Can I Swear When I Pray?

There are moments in life when everything seems to fall apart. Suffering is a part of life and it can bring about the most powerful emotions. These events of suffering hopefully cause us to draw nearer to God, but when they do, is it okay to address God in lament saying, “Why the *insert choice word* did this happen?!” Can God handle our emotion? Can he handle obscenities coming from our mouths and in our thoughts? Doesn’t he know our frame, our weakness, our sin, and can’t he put up with some strong language in the heat of powerful emotion?

The words “messy” and “broken” are pretty trendy words these days. Postmodernity encourages authenticity and honesty, and in prayer to God this means being real with him, bearing even the most volatile and messy sins and secrets. Don’t hold back, “God can handle it,” we are taught.

Indeed our God is gracious and understanding, and even at our most broken, sinful, and wicked moments he is near to us because of Jesus Christ. Because of Christ’s death and atonement for sin and through faith in him, nothing separates us from his love. Nothing. Not even our most potent language or volatile emotions.

So, because of God’s glorious act of reconciling us to himself, shouldn’t we be able to bear ourselves before him in an honest way? Isn’t he big enough and gracious enough to handle our volcanoes of emotion and the words that come forth? Sure, but it’s not about what God can handle, its about honor, respect, contrition, and humility. 

But, they’re just words right? What do they mean to God? Well, if they are just sounds, and they don’t really have any meaning then why use them? If the “F-bomb” doesn’t really mean anything, then what purpose does it have in communication? Why say it? The words we use have conceptual meaning prior to being used. That is, we think of the idea or meaning, then use the appropriate word.

Words invoke meaning, whether negative or positive and God knows it. You can actually pray to God in English or any other language and he knows what you’re praying. He understands you. Since this the case, is it even necessary to use obscenities in prayer and lamentation to God? You and I know what unwholesome words mean. So, simply by knowledge of their meaning, saying them to God communicates that meaning to him. I submit, again, that it’s not about whether God can handle our messiness, it’s about knowingly throwing unwholesomeness into our interactions with God who deserves more from us.

Take the Psalms for example, or Lamentations. These books document some serious and heavy emotions. Yet even in the writers’ strongest emotions and deepest honesty, they approach God with much reverence and fear—desperation and limited sight, but still with reverence and fear. So, shouldn’t this be our example of how to approach God in our deepest pain?

Under the same logic the Apostle Paul uses in Romans; “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” I submit that we avoid presuming upon God’s grace and give him the highest reverence, fear and honor even in our deepest, most upsetting and excruciating moments. Like a little boy who out of contrition approaches his earthly father with a sorrowful yet respectful disposition, may we while broken and upset approach our holy Lord with fear and the highest respect.