In the previous chapter, we uncovered one of the ways God deals with our independence. Waiting. It was the way He dealt with His saints of old, and it has lost none of its effectiveness. Waiting is not meant to be easy. So many of us struggle with this principle. We are not content to wait, but God will not bypass the issue of character in our lives. He will take as much time as is necessary to forge our dependence on Him.
There is another way God deals with our independence. What is that second way? He waits to hear our cry of desperation. God asks us to expose our hearts to Him. As we will see in Part 2, He loves to hear how we feel—even when the words are not pretty. Crying out in desperation takes place when we have come to the end of ourselves. When we have tried everything and run out of answers, our only option is to cry out!
Though this option is contrary to our human nature, God sometimes requires us to cry out before He will act on our behalf.
For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you (Isaiah 30:19).
In this passage, Isaiah cites the second way in which God helps us abandon our independence to become dependent upon Him. God waits to show mercy until He hears the sound of our cry. Often He is waiting until we are desperate and have come to the place where nothing will suffice but His intervention.
Most of us are afraid of desperation. For me, an aversion to desperation is very typical of the British character. We like to have things arranged so that we do not get too intense, emotional, or lose control. However, God responds to us only if we cry out. That Hebrew word for “to cry” means “to cry out for help.” God may be waiting to bring you to a place of desperation where you will cry out for help.
RUTH’S EXAMPLE
I vividly remember an occasion when Ruth was seized with an intense pain. It could have been the indication of something quite serious. Finally, having done everything she could to alleviate the pain, she just laid on her back on the floor and cried out to the Lord to come to her help. And He did! There was a definite change when she began to cry out.
You may look back in your life and remember a point when you became desperate and God moved. The Lord is not some luxury we can take or leave whenever it suits us. He is essential to every aspect of our life and being. As long as anything else may be more important to us than God moving in our lives, He probably will not move.
ISRAEL’S DELIVERANCE
All through the Bible, God dealt with people to bring them to the place of desperation. One of the most obvious examples is Israel being delivered out of Egypt. Prior to their miraculous release, they had a wonderful Passover, during which time they were healed and strengthened. Consequently, the Israelites were able to march out with the spoils of Egypt. But, when they got to the Red Sea, they looked over their shoulders to see the Egyptian army pursuing them full force. We all know the phrase that describes “being between a rock and a hard place.” If anybody was ever between a rock and a hard place, it was Israel. There they were—with the Red Sea in front and the Egyptian army behind. And what did they do? Exodus 14:10 tells us:
And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.
There are results God will not bring to your life until you become desperate and cry out. Bear in mind, I’m not just talking about saying a nice prayer. I’m talking about being desperate. God always has a plan, but He may not release that plan until you are in a condition where you can receive it. To release His plan, God will often deal with our one simple, basic problem: our desire not to have to depend on God.
There is not one person, myself included, who really desires to be totally dependent on God. It is contrary to our old carnal nature, which has been imparted to us by Adam and Eve. The one trait God is looking for in us is to be totally dependent on Him—having no other answer, no other future, and no other plans but Him. God will not fully work out His plan in the life of any one of us until the issue of independence has been resolved.
PRAY FOR THE DESIRE
I want to share a story, which will somewhat illustrate this point. In 1990, Ruth was admitted to a local Catholic hospital for surgery. While she was going through all the tests in preparation for the surgery, she was visited by the oldest nun, the senior sister in the hospital, who was going around talking to the patients.
When this senior sister came to Ruth’s bed and saw Ruth’s Bible, she became interested. After introducing herself, she asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Ruth said, “Yes, would you please read my Bible to me because I can’t read it for myself.”
The sister asked, “What shall I read?”
Ruth replied, “Philippians chapter 2.”
At that point, the nun became excited. She said, “That was the passage which was read when I took my vows.”
So the nun read this passage from the Bible and then she shared a testimony. This sister had been to a retreat where a Trappist monk gave a talk. Trappists are not allowed to speak inside the monastery. But every now and then, they are allowed to travel away from the monastery to share with people the truths they have learned in the silence of their community.
In the course of his talk, the monk said to the nuns, “Pray for the desire: not to be esteemed, not to be secure, and not to be in control.” When I considered his prayer, it caused me to shudder. I thought, “Well, being esteemed doesn’t really matter much to me in this stage in my life. But not to be secure and then not to be in control? How could I pray that prayer?”
