A couple weeks ago, while I was in Michigan working, Pastor Herk preached at the Little Church in the Pines in Bass Lake, California, opening by asking: what stops us from praying? Pride – feeling that we don’t need to pray? Busyness – cannot find time to pray or forget? God is there to hear your prayers and is listening to you. Another question is: when do you pray? First thing in the morning, when you get up? When you get into bed at night, before you go to sleep? When good or bad things happen? Or when someone desperately asks you to pray for them? God will give you the wisdom and the words. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” We are to always walk in the Spirit and be joyful in Christ with positive godly thoughts, a form of prayer throughout the day.
The “Born again” Christian does not need to be on their knees praying with God 24 hours, but living out a godly Christ-centered life in thought, word and action, while being thankful to the Lord in all circumstances for His love, care, direction provision, and protection. But, there are times when we do stop praying. Once we stop praying, it becomes easier to continue without praying. We are most likely to pray when difficulties arrive in ether ours or a lived-one’s life, where we desperately want God to intervene, repair and restore. Sadly, this is the only time that many pray as a “fall back”, after all other avenues are exhausted, final alternative. There are times, a desperate prayer to God is the only answer we have to a problem. In Matthew 14:30, the Apostle Peter seeing the wind, he became frightened, and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” Take your eyes off of the Lord Jesus Christ and you are sunk.
Pastor Herk wants us to think about how to pray powerful prayers when we are in desperate places. Daily devotional prayer is essential, but knowing how to desperately pray in despairing times and bleak circumstances is important. A biblical picture of this is found in the book of Jonah.
Jonah 2:1-10 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, and He answered me. I called for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. For You threw me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current flowed around me. All Your breakers and waves passed over me. So I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ Water encompassed me to the point of death. The deep flowed around me, seaweed was wrapped around my head. I descended to the base of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, Lord my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple. Those who are followers of worthless idols abandon their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to You with a voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.” Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.
God had given the prophet Jonah a command which he did not want to take God’s message to his Assyrian enemies, so Jonah disobediently decided to ran from God. So, God arranged to bring Jonah back in a miraculous manner, that His command be fulfilled and Johan’s desperate prayer of reliance on, salvation in, and devotion to God at the same time. The Lord Jesus confirmed this event in Matthew 12:38-41 when some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves a sign; and so no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was in the stomach of the sea monster for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent.”
Is there something in your life, that you know God has asked or called you to do, that you have either ran away from or are currently running away from because you do not want to do it? Maybe a storm of life has isolated you in a desperate place with the suffocating loss sense of direction, feeling helplessness and there is nobody on earth to help you. That’s a desperate place to be which needs a desperate prayer. When we sincerely pray, The Christian has had their spirit regenerated when they believed in Jesus as Savior and Lord, so reconciliation has come in a restored personal relationship and God hears their prayers. Do not be afraid to pray for your own life. It may be the time to let forth with a humble yet powerful prayer to your heavenly Father for help to the only One who can. Know and trust that God [in His love, mercy and forgiveness] can change things. Look to God.
In Christ, Brian
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