What We Really Need

Hmmm. Maybe I should call this space "Once a MONTH for God." Sorry it's been a while. Here's the most recent piece written for the Sterling, Colorado "Journal-Advocate"



One of the common experiences of the human heart is to cry out to God in time of need. Even people who don’t consider themselves Christian may occasionally say something like “God, help me!”

This kind of prayer arises out of all kinds of needs. Common on this list of needs are financial problems, physical illness, marital difficulty, and what I call “rust needs,” meaning the problems that arise from the fact that all the mechanical things in our lives wear out or rust out.

I find myself praying like this a lot; indeed, too much. It disturbs me that so much of my praying is about my felt needs, rather than about the plans of God for my life. After all, who is the focus of my life: me, or Jesus Christ? As a Christian, I declare that Jesus Christ is the rightful center of my existence. He alone has the right to sit on the throne of my life, and thus, He should be at the heart of all my praying. Sadly, I find that far too often my prayer life is driven primarily by the needs I feel in my life.

Do you experience that? Mind you, Jesus truly desires to be the Lord of all those needs, and longs to show Himself to us in every situation. However, shouldn’t our focus be on Him, and not on ourselves?

Recently I’ve been blessed by Elisabeth Elliott’s book, “Keep a Quiet Heart.” Mrs. Elliott is the widow of Jim Elliott, a missionary to the Auca people in South American who was slain by those with whom he was attempting to share the gospel. After her husband was killed, she continued to minister to his murderers, eventually leading many of them to faith in Christ.

In “Keep a Quiet Heart,” Mrs. Elliott reminds us that what we really need from God far transcends our felt needs. One of her chapters describes the “Jesus Prayer,” which developed in Middle Eastern tradition more than a thousand years ago, but has obvious roots in Jesus’ own teaching on prayer. It goes like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It’s similar to the prayer that Jesus Himself affirmed in Luke 18:13-14a – “But the tax collector . . . beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified . . .”

It’s a concept of crucial importance for our prayer lives, because it reminds us that anything God gives us, except the condemnation we so richly deserve, is the result His overt and extravagant mercy. What we feel we need may involve all sorts of blessings and repairs, and God may, in fact, wish to give them to us. But let’s be wise about this: what we need, what we all need, what we really need, is mercy from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Have you asked Him for mercy today? It's a really good way to start.