Desperate people will do anything to find what they need. If you are in the desert without water, in the baking sun, you will crawl, if you have to, on hands and knees to find water to live. If my child is sick, I will do everything in my power to find healing for them. I will go to every doctor, every hospital until I find someone that can help. In the Old Testament there are many stories of people who were desperate for God, who cried out to Him from the depths of despair. The New Testament shares many stories of people who were desperate for the spiritual and physical healing that only Jesus could give.
How desperate are we for God? Are our prayers half-hearted or are we praying with the desperation of a dying man? Do we seek God with all that is within us? Do we know that God answers the humble prayer of faith? As we are told in I John 5: 14:
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us."
In Psalm 18: 4-6 David cries out to God in desperation. This is what he says:
"The pangs of death surrounded me, And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears."
David feared for his life. He was distressed by the level of ungodliness that he had seen. Distressed and desperate he cried out to God and God heard him. This psalm was a song of gratitude and thankfulness that God heard his pain and delivered him from his enemies and from Saul. He would sing almost the same song at the end of his life in 2 Samuel 22.
The book of Habakkuk finds the prophet questioning why violence, sin and strife continues. He is desperate to understand why God would allow such things to go on. God explains to him why and in the end, we read Habakkuk's response:
"Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls— Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." Habakkuk 3: 17-18
In Isaiah 37 King Hezekiah hears the plans of the King of Assyria to destroy Israel and desperately pleads with God to save his nation from the hands of the great army of the Assyrians. God tells Hezekiah, "because you have prayed to me" He will deliver Israel from the Assyrians, which He does in a miraculous way.
In Mark 7: 24-37 we read the story of a gentile woman who approaches Jesus with great humility, faith and desperation. She begs for him to cast a demon out of her child. Jesus recognizes her need, desperation and humbleness and tells her that her daughter is healed.
In Luke 19: 1-10 we read about Zacchaeus, so desperate to see Jesus that he climbed up into a tree just to be able to see Him. Jesus looks up and announces to everyone that that day he would go have dinner at Zacchaeus's home. The despised tax collector would dine with Jesus! Zacchaeus confessed his sins and Jesus tells him that "salvation has come to his house that day" because Jesus "came to seek and to save that which was lost".
In Luke 8: 43-48 Jesus heals a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. She had spent all her money on doctors but no one could help her. Hearing that Jesus would be in town she went out among the crowd, even though she was unclean and not supposed to be around people. She dared, in desperation, to just touch the hem of his robe. She must've been weak from years of lost blood. Did she crawl through the throngs to reach the hem of his garment? She risked her own safety to be among the crowd because of her uncleanness. She had total faith that just by touching his clothes she would be healed and she was.
What blessings are in store for us if we seek God with our whole heart, crying out to Him in desperation with faith and humility that He will hear our prayer? Do we casually pray for our family and loved ones, do we briefly mention them in a hurried prayer; or do we long with all our heart for an answer to a prayer that means the world to us. How desperate for Jesus are we? I leave you with Psalm 65: 5:
"You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas,"
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