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Desperado



             Hard to believe that the Eagles sang this ever popular song back in 1973.  “Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses, you’ve been out riding fences for so long now...  You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late.”  Many a lovesick young man (or woman) hit the rewind/play button over and over to console a broken heart with these “desperate” words.

            Rereading the lyrics of this song led me to believe the young renegade must be receiving advice from someone who had walked this path before and sounds to me like, with experience, didn’t want this young friend to miss love… almost pleading with him in desperation.

            Fast forward to 2002, Michael W. Smith released a song called, “Breathe”, including the powerful lyrics, “I’m desperate for YOU, I’m lost without YOU,” adding, “YOU are the air I breathe…”.  Of course, Michael W. Smith is deeply yearning for and seeking God.

            What causes us to be desperate – defined as “leaving little or no hope; having an urgent need or desire.”  Would you consider yourself desperate if your young son had been plagued for his entire life with fitful seizures that had taken control of his life?  Throwing himself into a fire or plunging himself into a river threatened often to take your boy’s life.  Begging for help you traveled to doctor after doctor, clinic after clinic, trying any and every prescribed medication.  You would pray, wouldn’t you… with conviction, with faith, with desperation.  What if your son’s challenges continued?  Would you quit?  Would you give up?  Would you cease praying?  Of course not… you are fighting for his life!

            The story from Mark 9 is somewhat familiar.  Jesus, Peter, James and John are returning to the city just after the “mountaintop” experience where they met Elijah and Moses.  Jesus had been transfigured before the disciples’ eyes as they heard the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to Him!”  So they are met by the crowd quickly realizing there is quite a commotion going on.  A man brought his boy who was “possessed by a spirit… that seizes him and throws him to the ground.”  To the man’s dismay, Jesus’ disciples could not “drive out the spirit.”      

            So Jesus asked for the child.  Here stands the father before the Son of the Creator of the Universe, and he says, “IF you can do anything, help us.”  Oh, precious friends, don’t you think you would choose any word to address our Savior in the place of IF?  Jesus seems to be taken back a bit as he responds by sending the man’s own words back to him, “IF you can… Everything is possible for him who believes.”

                        In Richard Blackaby’s book, Unlimiting God, he proposes that certainly this father had some faith, but it wasn’t at the level to experience the miracle in his son’s life.  There was a limit to what he believed God could or would do.  Is it possible that we limit what God can do in our own lives and those around us?  Hear me clearly I truly believe the God of this vast universe has absolute power to do as HE pleases, but scripture is clear that God does give to us in accordance with our faith.  The father responded, “I believe; Help my unbelief.”  Then Jesus healed the boy.  Don’t give up!  Keep praying – pray specifically.  Blackaby says he regularly prays in this way,

“Lord, I do have a lot of faith in You now, but would YOU raise my faith in You to a higher level, so those I pray for and minister to can experience Your power in an even greater degree?”

            He is your gracious Father, you know. 

 

2 comments

  1. I love this, friend. You are wise, as always, and I am so blessed to be a part of your life. :-)

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  2. Love your thoughts here! Oh that we would all grow in deeper faith!

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