When desire runs dry

Posted on March 27, 2015 by PC

Henri Nouwen wrote, “Those who think they have arrived, have lost their way…An important part of the spiritual life is to keep longing, waiting, hoping, expecting.”

Today my heart and mind are tired and weary from waiting. I am worn out from hoping and longing. Yet I must continue. These are my feelings, but my feelings do not determine my faith and confidence in God. While I am weary and tired, I have to maintain desire for more of Christ. I have to continue to desire for God’s action and presence. If I cannot do this, I am utterly lost.

When my desire to pray is lacking, I have to pray for the desire to pray. If God gives desire to the human heart, and He gives if we ask according to His will, then I have to ask for more desire in the dry and weary places.

E.M. Bounds wrote, “Prayer is the oral expression of desire…the deeper the desire, the stronger the prayer. Without desire, prayer is meaningless mumble of words.”

When that desire runs out, I have to pray and ask for more. I never fully arrive, and I certainly need more and more of Christ in my understanding, my looking, my speaking, my thinking.

Cold prayers

Posted on April 9, 2014 by PC

When I think honestly about my prayers, I think of all the warm, deep, and intense prayers I can give in the concerns which matter the most to me. When it comes to those things, my heart is open, and all of my center is engaged.

Does that mean that God is my priority? Nope! It only means that what I am praying about matters to me.

When I make my passionate, deep, and intense prayers about things I really care about, I move right on to the next thing, and that thing does not matter as much. Suddenly, my prayer goes cold and routine. Has God changed? Of course not. Has he grown cold and routine? Clearly not!

It only means that all my passion and intensity was not because of God’s presence and closeness to me. It had nothing to do with my faith or longing for Him and Him alone. It was only about my concerns, not for God.

Whom have I

Posted on March 19, 2014 by PC

Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For, behold, those who are far from You will perish;
You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the LORD God my refuge,
That I may tell of all Your work.
– Psalm 73:25-28

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“Whom have I in heaven but You?”
If I got to heaven and received all the promises of heaven, but God was not there, would I still want to go? If Jesus were not there, do I still even want it? I want to live a life now where I desire nothing but Jesus. I want god to be my only desire; not his blessings, not peace, not joy, but God alone. I want my heart to live a life by which God IS MY FULL PORTION forever; where my heart and mind fully realize that my greatest good in life is nearness to God.

I desire for God to be my greatest desire; not only His blessings, joy, peace, or provision. All those things are OF GOD, and that means peace, joy, provision, and refuge will only be found in Him.

This means that God is strength and refuge. He will only be MY refuge when i am found near and in Him.

Prayer and Relationship Neglect

Posted on April 26, 2013 by PC

More and more, I am reminded that prayer is my relationship with God. It is not an element or part of my relationship. It is the largest challenge to my heart right now. I need prayer to be a much larger priority than it is.

Prayer is when my heart, mind, and soul are all focused on God instead of all the things of life I do not control anyway. Because of that focus, prayer is when I truly know and love God. Prayer is when I can be close to God, my Abba and my Lord. Prayer is when and where I can be the beloved one of God.

I realize when I choose to make little time for prayer, I am saying to God I am not truly committed to this relationship. I also realize every life that is greatly used by God throughout all of history and present have a common denominator of a dynamic, fervent, prayer life, and I really want my life to be used greatly by God to bring Him glory and bring more people to know His love and His hope.

Satan fears the power of a praying person (2 Cor. 10:3-5, 7; Eph. 6:10-17), but my flesh is weak and resists the fervent discipline (Matt. 26:40-41; Rom. 7:14-18). There is power in a fervent daily prayer life that is very different from our world’s idea of power.

My God, my Abba, help me make our relationship the greatest priority in my life. Help my heart, mind, and soul paint a stark picture of how absolutely ridiculous it is to pursue anything else more. Help me place nothing, even good things, above you and our relationship. Fill me with desire to be devoted to prayer. Help me entangle with you so that Jesus may live His life through me all the more each day. Grant me a hunger for you. I do not want to neglect our relationship. I need it so desperately.