Holy Inward Desires Break Out into Earnest Prayer

Tip! A person's character is always demonstrated in their behavior. The Savior again said,"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good ..." -- Luke 6:45

DESIRE is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated craving; an intense longing, for achievement. In the realm of spiritual affairs, it is an important addition to prayer. So important is it, that one might say, almost, that desire is an absolute essential of prayer.

Desire precedes prayer, accompanies it, and 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 is 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 avoided like a plague. Its exercise is a waste of precious time, and from it, no real blessing accrues.

And yet even if you discover that desire is honestly absent from your prayers, you should pray, anyway. We ought to pray. The "ought to" comes in, in order that both desire and expression can 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.

Tip! 'Asking of God' and 'receiving' from the Lord - direct request to God, immediate connection with God - that is true 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 what it dictates. Lack of spiritual desire should grieve us, and lead us to be sad by its absence, to seek earnestly for its delivery, so that our praying, in the future, will 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 extremely capable to pray.

Hunger is an active sense of physical need. It triggers the request for bread. In like manner, the inward consciousness of spiritual need creates desire, and desire breaks out in prayer.

Desire is an inward longing for something that we are not in possession of, and we stand in need of -- it is something that God has promised, and which may be secured only by an earnest supplication to His throne of grace.

Tip! Talking to God - This is the one on one type prayer - where we converse with God to develop our relationship with him. We may ask him to help us in areas that we need spiritual, physical or emotional support.

Spiritual desire, carried to a higher degree, is the evidence of our new birth. It is born in our renewed soul:

Tip! One might well ask, whether the feebleness of our desires for God, the Holy Spirit, and for all the fullness of Christ, is not the cause of our so little praying, and of our languishing in the exercise of prayer?

"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby."

The absence of this holy desire in the heart is probable proof, either of a decline in spiritual joy, or, that the new birth has never taken place.

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."

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.