A Heart Desperate for God

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Are You Desperate?"

"Does Jesus Still Take Your Breath Away?"

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Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth recalls a time she was with her friend Holly and her children. What transpired was a picture of extreme longing.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: As we were driving into the park, we heard this very faint jingling music-box sound. Her kids knew instantly what it was. It was this faint sound, but to them, it was the unmistakable sound of an ice cream truck. Immediately, those kids started to screech, “Mom! Mom! We want ice cream! Please, Mom, it’s the ice cream truck. Please can we stop? Please can we have some ice cream? Mom, we want ice cream.”

Those kids were ecstatic to see that ice cream truck and then, of course, to have what was in that ice cream truck. Here were kids who were seeking for ice cream. They were diligent. They were determined. They were ecstatic about this treat that they wanted, and they were seeking for it earnestly.

Dannah: It’s like that every morning on my farm in the winter! I wake up, peer out my bedroom window, and I see, oh, about ten four-footed creatures peering back at my door . . . just waiting for it to open. The fur menagerie—my horses and goats and one donkey, a llama and . . . I got my first lamb this year. When I make my way to the front door and they hear it open and close, they begin to prance in place eager for hay I'm about to deliver. Earnest enthusiasm ensues as I throw out slivers of it. 

But I’ve never seen them as excited as the one day I arrived and their water was frozen solid. It did no good to try to pump some for them. The pipe was frozen, too. Farmer Bob and I hauled buckets of warm water from the house. Well, that day I saw something more than eagerness. I saw desperation.

They weren’t just prancing in place as we came with the first load of liquid! The goats had their feet up on the fence! The horses had their necks wrenched over the fence as far as they could, reaching with their lips. It would have been quite comical if it weren’t so serious!

They were desperate.

Extreme thirst is actually a biblical picture for the kind of spiritual desperation we need to have. Maybe you’re familiar with this verse. It’s Psalm 42:1. It says, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.”

I wonder, “For what or for whom are you desperate?” 

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh, and we’ll be hearing from Judy Dunagan and spoken word artist Blair Linne. But first, more from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. David was desperate for God. You and I need to feel that same kind of desperation. Here’s Nancy, talking about how we need to seek the Lord desperately.

Nancy: Think of that passage in 1 Chronicles chapter 22 where, as David was getting ready to die, he was passing the baton; he was passing the crown, the throne, to his son Solomon.

Solomon was a bright young man. He had many things going for him, but David knew the most important thing his son would need to succeed as a king was to have a relationship with God.

So David said to Solomon, “Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God” (verse 19). Do it now. Don’t wait until you’re an old man. Now! Set your mind. Set your heart. Be determined about this. Be intentional about this. Be intense about this. Do it now, and set your heart and set your mind to seek the Lord your God.

That instruction of David to his son suggests to me that this is supposed to require focus and attention. This is something you concentrate on. There’s an effort involved. There’s an intense desire.

“Set your heart to seek the Lord. This is a priority. This is the number one thing, son, that you are to do as you move into this role and this responsibility as a king.”

I want to suggest that though none of us are kings and will probably never have that type of public position or responsibility, I don’t care what your position is in life, what your responsibility is in life, the number one priority of every child of God has got to be to seek the Lord.

You want to succeed in what you’re doing in life? Do you want to be blessed? Do you want to fulfill God’s purpose for your life? You may be an older woman. You may be a high school student. You may be in college.

You may be single. You may be married. You may have lots of children or no children or be an empty nester. Whatever your season, whatever your calling in life, the number one priority is to seek the Lord.

It requires that we be proactive. Solomon was not going to be able to be passive about seeking the Lord. He needed to be proactive. “Son, do this. Set your mind. Set your heart to seek the Lord. Be intentional about this.”

David understood that there is huge value, huge importance, to seeking the Lord. Now, as we think of seeking the Lord, I know that some people think of that whole idea as—if they were honest—they think of it as being a duty, drudgery.

“Oh, I’ve got to seek the Lord. There are a whole lot of other things I’m interested in doing with my life. Maybe I’ll seek the Lord when I’m older. Maybe I’ll seek the Lord after I get this business started. Maybe I’ll seek the Lord after my kids get into school and things aren’t so hectic and I can get a good night’s sleep. But to seek the Lord now, that just sounds like an extra thing to add to my list, and my to-do list is already way too full. This sounds like a burden.”

As I think about Holly Elliff’s kids, screeching for the ice cream truck, I think ice cream for them at that moment was not a duty. It was not drudgery. It was sheer delight.

