Prayer And Desire
"There are those who will mock me, and tell me to stick to my trade as a cobbler,
and not trouble my mind with philosophy and theology. But the truth of God did so
burn in my bones, that I took my pen in hand and began to set down what I had seen."
-- Jacob Behmen
Desire is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated craving; an intense longing,
for attainment. In the realm of spiritual affairs, it is an important adjunct to
prayer. So important is it, that one might say, almost, that desire is an absolute
essential of prayer. Desire precedes prayer, accompanies it, is followed by it.
Desire goes before prayer, and by it, created and intensified. Prayer is the oral
expression of desire. If prayer is asking God for something, then prayer must be
expressed. Prayer comes out into the open. Desire is silent. Prayer is heard; desire,
unheard. The deeper the desire, the stronger the prayer. Without desire, prayer
is a meaningless mumble of words. Such perfunctory, formal praying, with no heart,
no feeling, no real desire accompanying it, is to be shunned like a pestilence.
Its exercise is a waste of precious time, and from it, no real blessing accrues.
And yet even if it be discovered that desire is honestly absent, we should
pray, anyway. We ought to pray. The "ought" comes in, in order that both
desire and expression be cultivated. God's Word commands it. Our judgment tells
us we ought to pray -- to pray whether we feel like it or not -- and not to allow
our feelings to determine our habits of prayer. In such circumstance, we ought to
pray for the desire to pray; for such a desire is God-given and heaven-born.
We should pray for desire; then, when desire has been given, we should pray according
to its dictates. Lack of spiritual desire should grieve us, and lead us to lament
its absence, to seek earnestly for its bestowal, so that our praying, henceforth,
should be an expression of "the soul's sincere desire."
A sense of need creates or should create, earnest desire. The stronger the sense
of need, before God, the greater should be the desire, the more earnest the praying.
The "poor in spirit" are eminently competent to pray.
Hunger is an active sense of physical need. It prompts the request for bread. In
like manner, the inward consciousness of spiritual need creates desire, and desire
breaks forth in prayer. Desire is an inward longing for something of which we are
not possessed, of which we stand in need -- something which God has promised, and
which may be secured by an earnest supplication of His throne of grace.
Spiritual desire, carried to a higher degree, is the evidence of the new birth.
It is born in the renewed soul:
"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."
- 1 Peter 2:2
The absence of this holy desire in the heart is presumptive proof, either of a decline
in spiritual ecstasy, or, that the new birth has never taken place.
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall
be filled." - Matthew 5:6
These heaven-given appetites are the proof of a renewed heart, the evidence of a
stirring spiritual life. Physical appetites are the attributes of a living body,
not of a corpse, and spiritual desires belong to a soul made alive to God. And as
the renewed soul hungers and thirsts after righteousness, these holy inward desires
break out into earnest, supplicating prayer.
In prayer, we are shut up to the Name, merit and intercessory virtue of Jesus Christ,
our great High Priest. Probing down, below the accompanying conditions and forces
in prayer, we come to its vital basis, which is seated in the human heart. It is
not simply our need; it is the heart's yearning for what we need, and for which
we feel impelled to pray. Desire is the will in action; a strong, conscious longing,
excited in the inner nature, for some great good. Desire exalts the object of its
longing, and fixes the mind on it. It has choice, and fixedness, and flame in it,
and prayer, based thereon, is explicit and specific. It knows its need, feels and
sees the thing that will meet it, and hastens to acquire it.
Holy desire is much helped by devout contemplation. Meditation on our spiritual
need, and on God's readiness and ability to correct it, aids desire to grow. Serious
thought engaged in before praying, increases desire, makes it more insistent, and
tends to save us from the menace of private prayer -- wandering thought. We fail
much more in desire, than in its outward expression. We retain the form, while the
inner life fades and almost dies.
One might well ask, whether the feebleness of our desires for God, the Holy Spirit,
and for all the fulness of Christ, is not the cause of our so little praying, and
of our languishing in the exercise of prayer? Do we really feel these inward pantings
of desire after heavenly treasures? Do the inbred groanings of desire stir our souls
to mighty wrestlings? Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low. The flaming
heat of soul has been tempered down to a tepid lukewarmness. This, it should be
remembered, was the central cause of the sad and desperate condition of the Laodicean
Christians, of whom the awful condemnation is written that they were "rich, and
increased in goods and had need of nothing," and knew not that they "were
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind."
Again: we might well inquire -- have we that desire which presses us to close communion
with God, which is filled with unutterable burnings, and holds us there through
the agony of an intense and soul-stirred supplication? Our hearts need much to be
worked over, not only to get the evil out of them, but to get the good into them.
And the foundation and inspiration to the incoming good, is strong, propelling desire.
This holy and fervid flame in the soul awakens the interest of heaven, attracts
the attention of God, and places at the disposal of those who exercise it, the exhaustless
riches of Divine grace.
The dampening of the flame of holy desire, is destructive of the vital and aggressive
forces in church life. God requires to be represented by a fiery Church, or He is
not in any proper sense, represented at all. God, Himself, is all on fire, and His
Church, if it is to be like Him, must also be at white heat. The great and eternal
interests of heaven-born, God-given religion are the only things about which His
Church can afford to be on fire. Yet holy zeal need not to be fussy in order to
be consuming. Our Lord was the incarnate antithesis of nervous excitability, the
absolute opposite of intolerant or clamorous declamation, yet the zeal of God's
house consumed Him; and the world is still feeling the glow of His fierce, consuming
flame and responding to it, with an ever-increasing readiness and an ever-enlarging
response.
A lack of zeal in prayer is the sure sign of a lack of depth and of intensity of
desire; and the absence of intense desire is a sure sign of God's absence from the
heart! To abate fervour is to retire from God. He can, and does, tolerate many things
in the way of infirmity and error in His children. He can, and will pardon sin when
the penitent prays, but two things are intolerable to Him -- insincerity and lukewarmness.
Lack of heart and lack of heat are two things He loathes, and to the Laodiceans
He said, in terms of unmistakable severity and condemnation:
"I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold
nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth."
- E.M. Bounds