Note: This prayer meditation is first and foremost designed to be listened to, so we encourage you to listen to the audio as you read along.
WEEK 2 – Our Deepest Need
For the next 10 minutes or so, we are going to turn our attention to God in
For the next 10 minutes or so, we are going to turn our attention to God in prayer. He desires to meet with us today, to talk to us, to share His heart with us. And for us to share our hearts with Him. Take a few deep breaths and pray this simple prayer.
Jesus, You have met my deepest need. My sins are forgiven.
As I read the following passage from Mark 2:1-12 listen with the expectation that God is moving towards you, to speak to you, through His word.
When he entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and he was speaking the word to them. 3 They came to him bringing a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4 Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying. 5 Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 But some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts: 7 “Why does he speak like this? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Right away Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves and said to them, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat, and walk’? 10 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he told the paralytic— 11 “I tell you: get up, take your mat, and go home.”
12 Immediately he got up, took the mat, and went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all astounded and gave glory to God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
There’s probably a list of things that we could think of that would dramatically change our lives for the better. It might be more money, a relationship with the right person, family, healing, the right job…the list goes on. These are the things that have our attention, that keep us up at night, that our minds drift to in our free moments. And honestly, if we were standing in front of Jesus, these would be the things that we would be tempted to ask for.
In Mark 2 Jesus isn’t just speaking on behalf of God when He tells the paralytic that his sins are forgiven. He’s claiming to be God! And He sees his very real need but before he addresses the obvious, he addresses the more urgent matter – his heart.
Obtaining every other desire we have will never fulfill the deepest longing on the inside of every human being to be right with God, no matter how convinced we are that it would. And our desire is not just to be right with Him but to be united with Him, to be at home with Him. But we persist in trying to fit other desires, good and bad, into the space that only infinite love can fill.
In the space between each line of the following prayer, pray in your own words or sit quietly and listen for the still small voice of the Spirit.
(Whenever there is a space between lines in the prayer add a longer pause for personal reflection.)
God, I come to You now knowing You know what I most deeply need. What I truly long for.
There are things that I want, real things, good things, that I’m tempted to pursue apart from You.
There are things that I’m tempted to blame You for not having.
And I know You’re asking me to turn these things over to You in trust. Will You help me?
Will you meet me in my pain and longing and love me there?
Because what I most deeply need, what I long for, is to be completely loved and accepted by You, the Most High God.
And in Christ, I am.
I want to live from this truth, this reality, that I am Yours and You are mine.
Hear the Word of the Lord:
1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so I long for you, God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I come and appear before God?
PSALM 42:1-2
37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.”
JOHN 7:37-38
Amen.
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