It was in their voices. It was on their faces. It was delight, and I want to say to you that those who have ever sought the Lord and found Him know that there is huge delight for those who seek the Lord with all their hearts.

If we only knew, if we could have a glimpse, a glimmer of what it is that God has in store for us, what God intends for us, then we would seek the Lord the way those kids were seeking for that ice cream truck.

We’d be passionate about it. We’d be earnest about it. We’d be putting other things aside. We’d be saying, “There is nothing more important in my day or in my life, no matter what else I have going on, there is nothing more important.”

I want to say to you, you may not think of knowing God and walking with Him as sheer delight at this point in your life, but if you will set yourself to seek the Lord, you will find the greatest delight that this world has to offer, for in His presence is fullness of joy.

There’s not only delight involved in seeking the Lord, but there’s desperation involved in seeking Him. In 2 Chronicles chapter 20, we’re told about a time when the Moabites and the Ammonites came against Judah for battle.

The armies of Judah were hopelessly outnumbered. There was no human way they could win this battle, and the messengers came and told King Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you” (v. 2).

Then verse three of chapter 20 tells us, “Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord.” He was desperate. He was afraid. He was terrified. There was nothing he could do to solve that situation. He was desperate.

I think of how the presence of God is missing from so many of our lives, from so many of our churches, and how oblivious we are to the fact that He’s been gone for a long time in terms of His manifest presence. Many of us haven’t even noticed it.

But once you do notice it, and once you’ve tasted what it is to have the presence of God expressed in your life and among His people in an extraordinary way, you will never again be content without it.

There’s a desperation. There’s a desperate need for the presence, the visitation of God to be restored and experienced among God’s people, in our churches, in our homes, and in our lives.

Are you desperate for that? When you’re desperate, then you will start seeking, and you’ll keep seeking until you have found Him.

Anything that makes me long for God is a blessing. Anything that makes me desperate for Him, anything that brings me to the end of my own resources, my own strength, my own power, that’s a good thing.

Thank God if He is creating circumstances to make you desperate for Him, and then you seek the Lord with diligence.

Seek Him earnestly, not just with delight and desperation, but with diligence. Hebrews 11 tells us that God rewards those who diligently seek Him (v. 6). The word for diligent is a word that means “a concentrated effort.”

It’s an intense effort. This is not a casual glance in God’s direction. “Oh, Lord, you know, if You’d revive us, that would be nice.” No, this is a diligent search for God.

Do you want Him, or do you want a good husband and a happy marriage? You say, “Well, I’d sure like to have both.” I want to tell you, once you find Him, the Lord, then you will have everything else that you need for your well-being and happiness.

Seek the Lord. Seek His face. We’re all seekers. We all devote our time, our energy, our efforts to seeking after one or more things. We seek after the things that matter most to us, the things we really want.

That’s what we seek after. I know that a lot who are listening to us today are seeking a mate. There are those who are seeking happiness, seeking relationships, seeking friendship, seeking money, seeking position, seeking recognition.

What are you seeking? Jesus said in Matthew chapter six, “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles [the unbelievers] seek after all these things” (vv. 31–32).

That’s what they’re seeking after. Does that mean that these other things are unimportant? That they don’t matter? That it doesn’t matter you don’t have something to eat or something to wear or something to drink?

It doesn’t mean they don’t matter, but Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (verse 32). So the point is not that they aren’t important. The point is that they aren’t most important.

They are not the things after which primarily we are to seek. It’s not to be our primary focus. So what did Jesus say should be our primary focus? “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (v. 33).

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, encouraging us to seek the Lord with a sense of both delight (like kids and ice cream), and desperation. 

I don’t know about you, but it seems like a lot of the time I would say I’m seeking God, but I’m not sure the level of intensity is to the point of desperation as much as I’d like it to be. I get so busy serving Jesus that . . . I don’t know . . .  I forget to enjoy Jesus. And when it happened most recently, well, I was just a bit dry. Ever get that way spiritually? At first, I didn’t even feel like leaning in to God. But, my friend, I think sometimes the purpose of our dry spiritual spells are to invite us to grow up, to mature past our over-dependence on the emotional life. It can be a way God brings us to a true inner transformation. You see, I decided this dryness should be looked at with desperation. I knew that the quiet time with the Lord I didn’t feel like having was more important than ever! So, I leaned in to longer times in the Word and in prayer.

