This is the Truth Network. Encouraging prayer. God offers an open invitation for his people to talk with him at any time about anything. On encouraging prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the best-selling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray.
And now, here's James.
So, today on Encouraging Prayer, we're going to talk about how to get real. with God by turning your longings into prayer. James, do you want to tell us what that means? Yeah, this isn't about confessing our sins like David does in Psalm 51, which is absolutely necessary for us to do. But this is about something David does in Psalm 63.
which is taking all of our longings in any given moment and turning them into prayer. Wow tell me more Okay, well, you know, if you go into Psalm 63, David is in the desert of Judah, and you don't know whether he's fleeing from Saul or fleeing from Absalom. We don't know exactly when the Psalm was written. But he says, and I'm reading from the older NIV: Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. And then he goes on, I've seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and glory, so that's something of the Spirit. He's you know, he knows God has been with him. He's seen him, if you will, in a sense of just Oh, knowing there's nothing better.
And so he says in verse 3. Three, because your love is better than life. My lips will glorify you.
So, think about this. David is hungry. He's physically hungry. He he's physically thirsty. And so he takes that and he makes a prayer out of it.
My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you. And the more I thought about that, I thought, this is brilliant. You know, because what what he's doing can can be so helpful. in our relationship with God.
God gave us our longings for a reason, and that reason is they can point us to Him. Think about what Augustine said. I have this on my wall. Our hearts are restless, Almighty God, until They rest in you. And the way that starts is, you made us for yourself.
So our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
So, you know, God has poured these longings into our lives to help us. Look to him. more than anything else. Oh man, and I can tell you the part of Judah where he prayed that prayer. There's dry and dreary, I'm telling you.
I've never seen anything. I came from New Mexico and I've been to Arizona, so you've been to California. There ain't nothing compared to the desert of Judah. That is a dry and weary land. And as I think about David praying from that place, you couldn't be more accurate in that he was thirsty.
Uh how he n you know, it's just Blessed are those that hunger and thirst, and take it to God. Right, right. And it's you know, it's not just Hunger. and and thirst, it's also you know our our physical desires, whether that whether we're lonely. or whether that's a sexual desire that needs to be submitted to God.
This can help us resist temptation because it lets God in a little more. It lets the Holy Spirit in to remake our desires and shape them the way they're made to be. Because all of a sudden, His light is shining in because we're like, Lord. You know, you know I I really long for this, but I want you most of all. You know, I want to do what's right in this place.
And sometimes, you know, maybe our relationship with food isn't what it should be. Or, you know, maybe our relationship With others isn't what it should be. And we're wanting things in those relationships. Again, we can take all of this to God. Yeah, that's precious, right?
That And the part that challenged me is is, you know, he did it at the moment that the des that the that the desire was hitting him. You know, this wasn't necessarily his quiet time in the morning. It was at the point that he felt those longings that he went to prayer. And that's a challenge. Yeah, yeah, but but think about what he says, because your love is better than life.
So he knows and and what a great reminder to us that that You know, so often We try to stuff our hearts and lives full of other things that are not God, and they never satisfy. We wreck ourselves as a result. But David says You know, your love is better than life, so it's better than anything else on earth. And then he also says, In your name I will lift up my hands, and this is verse 5, my soul will be satisfied. as with the richest.
of fruits. And so you just see this picture of longing for God. And then the next verse, verse 6: on my bed, I remember you. I I think of you through the watches of the night Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul So you see the tenderness of this, and you see the.
You know, just the the personal. Moment that this is, and how good is God that we can do this? You know?
Okay. None of our desires surprise him. And we can just take them and bring them before him and say, Lord, you know, help me, make me new. I'm going to recognize however much I may want this. Um I want more I want you more.
You meet the deepest longings of my soul. Help me to want you more than anything else. And it's, you know, this also helps us enjoy life because then we recognize also he's the source of every good thing. Right, it's like what it says in Romans 1:17. He's coming from a place of faith.
to a greater faith. Right? Yeah. That that I know you could meet these needs. And so, you know, help me to walk into that.
And then clearly he ex experiences something so many of his Psalms, you know, they start out like a really low place, but they begin to build as he converses with God. Right, and that's just the thing. It does begin to build. It takes a little time sometimes. For us to get there, we really have to think about this because so often we deal with our desires on kind of a knee-jerk basis.
And we we've got to kind of stop ourselves, slow down for a moment. And say, wait a minute, what's really going on? And then let God in and give that to him. But if we do, if we do, we will be blessed like David was. Oh, that's so beautiful.
Well, this would be a good place to pray as we do it. We definitely need that.
So, Lord, we thank you so much for the insights that James had, and certainly the insights of Psalm 63. And we pray that you would put it on our hearts to, when we feel those, Strong desires that would remind us where they came from and to point us back to you through those things, that we too could go from this place of knowing that you created those in us, that we would walk closer with you through them. Help us to see this, help us to linger there. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.
