Words fail.

Cool… end of blog… Cool story…

That’s actually the story behind “Word of God Speak,” by the way. The guys were trying to hurry a new project to distribution and last second their producers told them, “We need one more song!” So the author sat down and began to scratch out his ideas, one of which was “I’m finding myself at a loss for words… and it’s funny because it’s ok.”

Next thing he knows, he’s writing a prayer to God about how much more important His words are than those of any person seeking to write Him a song He doesn’t need.

But it’s hard because words fail.

But it’s basically all we have in the normal pedestrian times of our days to express ourselves.

At a certain point in time we need more, though.

Take the word “desperate.”

This is the closest we can absolutely come to the attitude God wants us to have for him and for His presence. He wants us in a situation that is very close to desperation, that, in its desirous quality is the same as we have when we are desperate for Him.

But we must be careful in the semantics of the moment because “desperate” is rooted from the word “despair,” which is not a quality in which God desires us to be. Despair is the antithesis of faith because it has given up on desire. Despair has experienced unrequited longing for so long that it has finally given up on the pursuit of good and even on the idea that good can happen for us. It calls back to the proverb which states that hope unfulfilled and unpursued makes the heart sick.

And there, on the cusp of despair, we find the reality of desperation. We know need so robust and acute and the risk of a sick heart and a life halted hangs in the balance.

It seems cruel that God would call us to desire Him with that kind of potent longing.

If only we knew, though! If only we could experience in our hearts the longing which He holds for us! If we could desire another person and even Him with that desire, we would know what it is to be desperate for just one legitimate, open, and honest moment with Him.

Can’t go back to the beginning

Can’t control what tomorrow will bring

But I know here in the middle

Is the place where you promise to be

Amy Corbett, Chris Brown, and Steven Furtick, “Here Again” Elevation Worship Publishing, 2018. CCLI# 7111925

The key to understanding true desire is knowing the “when” of desire. It is immediate in a way we cannot even comprehend in the era of electronic immediate everything. God does not regret and He does not constantly disappoint with promises of tomorrow that do not good for today. His supreme goodness happens in the comfort of His presence right now. It isn’t something that can be taught, but only shown.

The true comfort of God in the present is the most potent peace ever known.

The peace of God truly surpasses all understanding because it will take the wisest among us and leave us tongue tied in the descent of His peace.

Because words fail…

I’m not enough unless You come

Will You meet me here again

Cause all I want is all You are

Will You meet me here again

Corbett, Brown, and Furtick

If we must learn immediacy as the only time to be relationally effective, we must learn inadequacy as the building standard for our desperate need for Him.

Sadly, we normally begin this part of our journey in the need for circumstances in our lives, whose lack will devastate our current situation.

It’s the need for a job

Or a cure

Or a friend.

Desperation is rarely born in the valley of plenty and joy.

We were not made for melodramatic needing, though. We were made for the glory of God and relating with Him for the duration of a very short forever.

So we must go from a make or break moment of need of God for something less than Him to the moment during His provision, where we have a sense of His presence. And in that moment, we must allow ourselves to shift the importance from fulfilling the need to enjoying Him present.

It’s subtle.

It’s going from loving Iron Man to loving the Avengers.

It’s going from loving a coffee drink that requires seventeen syllables to order to enjoying the actual flavor of a well roasted coffee bean.

It’s going from wanting to knowing the end of a book to loving the way the story is told.

In that place, our desperation for the presence of God is not based on anything other than wanting to spend each and every moment available with Him.

When I go to pick my kids up from something, I wade through humans to the little mini-me’s. My movement through the crowd shifts as soon as I see my son begin to look from adult face to adult face.

He is searching for me. He needs me, knowing I am the only one who can lead him from that place to the next place we will go. His countenance is a desperate search for daddy.

In that moment in time, my heart, based upon the heart of the Good, Good, Father, drives me into the mass of humans between us. Nothing will keep me away. Not even people who move at the pace of grazing cattle (yay, Texas metaphor, yay).

God responds to our desperation for Him in ways that demonstrate to us that nothing will stop Him from satisfying our hearts with Himself.

It’s ok to be desperate in this one moment in time for Abba, Father, Daddy, God, King, Lord, Adonai…

Words fail…

But because we need Him so thoroughly, we will not stop saying them until He teaches us better words to call out with, to reach up and be satisfied with the fulfillment of the need for Him to be right here.