What really impressed me about this encounter between Ruth and the senior sister was God’s way of bringing it all together. A Trappist monk who is not allowed to speak is allowed to speak, but he only shares his wisdom with a group of Catholic nuns. Then one of the Catholic nuns talks to my wife and shares the message with her. And it just so happens that Ruth is the wife of a preacher! She shares it with me, enabling me to share it when I preach, spreading the message all around the world! You see, God has a way of getting what He wants. I believe that monk was given an important message, and God saw to it that it was spread abroad by a man who was not allowed to talk! Here again is the message from this Trappist monk. As we pray “for the desire”—which is really our desperation—we lose our self-esteem, we lose our security, and we lose our control.
Our independence can be so cleverly cloaked with religiosity that it sounds respectable. Many people use their religion to avoid depending on God. Thankfully, He has two ways to deal with our religious façade: He will keep us waiting, and He will bring us to a place of absolute desperation. The place of desperation is that realm where if God does not do something for us, nothing is going to happen. It is the place where we then turn to God, agreeing to let Him do it His way.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Now I want to offer an application to the message in these chapters so far. Many years ago the Lord instructed me to encourage people to make an active response to what I teach. If we do not apply what we hear or read, that new-found truth may have no appreciable impact upon our lives.
In making this practical application, I wish to address two kinds of people, and it is up to you to determine which type you are.
First, there are people who really are afraid of losing their independence. You may not have much, and life may be a struggle—but at least you make your own decisions. They may be wrong decisions, but they are your decisions. Here is my question to you: Are you fully prepared to let God into your decision-making process? Are you willing to say to God, “I surrender. I lay down my independence. I don’t know what You’re going to ask of me, but I’m prepared to accept it in faith because I trust You.”
Then there is a second type of person. You are someone who has reached the point of desperation. As you read this, you have no answers. You are facing situations beyond your ability to handle, and there seems to be no way whatever to resolve them. What about letting God in? What about giving Him a chance? What does He ask of you? He asks of you what He asked of the Israelites at the Red Sea—cry out!
This is your moment to call to Him. It’s your moment to cry, “Help!”
Sometimes we are too respectable to cry out in desperation. However, if you read the psalms, they are full of cries of desperation. No one uttered them more often than David, that great warrior, who was a dynamic man of God. Time and time again he said in effect, “God, if You don’t help me I’m finished. I have no other help. God, come to my aid.”
If you were drowning in a river, how respectable would you be? If, as you were sinking, you saw someone on the river bank who might be able to get to you in time, would you formulate a carefully worded request for assistance? Would you speak in a polite whisper? Or, would you yell at the top of your lungs, “Help! I need it now!”
Some of you need to approach God as if you were a drowning person. You are not reading this by accident. God wants to help you now. But He is waiting for you to cry out, so you might as well do it now. Don’t wait any longer!
If you are in either of these two categories then I would encourage you to stop for a moment—unhurried and in full trust that it is God Himself who has brought you to this point in your journey. Rather than simply wishing you could do something, take action now. Take a step now—by praying the following prayer:
Father, as I have been reading, I have seen my reflection in the mirror of Your Word. Like Adam and Eve, along with every one of their descendants, I recognize that I have sinned against You by seeking to be good without being fully dependent on You.
Lord Jesus, I thank You that You died on the cross that I might be forgiven of my sin. I follow Your example, Lord Jesus, trusting in the Father’s goodness in all things. Today I declare my full dependence on You. Help me not to slip back into leaning on my own understanding.
I know I can completely trust in Your goodness. Because You are good. I lay down my independence and begin now to depend on You for my life and my future. I cry out to You for Your help, Your mercy, and Your grace in my present situation.
Instead of murmuring and complaining when I face trials, I will cry out to You in my distress, believing that You will hear my cry and come to my rescue.
In faith, I pray for the desire not to be esteemed, not to be secure, and not to be in control. I choose a life of full dependence on You. Amen.
In this first part of the book, we have looked in some depth at the basic problem of all humanity: the desire to be good apart from God—independent of Him. This helps us to understand trials that come as a result of our attempted independence. But there are other trials that come in spite of our dependence on God. These will be the focus of the second part of this book.