When polite prayers aren’t enough, we learn to hope like our lives depend upon it …because they do.
I used to hope very politely. My prayers were well-structured, theologically sound, and appropriately reverent. I covered all of the bases: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. I journaled perfect prayers that were ordered and tidy.
That modified the night I discovered myself pulling over on the side of the road, now not capable of drive, because I used to be sobbing prayers that had no structure, and definitely no reverence. My heart felt lifeless. I used to be battling grief from losing my best friend to cancer and going through a season of doubt and anger at God, a lot in order that praying every day felt empty, rote, meaningless, pointless, even. That night, in my automotive, I could now not be polite. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed at God.
It was probably the most honest prayer I’d ever prayed. (My crying within the automotive prayers are often my most honest.) It was also an image of what the Bible calls “desperate prayers” or laments—impolite pleas—the type of guttural prayers that emerge from the depths of our souls when tidy doesn’t cut it anymore.
The Tradition of Desperate Prayer
Scripture is stuffed with desperate prayers. Hannah prayed so intensely for a toddler that the priest thought she was drunk. David cried out to God from caves and battlefields, his prayers raw with fear and frustration. Job argued with God for chapters, demanding answers and refusing to just accept easy explanations for his suffering.
Jesus himself prayed desperately within the Garden of Gethsemane, sweating drops of blood as he begged his Father to seek out one other way. If the Son of God needed to hope desperately, how rather more can we?
These weren’t failures of faith—they were intimate expressions of it. Desperate prayers reveal not weakness, but strength as we recognize the one place, the one One, who has the facility to strengthen us in our desperation.
When Desperation becomes Invitation
Desperation is not the other of religion; it is so often the birthplace of it. When we’re desperate, we strip away the pretense and performance. We can now not afford to hope what we predict we must always pray—we are able to only pray what we actually feel.
This is just a little terrifying for those of us who’ve been taught that our prayers needs to be neat and tidy, that we must always come to God with our spiritual geese in a row. But desperation has a way of unveiling that our geese were never in a row to start with, and that is actually excellent news—it reminds us how desperately we’d like God. We are desperate; we’d as well pray desperately and truthfully.
When I used to be within the automotive that night, I could not recite Scripture or use theological language. I could only say, “God, come find me. I can’t do that.” To be honest, I didn’t even have actual words; I had groans, tears, and screams. And I encountered the presence of God in a way I never had before—comforting me, letting me know He sees me.
The Honesty God Desires
God doesn’t need our prayers to be polished. He knows our hearts before we speak anyway. What he desires is honesty—the type of raw, unfiltered honesty that only comes after we’re too eager to pretend anymore. He’d somewhat we come to him with anger, rawness, even rage, than walk away or be numb from apathy. God wants our whole hearts, which suggests he wants our desperation, too. And he wants to fulfill us in our darkest valleys along with his comfort.
I feel in regards to the Syrophoenician woman who approached Jesus begging for her daughter’s healing. When Jesus initially looked as if it would dismiss her, she didn’t politely accept his response and walk away. She argued with him. She pressed in. She refused to take no for a solution. Jesus didn’t rebuke her desperation, he commended her faith.
Or consider the persistent widow in Luke 18 who kept showing up on the judge’s door, demanding justice. She was shameless, audacious even, in her desperation, and Jesus held her up for example of how we must always pray. Not politely, not occasionally, but persistently and desperately.
These women model for us a fantastic example of faithful, desperate prayer.
Desperate Prayers and Intimacy with God
It was hard to understand this on the time, but as I look back over my spiritual life, a few of my most vital spiritual breakthroughs have are available moments of desperation …driving alone in my automotive, as I discussed, crying within the shower, crumpled on my bedroom floor as a consequence of grief, loss, or other disappointments. There’s something about being pushed to our limits that strips away the layers of self-reliance and forces us to depend completely on God. I’m at all times reminded, in those seasons, that God works within the deepest places of our souls; God refuses to allow us to stay shallow.
