Desperate for God

Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Several years ago, the Lord began to speak to me about my prayerlessness. It's not that I never prayed-I tried to live each day in a spirit of prayer, seeking to know the heart and mind of God in relation to my activities and relationships and to know what would please Him in each decision and circumstance. But, with few exceptions over the years, I had never cultivated the practice of setting specific times for private prayer. Others may have assumed that I was a woman of prayer; but God knew and I knew that it was not the case.

I'd like to say that I experienced a major "breakthrough" that turned me into the "prayer warrior" I wanted to be. There was no such breakthrough. However, what God began in my heart that summer has been a continuous process. It has included both a measure of growth as well as seasons of defeat. As Charles Swindoll would say, it has been "three steps forward and two steps back." What I do know is that there continues to be, deep within my heart, a call and a commitment to press on and to lay hold of the heart and hand of God through prayer.

As God opened my eyes to this matter of prayerlessness, I asked Him to let me see it from His point of view. Here is what I wrote in my journal one day when God first began to deal with my heart:

I am convicted that prayerlessness:

is a sin against God (1 Sam. 12:23)
is direct disobedience to the command of Christ ("watch and pray"—Mt. 26:41)
is direct disobedience to the Word of God ("pray without ceasing"—1 Thess. 5:17, KJV)
makes me vulnerable to temptation ("watch and pray so . . .you will not fall into temptation"—Mt. 26:41)
expresses independence—no need for God
gives place to the Enemy and makes me vulnerable to his schemes (Eph. 6:18, Daniel 10)
results in powerlessness
limits (and defines) my relationship with God
hinders me from knowing His will, His priorities, His direction
forces me to operate in the realm of the natural (what I can do) versus the supernatural (what He can do)
leaves me weak, harried, and hassled
is rooted in pride, self-sufficiency, laziness, and lack of discipline
reveals a lack of real burden and compassion for others
Why We Don't Pray

Since that time, I have pondered the question, "Why don't we pray more?" Why don't I pray more? Here is what I have come to believe is the number one reason for my own prayerlessness: I don't pray because I'm not desperate. I'm not fully conscious of my need for God. Puritan pastor William Gurnall makes this point in his writings:

"Perhaps the deadness of thy heart in prayer ariseth from not having a deep sense of thy wants, and the mercies thou art in need of . . .. The hungry man needs no help to teach him how to beg."

I remember the first time I visited The Brooklyn Tabernacle, a church that is known as a praying church. Pastor Jim Cymbala explained to us why it is not hard for his people to pray: "In our prayer meetings, you've got desperate people crying out to God. Some of them don't have jobs. Others have husbands who are alcoholics or strung out on drugs. Many are women with no husband at all, trying to raise their children on welfare. Every day we are dealing with crack/cocaine addicts, AIDS patients, people who are HIV positive, people who have never had any family to speak of. These people are desperate! They need God; they don't have anywhere else to turn. That's why they pray."

I have a dear friend whose third child was born with multiple birth defects, including the fact that he had no esophagus. For years, her son was in critical condition, in and out of hospitals, undergoing life-threatening surgeries, requiring a breathing apparatus every night, prone to choking, and frequently unable to breathe. Do you think anyone had to tell that mother to pray for her son? On the contrary, you couldn't keep her from praying—she was desperate. She knew her son's only hope of survival was for God to intervene and spare his life. She knew the only way she could get through those years of sleepless nights was for God to pour His grace into her life and grant supernatural strength and enabling.

In comparison to this mother and to some of those who attend The Brooklyn Tabernacle, many of our lives are relatively trouble-free. If we have a secure job and don't have to wonder where our next meal is coming from, why would we be desperate to pray "Give us this day our daily bread?" From a human standpoint, many of us can live our lives without God's help. We can operate, humanly speaking, on our own efforts and our own resources, apart from His grace and intervention.

So how can we cultivate a sense of desperation—the kind that drives us to earnest prayer?

Cultivating a Desperate Heart

(1) Ask God to make you desperate. Ask Him to make you conscious of your need for Him. Ask Him to give you an intense hunger and thirst for righteousness. Ask Him to place within your heart a longing for intimacy with Him, for purity of life, for the salvation of friends and neighbors, for revival in His church, and for the advancement of His kingdom in the world.

(2) Meditate on the spiritual riches God has promised His children. Compare the reality of your spiritual experience with the abundance He offers. If you are not enjoying the fullness of His peace, joy, freedom, and power, let that motivate you to come boldly to His throne of grace to receive all that He has promised.

(3) Welcome pressures and problems as an opportunity to cry out to God. Though my natural instinct is to wish for a life free from pain, trouble, and adversity, I am learning to welcome anything that makes me conscious of my need for Him. The psalmist said, "When I was in distress, I sought the Lord" (Ps. 77:2). And "Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD" (Ps. 130:1; see also Ps. 107:5–6; Jn. 2:1, 7).

If prayer is birthed out of desperation, then anything that makes us desperate is a blessing. Rather than running from, resenting, or resisting problems, learn to embrace them, for they move us to seek the Lord. When we have nowhere else to turn, we will be more likely to turn to Him.

(4) Recognize that without Him you can do nothing. I sometimes wonder how much of my work for God will go up in smoke at the Judgment Seat of Christ, because it was done independently of His enabling and power. It was my agenda and my effort, not His. When I walk through my day without expressing my need for Him, without asking for His grace and enabling, I am really saying, "Lord, I can do this without You." All such labor is of the flesh and is less than worthless in terms of eternal or spiritual value.

(5) Remember that spiritual battles cannot be won without divine intervention. In the midst of everyday realities, we so easily forget about the warfare that is going on in the heavenly realm. How often do we tackle life's challenges and demands under our own means-natural wisdom, human effort, man-made programs-rather than in dependence on the power of His Spirit? Ask God to give you eyes of faith to see the real battle; the vision will move you to cry out to Him to exercise His power over the unseen forces of darkness.

May God make us truly desperate and grant us faith and boldness to approach His throne. For when we do so, we link arms with Omnipotence and become instruments of the fulfillment of His eternal purposes on this earth.