Praying: Faith Over Feelings

In this powerful episode, we stand at the cross during the darkest hour in history. From Gospel of Luke 23 to Gospel of Matthew 27, we witness Jesus in His final moments—feeling forsaken, crying out in agony, yet refusing to abandon His assignment.

“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

These are not the words of unbelief. They are the honest cry of humanity in pain. Jesus shows us that faith does not cancel emotion—but emotion does not get to cancel faith.

Darkness covered the earth. The veil was torn. Mockers laughed. It looked like wickedness was winning. Yet in the middle of abandonment, Jesus resolved:

“Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”

And finally…

“It is finished.”

This episode teaches us how to live when feelings scream one thing but faith declares another. You can ask questions. You can feel the weight. But you do not move off the cross God placed you on.

Faith outlives the feeling.

If you’re fighting emotional battles, questioning God’s timing, or wrestling with surrender—this episode is for you

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Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said “press,” prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through. And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what’s applying pressure to us.

Greetings everyone. Welcome to the Press Movement Podcast. We are back and continuing through the books of Luke and Matthew. Actually, we’re going to do two of them today, because they are telling the same story in a way. They’re telling the same time frame, and yet they’re picking up different details.

We are still at the cross. The Bible says in Luke 23:44, “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,’ and having said thus, He gave up the ghost.” And that’s prayer number one—at least that’s how this list I have is counting it: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” And the Bible says He gave up the ghost, or He died, in Luke 23:46.

Hopping over to Matthew 27, the Bible says in verse 45, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” So you can tell we’re in exactly the same time frame. “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is to say, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, ‘This man calleth for Elias.’ And straightway one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed and gave Him to drink. The rest said, ‘Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save Him.’ Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.”

So we can tell, based on the way this passage is laid out, one, this is the same exact time frame. It’s about the ninth hour. It is dark outside. For them, the ninth hour would be around 3 p.m. Typically, in the calendar at this time, the sixth hour they would start from sunrise. So if you assume sunrise is typically around 6 a.m., that’s how you get to the ninth hour being around 3 p.m.

At this point, Jesus has been on the cross for a while. He has already ministered to the thieves. If you want to see the other part of the prayers we’ve covered or the things we’ve covered concerning the cross, please look back over the last couple weeks in this podcast. But we’ve now reached a place where Jesus is right on the cusp of doing what He was born to do, and that is dying for our sins.

The Bible says in no uncertain terms, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but should have everlasting life.” Jesus always knew He was given for this. The funny thing is—not even funny, but the true thing is—that John 3:16 is not somebody else talking. It is Jesus Himself. He was always talking about His purpose. He was always knowing why He came. I believe we saw that the other week when we looked at John 17 as well. You see Jesus walking in purpose. He knows all along what time it is.

And yet, when He gets to this place and He’s hanging on this cross, there is still a part of Him that is human. As much as He was 100% God, He is 100% man as well. And in His humanity He felt pain. He knew the torture. He felt the disappointment. He saw how abandoned He was by His followers. But it wasn’t just His followers.

We see, in the darkness of 3 p.m.—which itself is an eerie setting. I cannot imagine being the soldiers crucifying this man Jesus Christ. Why would you keep doing this? You see all these signs, all these wonders happening, and you’re going to crucify Him. You’re crucifying Him in the dark at three o’clock in the afternoon. What is wrong with you? According to Luke, the sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. What is wrong with you? You people should know that something is going on here and it is supernatural. You are killing Jesus the Christ. But yet they kept going.

In His humanity, He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He knew the nature of God, that it would be as it is in Hebrews 13:5, when the Bible says, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” It’s echoing a scripture from Deuteronomy 31:6, where He tells the people, “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” It is the nature of God to stay. He wants to stay. He wants to be with His people. He wants to remain. And so for Jesus to reach a point where He is feeling forsaken is saying a lot. He’s now feeling abandoned in the moment, for that is what that word means. It means deserted. It means to leave helpless. It means to leave behind or to leave surviving—like I’m trying to hang on with everything I know. Where are You?

We see in the scriptures where David sometimes feels the same way. He says things like, “Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord? Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble?” This is Psalms 10. David though—I like him because he tends to walk us through his emotions. He doesn’t run from the fact he feels abandoned. All of us have come to a moment where you’re literally wondering, “Where is God in this situation?” It may mean that you just aren’t getting an answer the way you want to. Maybe you’re not feeling His presence like you once did, but you’re looking. And it’s not that you don’t believe that He’s there; it’s that you’re wondering where He is. You want to feel His presence. You want to feel His hand. You need His support in the moment, and it can feel like, “Why are You standing afar off, Lord?” That’s what David wrote.

He went further, David did. He said, “The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. His ways are always grievous; Thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.”

He goes on, and he just keeps saying things. David is painting a picture of what it looks like when you feel like God has abandoned you and you’re literally looking at the wicked. People look like they’re winning. For me, this sounds like the cross. You see, in the scenario of the cross, in the setting of the cross, as you look at different chapters, you see them gambling His clothes. You see them taunting Jesus, making fun of Him, talking about Him. All His disciples gone. It looks like wickedness is winning. And Jesus is echoing, as David did: “Where are You? Where are You, God?”

