Several days ago I heard the wise sage, Josh Enloe, declare, “We need, need.” Josh would likely confess that he heard the statement from someone else, but at least he recognized the insight of the claim when he heard it. Christians grow and mature only when pressure is applied (Philippians 3:10-11).

This morning I was reading Psalm 5 and I could not seem to shake the feeling of just how different the character of David’s prayers are in comparison to my own. “Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning…” (5:1). There certainly have been seasons of my own life in which the nature of my praying might be catorgized as “groaning,” but those seasons seem to be a faint memory at the moment. “Give attention to the sound of my cry… “ (5:2). When was the last time your praying could be described as groaning or crying?

As I read this Psalm this morning a question settled over my soul like a morning mist over an open field. Why does David’s prayer life look so different than my own? Two answers immediately came to my mind that I trust were supplied to me by the prompting of the Holy Spirit himself. These answers are my own and certainly may not reflect your own present state of prayer. But just maybe you will hear my confession and find in it some small thread of familiarity, and like me, be led to confess to the Lord your tipid, stale, prayer life while simutanously begging for more passion in praying in your pursuit of the Lord. 

What are the reasons that my prayers sound different than David’s? Is it possible that 1) I don’t know YHWH the way David did and 2) I am not aware of my own need to the degree that David was aware of his need? By giving careful attention to the body of Psalm 5 it is clear that David was fiercely aware of both the holiness of God and the depth of his own sinfulness as he came before God. Both of these realities shaped and fueled David’s prayers. 

On more than one occasion in the last few years I have called attention, though insufficiently, to the dilemma of the church in Laodicia (Revelation 2:15-22). Jesus brought an indictment against his church when he justly claimed, “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, NOT REALIZING that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked…” How much more diametrically opposed could these two views be? What the church thought of itself and what Jesus knew to be true of the church were not even remotely similar. They believed they were rich, but they were poor. They claimed they had no needs, but Jesus charged that they were wretched, blind AND naked! The most sobering part of this scenario was that the church “did not realize” (Rev. 3:17) its true condition. 

Revelation 3:20 is often misinterpreted and misunderstood as referring to Jesus knocking on the hearts of unbelievers hoping and pleading for permission to enter in. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Jesus needs no one’s permission to set into motion his cosmic rescue mission to take back what is rightfully his. In this passage Jesus is addressing his church whose devotion and delight in Jesus has dulled because of their own self-reliance and self sufficiency. And until they received a letter postmarked, “The Throne Room,” they didn’t even realize they had drifted so far. 

But for those of us who like the Laodcians find that we have somehow forgotten just how needy we are, or God forbid, how holy God is – there is hope. On the authority of the Eternal Word, himself, “be zealous and repent” (3:19). There is little doubt that the character of our praying will take on the very character of heaven when our view of ourselves are less earthbound. All of us have “fallen short of the glory of God” and our only hope in life and in death is that Jesus, who is the only faithful image of of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15) has “made peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). 

May our praying be transformed this day by a renewed awareness of our desperate need, and most of all may our prayers be ignited by this reminder: those of us who were once alienated and hostile toward God have now been “Reconciled” (Colossians 1:21).