As I sit here this morning, this phrase, this sentiment is paramount in my mind and heart today. “Help God, I need you!” I cannot begin to express to you how many thousands of times over the last 44 years of my life this desperate plea has crossed my lips, filled my heart, and poured out in my prayers.
HELP GOD! I NEED YOU! SAVE ME!
I am truly a desperate man! By that I mean I am truly a man who desperately needs God, needs God’s help, God’s intervention, God’s enablement, God’s power, God’s provision, God’s strength, God’s saving, God’s blessing upon my life. There is not a day that goes by that I do not recognize that as Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing!” This truth has deeply penetrated my psyche, my spirit, and my worldview. I cannot be an effective father, I cannot be an effective husband, I cannot be an effective mentor, writer, counselor, pastor, teacher, provider, grandfather, Christian, I cannot do anything of real lasting eternal value apart from my Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ and His supernatural help!
Often it is with tears streaming down my face, as my heart cries out to God, “Help me, Lord.” Often my body groans under the weight of the reality of my deep desperate need for God, of my desperate need for Him to come to my rescue. I cannot count the times that I have stood in the back of an auditorium, or room, as my son and daughter would sing the song “Rescue” and the words, ” I need you Jesus to come to my rescue, where else can I go?” The first time I heard that song I was in the middle of my daughter’s severe illness. I was standing in the balcony of an old church we used for meetings and my son and daughter began that song. The dam burst wide open in me as tears poured from my eyes and my entire being, heart, and soul cried out “I need you Jesus, to come to my rescue, where else can I go?” This song, when my son and daughter sang it at our Faithwalkers conference and the way they sang it at the end as my son sang over and over, “I need you, I need you, I need you more and more,” is the most powerful, moving song I have ever heard in my entire life! It is burned in my memory for the rest of my life. It is the anthem of my soul!
Here is the truth. If I have a secret, if there is a secret in my life, it is this: I AM A DESPERATE MAN WHO DESPERATELY NEEDS GOD’S HELP EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE, IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY I NEED GOD, I NEED GOD’S HELP.
I am a stupid, helpless, foolish, dimwitted, insignificant, weak, poor, frail, selfish man and in addition to that, I often find myself in the most trying, difficult, gut-wrenching, perplexing circumstances and situations of life. Even if my life were to be smooth sailing, this in itself would not preclude my desperate need of God and His supernatural help and blessing. I need God’s mercy, God’s provisions, God’s interventions, God’s deliverance, God’s blessing, and like Jacob who wrestled God even though God told him “let go of me,” Jacob refused, so God put his hip out of the socket. Jacob limped the rest of his life, but would not let him go until God blessed him! And God did indeed bless him. That is what desperate looks like to me. The physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental exertion of wrestling with God in prayer!
I often think of David who we find time and time and time again seeking the face of God, crying out to God, begging God for his rescue and divine intervention.
Psalm 116:1-4 (NLT)
“I love the Lord because he hears and answers my prayers. Because he bends down and listens I will pray as long as I have breath! Death had its hands around my throat, the terrors of the grave overwhelmed me. I saw only trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: Please, Lord, save me!”
Psalm 77:1-3 (NLT)
“I cry out to God without holding back. Oh, that God would listen to me! When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord. All night long I pray, with my hands lifted towards heaven, pleading. There can be no joy for me until he acts. I think of God and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help.”
Psalm 69:1-3, 13 (NLT)
“Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold to stand on. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me. I am exhausted from crying for help; my throat is parched and dry. My eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to help me! But I keep right on praying to you, Lord, hoping this is the time you will show me favor.”
Psalm 55:1-2, 16-18 (NLT)
“Listen to my prayer O God. Do not ignore my cry for help! Please listen and answer me, for I am overwhelmed by my troubles. But I will call on God, and the Lord will rescue me. Morning, noon, and night I plead aloud in my distress and the Lord hears my voice. He rescues me.”
Psalm 57:2-3 (NLT)
“I cry out to God Most High, to God who will fulfill his purpose for me. He will send from heaven to save me.”
Psalm 44:6-7 (NLT)
“I do not trust my bow; I do not count on my sword to save me. It is you who gives us victory over our enemies.”
Psalm 34:17-19 (NLT)
“The Lord hears his people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit. The righteous face many troubles, but the Lord rescues them from each and every one.”
Psalm 18:1-2, 6, 16 (NLT)
“I love you Lord; you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my Savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold. But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters.”
And on and on it goes. I have come to believe that a large part of what God meant when he said in Acts that “David is a man after my own heart” is that David was a man who understood his desperate need of God, that he was a man who earnestly, fervently went after God! He desperately sought the Lord and asked for God’s help! He was a man who knew he needed God and could do nothing apart from God’s help and divine interventions.
Dear brothers, are you that man? Do you see your own desperate need of God? If so, do you fervently, earnestly, faithfully, daily seek the Lord, and cry out to God for His help or are you a man trusting in his strength, his own “bow” so to speak? Are you a man who daily, vigorously wrestles with God in prayer?
If you believe you desperately need God and need God’s help, what are you doing about it? Do you believe this day that you still need a Savior to save you? Do you believe that God still comes to our rescue through a divine intervention that only he can orchestrate? Or are you a man who relies on his intellect, his ingenuity, first and foremost?
I cannot tell you how many times God has saved me from financial ruin. I cannot tell you how many times God has saved me from complete and utter despair! I cannot tell you how many times God has delivered me from the evil, wicked actions of other people and the grave injustices inflicted upon me as others tried to ruin and destroy my life. Over and over again God has answered my desperate cries for help!
WILL YOU CHOOSE TO BE THE DESPERATE MAN YOU ACTUALLY ARE? THERE IS NO BETTER WAY FOR YOU TO START THIS NEW YEAR AND CONTINUE TO BE DESPERATE FOR GOD AND GOD’S HELP, THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
Let me end with this from the heart of David.
Psalm 63:1-2 (NLT)
“O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you. My whole body longs for you, in this parched and weary land where there is no water.”
My greatest desire is to help you be this kind of man. Would you please listen to these two messages, and this song? I am confident they will help motivate, inspire and envision you in a very profound way.
The God Wrestler
https://strongdisciple.com/prayer/prayer-our-greatest-privilege-2
Psalm 63
https://strongdisciple.com/love/psalm-63
Hear this song “Rescue” by Desperation band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPe9pzxRzo4
