Part 3 - One Way Conversation
- Hampton Law Firm ⚖️
- 10 hours ago
- 5 min read
This 3 Part series is not meant to be a neatly packaged testimony with a perfect beginning, middle, and ending. It is an honest reflection on adult faith: the kind that still believes, still aches, still remembers, but sometimes forgets how to speak. It is about the distance that can grow between a person and Jesus, not because love disappeared, but because life became heavy, complicated, disappointing, and loud.
If you haven't heard the song, I encourage you to listen to it. Some of the lyrics that touched me were:
"I used to kneel beside my bed at night when I was small, it was easy as breathing, believing wasn't hard at all, I knew that you were there, close as my next prayer. The word will break you down, break your heart and shake your faith, but now you feel so far away I don't know who's to blame, I don't talk to you as much, maybe that's part of growing up"
And
"I carry on this one way conversation, I'm listening but you don't say a word, if your answer's in the silence, I'll be patient, but its hard to know my prayers are being heard, i'm waiting on a whisper, just something to confirm, that you and me are still on speaking terms" "I mostly come around now when things aren't working out, I show up with my questions, my stumbles and my doubts, always thinking of myself and always asking you for help"
One of the most uncomfortable truths about adult faith is realizing how often prayer becomes an emergency response. We may not mean for it to happen. We may not consciously decide to treat Jesus like a last resort. But life gets busy when things are going well, and suddenly prayer becomes the thing we remember when the bottom drops out. We reach for Jesus when we are scared, desperate, cornered, grieving, or out of options.
There is a particular kind of guilt that comes with noticing this. You realize you have prayed more in panic than in gratitude. You have cried out for help more often than you have simply sat with Him in peace. You have asked Him to fix what was broken, but maybe you forgot to talk to Him when the day was ordinary and nothing was on fire. That realization can make you feel ashamed, as though you have used the relationship instead of nurtured it.
But shame rarely brings us closer to Jesus. It usually makes us hide. That is why I am trying to look at this honestly, but gently. The truth is, many adults pray in emergencies because adulthood is full of emergencies. Emotional emergencies. Family emergencies. Financial emergencies. Legal emergencies. Medical emergencies. Private emergencies no one else even knows about.
Sometimes survival mode narrows your world so much that all you can pray is, Help me.
And maybe Jesus is not offended by that prayer. Maybe He is merciful enough to receive it, even when it is the only prayer we know how to pray. The Gospels are full of people who came to Jesus because they needed something. They came sick, desperate, grieving, ashamed, terrified, and empty-handed. He did not turn them away because their need brought them to Him. He met them there.
Still, there is a difference between coming to Jesus in need and only knowing how to come to Him in need. That is the part that has been sitting with me. I do not want my relationship with Jesus to be built only out of crisis. I do not want prayer to be only the sound of me begging for rescue. I want to remember how to talk to Him when I am grateful. I want to learn how to notice Him in the ordinary. I want to become someone who speaks to Jesus not only when life is breaking, but also when life is simply being lived.
That kind of relationship requires attention. It requires slowing down enough to notice the small mercies that crisis teaches us to overlook. A safe drive home. A quiet morning. A kind word. A moment of laughter. A door that opened. A door that closed for your protection. The strength to get through a day you were not sure you could get through. These may not feel dramatic, but they are often where closeness with Jesus begins again.
I think part of the struggle is that emergency prayer feels urgent, but ordinary prayer feels optional. When something is wrong, we know we need God. When things are stable, we forget that we still need Him just as much. Stability can create the illusion of self-sufficiency. We start to believe we are holding everything together, when in reality grace has been holding us the whole time.
There is also a vulnerability in praying when things are not falling apart. Crisis gives us permission to be needy. Ordinary life asks us to be intimate. It may actually feel easier to ask Jesus for help than to simply sit with Him. Asking for help has a clear purpose. Sitting with Him requires relationship. It asks for presence, not just intervention.
Maybe that is what I am learning: I do not just want Jesus to intervene in my life. I want Him to inhabit it. I want Him in the quiet mornings, not just the sleepless nights. I want Him in the laughter, not just the tears. I want Him in the days that feel normal, not just the days that feel unbearable. I want a faith that can say thank You as naturally as it says please.
That does not mean I will stop praying emergency prayers. I do not think any honest person can promise that. There will always be moments when all we can do is cry out. There will always be days when the only words we have are desperate ones. But I do not want desperation to be the only language Jesus hears from me.
So maybe the invitation is not to be ashamed of emergency prayers, but to let them become doorways instead of dead ends. If pain brings me back to Jesus, then let it bring me all the way back. Let it remind me that I was made for more than crisis management. Let it teach me that the same Jesus I call on in the storm is worthy of being spoken to in the calm.
I am still learning this. I am still catching myself. I am still realizing how often I drift into silence when life feels manageable and then come running back when it does not. But maybe noticing the pattern is the first grace. Maybe the desire to change it is already a sign that Jesus is drawing me closer. Maybe the next prayer is simple: Lord, teach me to talk to You when nothing is wrong.
Judith L. Hampton
Attorney At Law
Hampton Law Firm
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