When our prayers are too comfortable, I’m wondering if we’re praying to perform, somewhat than to ask God’s transformative power into our lives. Are we praying to impress? Are we praying to undergo the motions, somewhat than depend, seek, and develop intimacy with God?
I get it. It’s hard to even want to hope desperately, because that type of crying out is uncomfortable. It requires us to confess our helplessness and limitedness, to acknowledge our need, to admit that we do not have all of it found out. Desperate prayers demand vulnerability in a culture that prizes strength and certainty.
But this discomfort is where we learn that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, that is how we “prove” God, because the scriptures say – how we learn to trust that His grace is sufficient for our struggles, that His love doesn’t depend upon our ability to hope perfectly.
When my dad died unexpectedly last yr (on the anniversary of my best friend’s death), a friend of mine prayed desperate prayers on my family’s behalf. She would depart me voice memos of those prayers, and the incontrovertible fact that she never discounted my pain, but leaned into it, brought a lot healing to my soul. Her desperation became a type of spiritual encouragement to me. Her prayers empowered me to cling to God after I was tempted to avoid him.
4 Pathways to Desperate Prayer
If you’re in a desperate place, to start with, I’m so sorry for whatever got you here. Please know you are usually not alone. But I also know that is God’s invitation so that you can grow in intimacy and authenticity with Him. So, how can we learn to hope desperately? Here are 4 places to begin:
1. Give yourself permission to be honest with God about your real needs, real fears, and real struggles. Stop attempting to impress God or pretend. Start being real with Him about your spiritual poverty, doubts, and struggles.
2. Desperate prayer might mean abandoning the prayer structures you’ve got been taught and finding your individual words or praying another person’s words, or sometimes having no words in any respect. Some of my strongest prayers have been wordless groanings, or crying out, “How long, Oh Lord! I can’t take anymore!” Or even journaling, “God, where are you?” Desperate prayer, for me, has been a walk through an arboretum while crying tears. Or it’s meant to hope the lament Psalms aloud, or read liturgical prayers written by other grievers, especially after I don’t have my very own words. I’m so grateful for the breadth of prayer resources from faithful Christians before me. We can borrow one another’s faith in this fashion.
3. Be persistent. Desperate prayers don’t normally get answered immediately. They require us to maintain showing up, keep asking, keep in search of, keep knocking (see Luke 11). This persistence teaches us that prayer isn’t a transaction but a relationship, not a formula but an ongoing conversation. Persistence in prayer is not about wearing God down or changing His mind; again it’s not about performance—it’s about our own transformation through the method, and a couple of deeper intimacy with Him.
4. Learn to hope together with your whole self, not only your mind or words, but your heart, your body, your emotions. Sometimes desperate prayers require us to pace, to weep, to shout, to lie prostrate on the ground. There’s no flawed approach to pray desperately.
When we learn to hope desperately, several things occur. We develop a deeper intimacy with God because we’re bringing our real selves to Him somewhat than our performed or polished selves. We experience God’s faithfulness in recent ways because we’re depending on Him in recent ways. We change into more compassionate toward others because we all know what it’s wish to be desperate ourselves.
Most importantly, we learn that God isn’t offended by our desperation—He’s moved by it. He doesn’t want us to scrub up our prayers before we bring them to Him any greater than a parent wants their child to scrub up their scraped knee before in search of comfort.
The night I prayed desperately on the side of the road marked a very important moment in my spiritual life. Not because God immediately fixed all the things I used to be praying about—a few of it remains to be not “fixed,” even years later. But I do know God could handle my desperation. I learned that He wanted my honesty greater than my eloquence, my heart greater than my fastidiously constructed spiritual façade.
If you are in a season where polite prayers aren’t enough, I would like to present you permission to hope desperately. Bring your real needs, your real fears, your real self to God. He’s not waiting so that you can get it together before you come to Him—He’s waiting for you to return to Him so He may help hold you and your needs. He will meet you with love.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Cecilie_Arcurs
