying unbounded grief, with tears often replacing the words on their lips. I remember each face. Each one of them, I remember, for I longed to give them comfort. I remember their broken-heartedness and the toll of sexual sin on them. They have come to me as though I have some kind of answer, but the truth is that I’m just another brother with a penitent heart. As we seek to help others, we, your servants, know our weakness. We need your help, your strength, your mercy.

So, Father, we come to you in a prayer of lament with broken and contrite hearts which we know you will not despise (Ps. 51:17). Oh, Lord, please hear us. We need you to be the God who promised to dwell with man (Rev. 21:3–7), because despite salvation, life continues to bring hurts and scars that can take a lifetime to heal. We are but grass and like the flowers of the field that are soon gone (Ps. 103:15–16). How can we understand healing when the Christian life feels like a lot of loss and not much gain?

We Wait for Christ’s Return

Father, we cry out to you, saying, “Christ, come soon,” as darkness is so engulfing and overwhelming to our souls. The problem of evil continues to claim innumerable lives every day. We see how abortion is celebrated, how human lives are measured under a financial scale, how children live to grow up in the muck and mire of sinful generations, and we are powerless to bring change. We are small and insignificant in the face and magnitude of evil.

Oh, Father, many of the godly have already departed to be with you. And I miss my dear friends as I am still here, and they are with you. Would it be wrong to desire to depart from this world and be with you? After all, I am not as “necessary” as Paul (Phil. 1:24) and easily replaced. Alas, this is not a job, but a dangerous calling, one that will bring judgment and hatred from the world. Please help me and your children reading this to not be disheartened or discouraged, but to find grace where our prayer of lament springs from the pains of life.

Oh, Father, in all of this, time and again, you call us to wait for Jesus to return. This waiting demonstrates a Christian posture that encapsulates the sum of our lives (Ps. 25:5, 27:14, 31:24, 33:18, 37:7, 42:11, 62:1–5; Isa. 30:18, 40:31; Lam. 3:24–26; Micah 7:7; Rom. 8:19–25, 15:4; Phil. 3:20; Heb. 9:28; Jude 1:20–21). We read and re-read these passages, but waiting can feel like standing in front of an impregnable castle’s wall in a battlefield where victory is not guaranteed and arrows shot from above kill the brave one after another. I believe in the One I eagerly wait for, Lord, but please, help me; help us—help our unbelief.

When We Love, We Grieve

“I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears” (Ps. 6:6). This crisis with sexual sin that floods our nation and churches, this relentless confusion about gender coming from our youth, this apathy toward the gospel that can so easily sway hearts to forget the cost you paid for our lives, and this endless spiritual warfare where “our earthly struggle drones in its backlash,”^[1] has all stricken us with grief. My dear brothers and sisters are restless as we navigate life in a culture heading toward a pit of despair and destruction.

Help us, oh heavenly Father, to remain in the Vine, to look to you when the waves of sexual immorality deceive and temptation lures the heart by promising something lesser than the glory of your presence. Help us to grieve well the sins of our time, to repent earnestly before leading others to do the same, and, by your grace, to cultivate a spiritual life where we interpret the distorted voices of this world through the lens of your infallible Word.

We Hope in Our Faithful God

Who but you, Lord God, has chosen your people from of old as a treasured possession out of all the peoples from the face of the earth? Though they were few, you loved them steadfastly as you kept your oath (Deut. 7:6–11). Who but your Son saw the grieving mother and compassionately spoke to her amid the crowd, tenderly saying, “Do not weep,” and raising her son from death to life (Luke 7:11–17)? Who but your Spirit gave hope to the lost, adopting countless orphans and calling them by name (Isa. 43:1; John 14:18, 14:26, 15:26; Acts 5:32; Rom. 8:15)?

If Christ is our only hope in life and death (Rom. 14:7–8) and we are to rejoice in our sufferings, knowing they become a tangible witness of Christ’s love (Rom. 5:3; Col. 1:24; Phil. 2:27–30), then please, Father in heaven, hear our plea as we walk with the sexually broken:

My prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness. (Ps. 69:13)

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. But you, O Lord—how long? (Ps. 6:2–3)

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. (Ps. 13:2–3)

Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life. (Ps. 54:4)

Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his salvation. (Ps. 35:9)

I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. (Ps. 71:14)

You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Ps. 86:15)

You are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. (Ps. 3:3)

And on this very day, when all seems clouded by fear and suffering, as our prayer of lament guides penitent hearts, we fix our eyes on Jesus. Once again, we grieve, we repent, and, yes, once again we hope for what we cannot see (Rom. 8:24; 1 John 3:3). Oh, Father, hear my plea and the plea of my brothers and sisters who serve your sheep. Please heal your people. This we pray in Jesus’s name, amen.

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^[1] Sinclair Ferguson, The Preacher’s Commentary: Daniel (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 220.