But David—I love how he walks us through this emotion and how to deal with it. One is not from running from it. I am so convinced that my God is so real, He can handle my real emotions. He can handle my real questions. He can handle the real me. So therefore I do not have to act like nothing’s wrong. I can tell Him where I am and He knows how to get to me. I can wait where I am and He will come to me.

And so you see this in Psalms chapter 10, as David is walking God through, in his prayer, the way he’s feeling, what he’s seeing—the wickedness that seems to be winning and the wicked people that seem to be winning. He describes them as having said in their heart, “God hath forgotten: He hideth His face; He will never see it.” God, they think You’re not watching. They think You’re not looking.

But David never stops believing, and that’s what we have to get out of today. David never stops believing, for he begins to pray, “Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Thine hand: forget not the humble.” We have to remember that the Lord is coming for us. There is an old song that says, “He may not come when you want Him, but He’s coming right on time.” He knows how to reach us even in forsaken places.

The Bible says in Psalms 10:17, David reached the conclusion after all this discussion: “Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble: Thou wilt prepare their heart, Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear.” You will respond. You will listen. You will hold our hearts together. You will make our hearts ready. You are listening to the ones who are low. And You’re going to judge. You’re going to fight back.

One thing we can’t afford to do, even when questions show up, is lose confidence. Questions can literally be just questions. They do not have to be a measure of confidence. Some people, they like to understand. They believe you when you say it, but they want to understand. Understanding is prudent to them. They want to know how to explain the intricacies and details of what you’re saying, though they believe it. Every question is not a question to say, “I don’t believe.” Sometimes the question is just expressing my emotion, or, “I want a better understanding.”

Now, in this instance in Matthew 27, I do believe it’s expressing the emotion of God—that He felt abandoned. For the next words in Scripture you see come out of His mouth is then, in Luke 23, as abandoned as He felt, as much turmoil as He felt, He knew where His soul had to go. So His next words were, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” I don’t know if this is necessarily a prayer in the traditional sense. He’s not begging or requesting anything. No, this is Jesus knowing where to put His life. As much as His life may feel forsaken on this cross, as much as He’s dealing with being abandoned on this cross, when He said, “Into Thy hands I place or I set forth My spirit,” “I’m giving all of Me to You, God. Here’s My life. Here’s what I have to offer,” and with that the Bible says He yielded up the ghost.

The people were watching—watching to laugh, watching to make fun, watching to see what happened. But even in His abandonment He knew He had nowhere else to go. And I mean that feeling of abandonment. He knew God had a plan. He had preached that to everyone. But that doesn’t mean the feeling wasn’t there. And that’s what I’m trying to describe, is that the feelings we have are different even sometimes than the facts we know. I believe you can cry because something hurts and yet believe God’s going to heal it all at the same time. Why? Because my feelings are dealing with humanity, but the way I walk, the way I move, and what I’m going to do next is rooted in faith.

You see, “the just shall live by faith.” That’s how we live. That’s how we walk. We walk by faith and not by sight. It doesn’t mean we’re not seeing anything different. It doesn’t mean we’re not hearing contradictory information. It doesn’t mean that we’re not feeling a conflict deep down on the inside. But the way I walk is only determined by what I believe. And that’s why Jesus didn’t move off the cross, didn’t cancel the assignment. He didn’t come down—not because He didn’t feel like it. He felt all of it. He felt abandoned. He felt the hurt. He felt the betrayal. But the way He decided to walk was that He was going to complete the purpose of God for His life.

And as soon as He had tasted that vinegar that the man gave Him, trying to, some say, help Him because it was being medicinal in nature—we don’t know—but as soon as He tasted that vinegar, John 19:30 lets you know, He said, “It is finished,” and He bowed His head and gave up the ghost.

So you have a number of conversations with God going on on the cross in this last stretch about the ninth hour. You have Jesus saying, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” but resolving, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,” and then saying, “It is finished,” and giving up the ghost.

I encourage somebody today to get to the finish. Get to the place where the emotions are not going to win. Just like Jesus, some of us have been in this too long. We’ve come too far. He is at the point of purpose in His life. That is not the place to quit. That is not the place to submit to emotions. Is it possible that one of the last things He had to crucify was not just His flesh, but His emotion? That He had to deal with the abandonment, that He had to deal with being forsaken, He had to deal with the loneliness of the moment. Could it be that He, like us, found that it is often harder to go through the emotional than the physical—that the mind battles and the heart battles, they go deeper and last longer than even the pain we feel?

But could it be that He won the last battle on the cross? In fact, I know He did, y’all. He won the battle over abandonment. He won the battle over disappointment. He won the battle over frustration. And He let us see, in His cry, “Why, God? Why am I being abandoned?” In His questioning, He let us see that these questions, these fights, they do not have the right to move us. We can stay where God put us even when it hurts. And the way we get through it is surrender: “God, into Your hands I give You all of me.” And then you let God do with that what He wants. Let Him have you.

In this instance, it means Jesus surrendered to dying. In yours, it may just mean you surrender to living for Him. Either way, that “yes” will get you across the finish line. And this time on the cross proves you can talk to God about anything, because prayer always reaches every single situation.

Be blessed. Join the movement. Join the community. Like, share, and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at presstopray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook.

Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God’s ears? I know some of us have prayed and we’re wondering, “How long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God’s not listening?” But God is listening for your voice. It’s too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice, and God wants to hear from you.

It’s Too Quiet, a book about prayer, is designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit presstopray.com.