Healthy helplessness

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After a restless sleep of nightmares, tossing and turning, waking up to check my telephone for messages or missed phone calls, I felt entirely broken this morning.  I showered on the verge of tears, asking God to remove the oppressive anxiety I was feeling.  I asked Him for forgiveness for failing to bow before Him in prayer before I went to sleep last night.  My prayers provided no relief, my heart began to beat even more quickly and my legs grew increasingly weak.  "Am I having an anxiety attack?" I wondered.  "Why am I having such an intense sensation of fear this morning?"

As I continued to pray, I remembered the days of depression and anxiety that fill my past.  Each morning I would wake up, crying out to God for relief of the hurt and the fear that possessed my heart.  Though I am thankful that I do not wake up feeling such an intense desperation for rescue, I realized today that I prayed without ceasing when I was afflicted.  When the Lord removed my affliction, my prayers gradually turned from intimately urgent cries for help to passive recognition that God exists in my daily endeavors towards productivity and avoidance of suffering.

As I brushed my teeth, I recalled the letter to the Ephesian Church in the Book of Revelation where the Lord informed the church that it had forgotten its first love (Rev. 2:4).  My flesh reacted to this defensively.  "I pray every single day, I study God's word, I minister to other people continually and I look to advance God's kingdom on earth.  Don't be so legalistic."  Yet my spirit knew it was true.  I think of the song "Breathe," where the chorus reads, "And I, I'm desperate for you."  I can admit this morning that I have lost some of my desperation for Jesus.  I have enjoyed His presence in my life, but I am not desperate for Him like I am in times of trouble and despair.

I think of the song "Beautiful" with the lyrics, "I need you like the rain."  Americans do not necessarily understand the need for rain because if it does not rain we can produce it with hoses and advanced technology.  Yet in places throughout the world, the rain is needed to provide relief from the heat, to provide drinking water and to nurture crops.  The truth is that I do not need God like the rain; I appreciate Him like an African rainstorm soundtrack that can help me relax after a long day at work.  Though my spirit thirsts for the presence of the Holy Spirit, I often regard Him as my morning cup of coffee before a hard day's work.

I can no longer allow this lack of desperation to exist in my life.  I cannot make it through a single day without the touch of God's hand and His generous application of love and mercy.  I cannot simply just want God, I need God to survive.  I find that the Church often regards God as a loving and distant Father.  Yet if we minimize His role in our lives, we deny the power and rule that is His by virtue of His nature.  There is no thing too trivial to pray over, no activity or event that does not require the divine intervention of the Creator.  A lack of desperation for the Lord is the worship of self.  The absence of prayer is the presence of idolatry and self suffiency is the rape of God's sovereignty and provision.

Take this time to speak to the Lord.  Ask Him for forgiveness for thinking you are the god of your life, for believing that you can be self sufficient.  Ask the Holy Spirit to overcome you with His presence and love.  Ask God to begin the healing process and to expose the parts of your heart that resist God's sovereign authority over your life.  The entire world and all of the demonic will fight to ensure that this does not happen.  I have prayed that the Holy Spirit will touch your heart so deeply that you feel you cannot move on throughout the day without recognizing your personal desperation for God.