Judy Dunagan understands that need. She spoke about it in front of a group of ministry-minded women who had come to the Revive Our Hearts headquarters in Michigan. Let’s listen.

Judy Dunagan: One area that I continue to stumble on often is spending that quiet time with my Lord Jesus. I’ve loved Him since I was just a little girl. But ironically, it was after I got very involved in a ministry in the Detroit area . . . I used to be on staff at Woodside Bible Church, heading up women’s ministries, and at that time, we had two campuses. I got into the ministry because I loved the Lord. I loved to be in the Word.

But this one particular Sunday morning, I was trying to get to our second campus between the services to make announcements about our fall Bible studies. I found tears in my eyes as I was driving.

I was alone in the car, and so I just said out loud to the Lord, “I miss You. I’m so busy serving You that I’m not even sure I really know You anymore. I know there’s more of You.” And I prayed what you could call a dangerous prayer. I said, “Will You make me desperate for You? I want to go deeper with You.”

And our God is very faithful. He started to answer that prayer just a few months later. Some of that was because of some difficult things that came into my life, but I became desperate for His Word.

So today, I just want to share with you dear women. Many of you are very busy in ministry, serving Him. Many of you are busy mothers, training your children about Jesus. And we’re just going to look back at what it means to fix our eyes on Jesus.

One of my heroes in the Bible is Mary of Bethany. What I love about Mary is we’re not told in the Word anything about her roles. We don’t know if she was married or if she had children, if she had a career. We’re not even told what she looks like. So often in the Bible we’re told if a woman is beautiful, and I just love that. All we know about Mary is about her heart for the Lord.

During that season when I was so busy and not spending time with Him, I heard a pastor at a mega church teach. He had just come back from a ministry trip in India, and he seemed discouraged. He began his message by saying that when he first found Christ, Jesus took his breath away. And now he was afraid that he was just out of breath serving Him. And I wonder how many of you here today feel that way?

And so, as we look at Mary of Bethany, I think we can see her as a great example. We’re going to first turn to the first glimpse of her in Luke 10, verses 38–42. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to that, and I’m going to read those verses.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

If you have your Bibles with you, underlined “who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.”

We see here the first glimpse of Mary. I think she really didn’t know Jesus yet that well, and she’s just sitting at His feet, drinking in His teaching, getting to know Him.

We hear about Martha being distracted. The Greek word translated for distracted means “to be drawn in different directions, to be pulled or dragged away.” Again, I wonder how many of you feel that way right now, being drawn in many different directions or pulled or dragged away?

I love this quote from Catherine Martin. 

How do you develop a heart that is forever captivated by the Lord? It takes time with Him, listening to what He says. It’s simple, but very few do it. Lots of people talk about spending time with the Lord. You can read books about it. You can attend conferences on it. Those things will not give you a heart that is captivated by the Lord. Only one thing will fix your heart on Him—that is to stop. Turn your gaze toward Him. Sit at His feet. And listen to what He says.

I have some questions for you to ponder this morning.

What are the distractions pulling or dragging you in different directions and away from finding that alone time with Him?

How can we slow down and take time to sit at His feet in prayer and listen to His voice through His Word?

Jesus points Mary out, and He says, “Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her.” Another version says, “Mary has chosen what is better.”

Rarely did Jesus point people out and say, “Look! Look at what she’s doing.” And I love that about Mary.

Dannah: We’ve been listening to Judy Dunagan talking about one of her heroes from the Bible, Mary of Bethany. Judy went on to talk to us about the other two scenes in Scripture where we see Mary:

• When her brother Lazarus had died, she wept at the feet of Jesus. Judy asked us if we bring our sorrows to Jesus like Mary did. 
• And then the time Mary poured expensive perfume on Jesus’s feet. Judy asked us if our worship of Jesus is costly. 

If you’d like to hear the entire message from Judy Dunagan, you’ll find a link to it when you click on this program at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend. Look for “A Heart Desperate for God.”

Desperation. We’re all desperate, but are we desperate for the Lord more than anything else? 

King David expressed that kind of desperation when he said in Psalm 27, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after,” and he went on to say, his “one thing” was being in the presence of God and inquiring after His will.

How about you? What distractions or hindrances are getting in the way of you having a heart desperate for God? What steps do you need to take to set those things aside so you can better run the race, as it says in Hebrews chapter 12?

At our recent True Woman conference, spoken word artist Blair Linne recited her powerful poem that wonders aloud where the desperate women might be. The book of Jeremiah calls them wailing women. Here’s Blair Linne.

