… cause I am. Sort of. Learning to be, at least.
Desperate for what – for love? Sure.
When I say that I am learning to be desperate, I mean that I’m learning what it means to be so very desperate. I mean knees on the ground, tears falling, and me shaking as I pray for people in my life to know God’s love desperate.
I’ve hurt and scarred people from my misguided sense of urgency. In turn, I’ve been scarred by the effects of my past foolishness and sinfulness.
It may be impossible to accurately express just how much prayer has been emphasized in my life lately. I can feel God just pounding that on my heart every day. “Jane, you need to pray. Have you been praying? I mean, really praying?”
Even if it’s just in the tiniest bit, I’m seeing, feeling, and experiencing why constant prayer needs to be my response in all things, not a last resort.
When I started devotionals and praying intentionally again, I still felt frustrated because I didn’t think I was feeling things deeply. In my head, I was taking in the Word and I knew who I’ve especially failed to pray for lately. I could draw connections from the passage to my life, how I should start applying it. And, I think I can say that I did feel convicted. But, something was missing. There was something still severely lacking in my prayer life.
In making peace with some of the things going on in my life, whether it’s something going on with me or with someone in my life, I had to accept that God has plans for everyone. Every. One. He has lessons to teach others, not just me. It was unfathomably arrogant of me to feel like a victim because I was hurt as I watched others hurting themselves.
I don’t mean hurt in that my heart was breaking for them because I care so much for them. I mean hurt as in, I felt like God had to be punishing me or had some sort of target on my back because I didn’t know how to cope with the situations before me. I felt betrayed, even, by God. I was so focused on how heavily others’ rebellions weighed on me and brought me down, rather than focusing on their hurt and struggle.
But, just as God had specific reasons for the fires he brought me through, so He does for others too. I am not the only person refined by God’s fire. I am not the only one who can and does find redemption in my mistakes, because God won’t let them go to waste. The same truth applies to everyone else.
Just as I need to have my own sins brought before me so I can repent, so do others. Just as I need to be humbled and to learn to depend fully on God, so do others.
That doesn’t mean that there weren’t things for me to learn in the midst of another’s refinement.
There have been many things that God has taught me in the past several months, and I’m confident that there are still many more things to learn. The most recent lesson, I think, has been what desperation feels and looks like.
Not that tears necessarily mean anything, but it’s been years since I’ve cried while praying. I used to find my lack of tearful prayers to be very distressing. I questioned whether I genuinely meant what I was praying, if the heartbreak and urgency that I feel aren’t physically manifesting themselves. I don’t have any insight into the past, but I know for sure that my tears, lately, are coming from a place of sincere heartbreak.
I am desperate. I am desperate for them to find healing in God, because He’s the only one who can heal. I am desperate for them to turn away from their sins that they think will fill the emptiness that only God fills. I am desperate because from my own personal experience, no matter how “good” or “fun” life may be at the moment, all becomes meaningless at the end of the day if you don’t have Jesus.
I am desperate. Very desperate. Well, still learning to be. Desperate for others, desperate for God to hear and answer.
A collection 