My Progression of Prayer through the Pandemic

We’ve all found ourselves on an interesting journey over the past months. Covid-19 turned the world upside down and has now become a pretty polarizing topic. It is especially polarizing as restrictions begin to get lifted and people begin to gather in public places again. Some take it very seriously while others don’t think it to be a big deal at all. What I’ve realized is that my prayers are very revealing of how my attitude regarding the pandemic is changing.

As the pandemic began, I started using Don Whitney’s method of praying the Psalms as I prayed to the Lord. This method gives you five Psalms a day to choose from as you pray with the thought being that at least one of the five will resonate with how you are feeling. It’s a great method for conversational prayer with God. He speaks in the Word and you speak back based on what he is saying to you. It really does keep prayer fresh and makes it more conversational.

What I’ve noticed is that there has been a gradual change in the Psalms I pray each day. For the first few weeks of Covid-19, I was praying Psalms that cried out for mercy. I was praying Psalms asking the Lord to remember his people. I was praying for our world and that God would heal and restore. I wanted things to go back to normal. I knew God was in control of this virus so I was begging him to stop. I was repenting not just for myself, but for our nation and world.

Time, however, has a way of changing us. It’s been glaringly evident on social media. People have started to minimize the virus. Conspiracy theories have ramped up. People have turned on leaders that they were once praising. Our desire for normalcy has influenced our thoughts and actions and we have rationalized in our minds that this really isn’t that big of a deal.

It dawned on me a week ago that I have seen this change in the Psalms I am praying as well. I found that I’ve no longer been praying for relief and that God would relent. I’ve no longer been mourning our nation’s corporate sins against God either. Instead, I’ve moved back to praying for things that were part of my normal prayer life before the virus hit. Every now and then I bring the virus back up in prayer, but it is not at the forefront like it was in the beginning.

What I think this shows is that we are adapting and accepting. We long for normalcy and a world with Covid-19 is the new normal for the foreseeable future. We’ve moved from rejection to acceptance. We’ve resolved to say with Eli, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him” (1 Samuel 3:18). Covid-19 is just a part of our lives now and we are progressing.

I still have questions with no answers, however. Are we meant to progress like this? Should we still be crying out for mercy? Should we accept this or reject it and prayerfully fight against it?

Maybe you’ve thought through some of these things and have some opinions. I’d love to discuss with you through Instagram. You can follow me at @camlhyde and tell me what you think.

Here’s a couple of books I recommend:

Praying the Bible by Don Whitney (affiliate link)

Coronavirus and Christ by John Piper (free digitally)