Blair Linne:

Where are the wailing women?
Call for the wailing women to come and cry out
Since our nation lay in a casket
Tell them to come and mourn over her

America is a mother without a pulse
She lay in a casket she built with her bare hands
Stars and stripes draped over her shoulders
Cosmetics she applies
We thought that would mean the last nail in the coffin
But she had to stop to take a selfie
Though lifeless, she live streams her funeral
To haunt us every night
Lures us with her hashtags in our American dreams 

So tell me, where are the praying women
Call for the wailing women to come and cry out
Women, who love Jesus more than their temptation toward indifference
Realize a retweet does not equate to spiritual action.
Refuse to muzzle their mouth with fear or doubt
Will not sit back and watch a deceased world
Hop on a rollercoaster connected to a hell-bound
Track to trap

Since hell has no exits and heaven no back entrances. 
Women who fight against Satan’s deceptive theme-parked in America’s heart
Who sees depravity beyond the Disney
Knows one day material will dissolve
When light meets water
Billowing beneath His feet
Jesus will test our motives against fire
Every mask will fall to the ground like a June fruit drop
The make-up will peel off our faces like a nicked scab
He will expose us beyond our shaded flesh.

So, where are the women? 
The wailing women who will not be ashamed at His coming?
Have oil in their lamp
Contentment in their bones
Courage in their blood
Conviction in the back of their throat
Canon between their teeth
Ready to cut and cure

Who will cry out in faith?
Demand America come out of her tomb
Who will intercede?
Believe. God can transform us . . . our nation . . .
We live in a world that tries to convince us 
A baby is not a baby because it’s in the womb

But the secrets America houses in her belly turned morgue
In an attempt to deny Imago Dei
Will come back to haunt her on Judgment Day
When God demands an account for the treatment of the helpless
And America argues that the 63 million abortions since '73 
In the name of “women's freedom”
No longer requires the sixth commandment to stand

Who will cry out and stand 
For the murders of those who can no longer stand
Captured on smart phone cameras?
Stand for the melanin and blood mixing in our streets
Who will do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?
Rather than stand in the way of sinners 

America is a double-minded woman
They say-don’t call her woman
Bind her barely developed breasts, they say 
They say, give her an identity based upon her feelings, they say
Sign her up for surgery, they say
He say, she say, 
But what does God say!?

Where are the women who refuse to base their life on their feelings
Women rooted in blood
Standing on a Rock more firm than the planet they think holds us suspended in space

Who will cry out?
Who will labor over our nations leadership
Rather than take these candidates to twitter 
Take these candidates to prayer!
Look more to the church house than the white house

Where are they? 
The prayers for our witness
Women who will cry out and lay prostrate for the church?
Cry out over the need for true doctrine in our pulpits
Who will be burdened for God being rightly proclaimed and the gospel preserved?
Stand on the inspiration of our Holy Book
When people laugh and call it fiction
Women who weep over the irony of sinners who laugh at crucifixion

Women, who cry out because our Savior did
Who pray and still away because our Savior did
Praying for a heaven, the sin of our earth has hid

Where are the women 
Call for the wailing women to come and cry out
Women, where are you? Stop whatever you are doing
It is time to pray!
It is time to weep and cry out to The Way
Where are the women 
Call for the wailing women to come and cry out

Dannah: May it not be said of you and of me, “Where are the wailing women?” May we be so desperate to see God move in His church corporately and in us as individuals that we are not afraid to cry out to Him. 

That kind of desperation isn’t going to come in a vacuum. We need to fuel our hearts with the Word of God. And that’s what our Savor and Share Scripture Cards are meant to help you do. We’ve designed a deck, not of playing cards, but of fifty-two Scripture cards. Our hope is that you’ll soak your mind in these powerful Bible verses and then share them with others. 

This month, the Savor and Share Scripture Cards are our thank-you gift for your donation of any amount to support the outreaches of Revive Our Hearts. 

You can make a donation and request a set of cards by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode “A Heart Desperate for God.” 

Well, thank you so much for be with me today. Next time on Revive Our Hearts Weekend, healing after abortion. It’s Sanctity of Human Life month, and Nancy and I are going to be passing out some hope in case you or someone you know needs it. 

Thanks to our production team, including our precious researcher, Dawn Wilson. Dawn, your body is fighting cancer. There’s desperation in my prayers every time I lift you up to Jesus. Thank you for serving faithfully even when your body is weak.

And for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time, for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend is calling you to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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