Do you know one of the times that I pray with passion?  When I cry out to my Father for Him to come through?  It is when I am laid out on the bathroom floor with the flu.  Now thankfully, our household has not had the flu this season, which has been a huge blessing.  Because you know, “ain’t nobody got time for that.”

But do you know what I am talking about?  You are laying on the cold floor of the bathroom, basically pleading with God to heal you, to protect your family, to take away the fever, to help you keep the food down, etc.  I like to call it the flu prayer.  The flu prayer is one full of passion, desire, hope, and expectation for God to move.

In the midst of sickness, we are reminded that we are not strong on our own.  Sickness has a way of reminding us that we live in bodies that are not eternal, or infinitely strong.  Sickness has a way of spurring on our prayer life, quite frankly.  If we are honest, many of us have a more powerful prayer life when the flu bug has hit us or someone we love.  But then when the sickness goes away, and the blue skies come back out, we neglect to pray with the same sense of urgency.

When we are desperate, we pray.  When we are aware of how small we are and how big God is, we pray.  When we are made aware that without Jesus, we would be or have nothing, we pray.

Jesus prayed with desperation and passion in the Garden of Gethsemane.  The disciples who were gathered together in Acts 1-2, awaiting the Holy Spirit, prayed with urgency.  The believers in Acts 4, prayed with desperation that God would give them courage, boldness, and extend His hand of power and healing.

As you think about the year ahead, what are you desperate for God to do?  In your life, in someone else’s life?  In your school, community, church, world?  Is it for…

• Someone you love to be saved?
• Your marriage to be strengthened and taken to a new level of intimacy?
• The sin pattern to be broken in your heart and life?
• God to give you wisdom as a parent?
• The prodigal child to come home and turn back to Jesus?
• God to provide for your needs?
• Physical healing
• God to bring healing from the past brokenness?
• Reconciliation among family or friends?

What is one thing you can lay before the Lord on a continual basis this year?  With the same sense of urgency, passion, and desperation that we often pray with when we are sick with the flu.

Psalm 5:1-3:  ¹ Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. ² Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. ³ In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.

May we wait expectantly and with anticipation this year as we trust that our great God hears our prayers and is at work.