craving desperation

desperation

Written by Mindi Jo Furby

I grew up in the Superficial Capital of the World (Southern California) where image drives everything — even some churches and faith. The mirage looked great from a distance, but the closer I got the further I wanted to run… And I did. But God has this funny attribute called love; and only He can bring us back to a place we’ve never been! He led me through a door (which ended up including a degree in Biblical Studies and a Masters in Religion) that re-introduced me to Scripture and a real life with Him. Now, I’m thrilled to offer you the keys to that same door through my writing, speaking, and teaching—no mirages, hypocrisy, or superficiality. Guaranteed. Let’s shatter our categories and preconceptions about God and His Word. Though it may get bumpy at times, I promise you this: the closer you get the closer you’ll want to be.

June 15, 2013

When’s the last time you’ve been truly desperate for something? A love returned, a paycheck to provide food for your family, or maybe for God to return a wayward child?

You can hardly breathe due to the tension wrapping its gnarly fingers around you. You find yourself jumpy, nervous, and a new warrior in the army of worry fighters. But you can’t let others know about your internal struggle! You have people counting on you. You’ve got to be strong, determined, and Webster’s definition of confident.

Most of us would agree that desperation is not a lovely place to be. We spend our lives avoiding pits of desperation, and if we find ourselves caught in one, we exude every ounce of energy possible to crawl out of it—inch by dirty, muddy inch. We’re self-sufficient, American-dream chasers, after all.

We’ve talked before about God being backwards—often operating very contrary to how we think life should be. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, to learn that He likes desperate people. He actually wants us to be desperate…

For Him.

Scripture is filled to the brim with people finding themselves in absolute desperation. Joseph in his years of slavery and a victim of betrayal; David, when hunted by Saul for years on end; and even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying fervently to not go to the cross.

Desperation dog-ears Scripture in almost (if not every) book. The story of our lives would find similar dog-eared moments of desperation in every chapter. Shout out for Scripture’s relevancy, huh?

The crazy part in all of this is God seems to enjoy it. He actually takes pleasure in us reaching the end of ourselves, because it’s then we finally start reaching to Him.

It’s easy to trust God and have faith when things are going splendidly. When life is all daisies and roses (at least mostly), we dub our faith Goliath size and call it a day. But desperate times call for sincere reevaluations of our faith.

Are we really living our true posture—desperate for God for everything, even things we take for granted daily? See, we are desperate for God whether we realize it or not. We depend on God for our every breath, our every heart beat. But too often we think we’re depending on ourselves for those things. Then, when life turns tumultuous, we realize just how not in control we are. Then and only then do we find ourselves in desperate abandon for God and His favor in our current situation.

Unfortunately, we usually return to the cycle of faux self sufficiency within a day or two.

But what if we lived lives of dependence on God? What if we began craving dependence on Him and learned to savor it? Our faith would be stronger, would it not? We’d relinquish control and align our agendas with God’s far more often—which always proves to be the best course of action.

So let’s do it! Let’s be desperate people, aware of our desperation on God. Let’s get out of the way and let Him be the hero in our stories.  Let’s unleash His glory by owning up to our insufficiency and letting His sufficiency reign.

2 Comments

  1. Dana

    Obviously, I’m in personal crisis or I would not have found this article on desperation. I love God and use Him to filter what I do and how I determine where to “lean”, however, I am quite dissapointed that His “out” matches so closely to man. I know we are in “His image” but we mimic Gods’ “blaming”. What I mean by blaming is that God’s all powerful, I’m vapor. But if my faith isn’t strong enough then God doesn’t have to respond. If I’m waivering in my faith, then God doesn’t have to respond. I can’t be perfect, was built to not be perfect but God requires perfect faith or He has “outs”. In Jesus name creates the perfection but even that is a sense of blame shifting. I didn’t create this world, I didnt create the economy (money exchanges/financial exchanges), I didn’t create Sin (God did when he released Satan on unsusspecting sheep), I didn’t create anything but am accountable for outcomes. I do my best to help people who can’t help me but then don’t see Him turning around and helping me but allowing me to get to suicide cause I have no where to turn but turn off the “vapor”. I’ve watched people have affairs on their spouse only to have the “cheater” excell and the “cheated upon” crash and burn in life. Adultery is wrong and supposedly, you loose your life, but it’s the innocent party that looses their life.

    Your post is correct, God’s way of doing things is different then one would think but as imperfect people, how are we suppose to “get that”? We are just vapor, sheep, stupid. But punished for being vapor, sheep and stupid. This post condemns me even more….

    Reply
    • Mindi

      Hey Dana,

      We are not punished for being weak, a vapor, sheep, or stupid. We are, however, held responsible for our sins and we live in a fallen, broken world. In your example of an affair, yes, sometimes it seems as though the “sinners” are the ones who succeed and don’t suffer while the victims do. There are many ways to respond to this, but the main truth to remember is that this world is not our home. Life is not fair. God is not fair. And frankly, we wouldn’t want Him to be! If He was fair, we would all head straight to hell, where our sin demands we go. But He decided to be gracious and give us Christ – a Savior, a chance to spend eternity with Him. If we belong to Christ, we may not see justice on this side of heaven, but we absolutely will when we meet Him face to face. It’s this HOPE that gives us strength, that keeps us desperate for Him and yearning for Him when things go awry here. God doesn’t demand perfect faith; far from it. He says it only takes the faith of a mustard seed to move mountains. He knows we are weak; therefore He gives us strength in Christ through the Holy Spirit who resides in us.

      Praying He comforts you with His truth and gives you the strength you need today…

      Reply

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craving desperation

by Mindi Jo Furby time to read: 3 min
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