Desparation

"Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me." - Psalm 142:6 (NIV)

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
-Henry David Thoreau

In desperate need is not such a bad place to be, because we humans have a tendency to turn our back on God when all is well.  When all my joints are working, and my wife and I are happy, and the kids are healthy, and the bills are paid, and the job is humming along, and the terrorists are silent in their caves somewhere; when all is apparently right with the world, my apparent need for the power of God is greatly diminished.  I say "apparent" because of course my need is constant.  But there is something about being in desperate need of God.  When we are desperate, we'll believe in the grandest possibility.  When we are desperate, we're ready for a miracle.

I don't think it should surprise us that we in America generally don't see much of the "miraculous" works of God.  When you read the gospels and see all the people Jesus healed, the waves and wind he stopped, and the baskets of food he multiplied, you start looking around at your own life and wondering why those amazing things aren't happening.  After all, Jesus said himself that we would do greater works than him.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father." - John 14:12

But here we sit (most of us), witnessing very little that could be described as "greater" than what Jesus did.

It occurred to me that God provides power commensurate with the need.  In Psalm 142, David is in desperate straights; he is in hiding.  He obviously needs and wants the Lord to rescue him, and his prayer is both general and specific.  The Psalm is generally a prayer for rescue, but specifically David needs to be rescued from his pursuers.  He prays for God's power to meet his timely need.  The same could be said of how God moves among peoples, among nations, among generations.  In the day of Jesus, people were hard up.  There were few options for the sick or lame but to die or languish or make due.  And a lot of people, particularly in large cities, had little or nothing to eat.  Life was tough around the turn of the age.  There were no Wal-Marts or corner medical clinics, antibiotics or refrigeration.  And so the power of God met the needs of the moment.  Jesus healed serious ailments and diseases, things that would never have gone away otherwise.  He multiplied food for the crowds of otherwise starving people.

And think back on the powerful miracles of the Bible.  When the Israelites needed a way to escape Pharaoh, the Lord parted the Red Sea.  When Joshua needed to conquer Jericho, God came through with a ludicrous plan that brought down the walls.  When the disciples of the recently ascended Messiah needed to preach the Gospel among a multi-national group, the Lord gave them many different tongues.  God's power amazingly comes to fill the needs of those who are desperate for Him.

So what are we desperate for?  What are those of us in these United States desperate for?  We are well-fed and well-attended medically; our subsistence needs are broadly met so that we are far beyond mere survival.  As the Thoreau quote suggests, I think we're emotionally desperate.  With our basic needs fulfilled, even to excess, we find ourselves wanting for purpose and relationships.  The traditional things that filled humanity's time from the outset of history - farming, family, villages and community, interdependence and local culture, hard physical labor and hardship - these things have been replaced by a luxurious, disparate, alienating cultural existence in which the individual is often overlooked and finally lost.  What we need most, what I see time and again in the lives of those I encounter, is healing for our hearts.  I don't say this to suggest that we don't need physical healing, or miracles, or any of the other gifts of the Spirit; I say this to point to what is probably the biggest contemporary need, and what God is addressing in powerful ways.  We need friends.  We need to be loved, and to love.  We need purpose, and to have our hearts mended and made whole.

Rest assured that God can meet you in your most desperate place, and He will if you are willing.  Rock Bottom is a great place to be if you need a rescue.  God scours Rock Bottom for the upheld hands, and His arm is not too short to save.  His love for you and I, and the power that He will pour into our needs, is just as big when are hearts are broken as when our bodies are.  It's just a different kind of healing.