Desperation it is the emotional state of despair in which a person feels a situation to be hopeless and without satisfactory options.

In a mud hut, mud floors with no empty crevice in the circle because 10 people call this home. Desperation.

A little girl named Sanyu, whose mom and dad both passed HIV down to her innocent body and decided not to treat her for six years. Desperation.

A lost man finds Jesus and starts a new life but what does he do with the three women he has made his wives with too many children to count. How does he provide for all? How does he spiritually lead when his past will forever have consequences of his sin? Desperation.

A little girl who has parents that do not want to worry about providing food for anymore so they send her away to lie. Tell a babies home that her parents have died and she has been abandoned. Does she believe anyone loves her? Desperation.

Women who are enslaved to sexual bondage. Only to be used for sex and producing children while their husbands depend on them to feed their mouths and the mouths of all those children. Could they be free? Could they see themselves as treasured beautiful gifts of God? That their bodies are not for the pleasures of others but as a beautiful temple where He dwells? Desperation.

A pastor who slept in the church for six days and six nights while he fasted and cried out to his God because He believed he would come through and provide food for his dying children. Desperation.

The manifest of His Holy Spirit seems to find only those in desperation. God is present in two different ways. He is omnipresence…everywhere in His fullness. God is here, just like He is in the farthest reaches of His universe. But there is Manifest Presence that is when God reveals His presence in such a way that His glory is made visible and is felt in our hearts and upon His arrival what is truly important is visible but what is not important is no longer important. He moves hearts, we feel small, He seems big…and this brings about joy. This is what King David is speaking of in Psalm 27:4 “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon His beauty and to seek him in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling. He will hide me in the shelter of His tabernacle and set me upon a High Rock.”

It is not if trouble comes, it is when trouble comes. His shelter is there. I have found His shelter here in Uganda. The people here get desperation and they know there are few solutions. This they know- Jesus in the midst of desperation. That is why they can attend church all day, for hours, knowing that when they leave their situation may not be changed, but they found joy in the manifest of His presence that keeps their hearts in the position to press on.

So for the first time in my life, I am treading into the prayers of asking for desperation. I fear to pray those prayers. I fear to ask for it because truly He will give. But I know that in my desperation there can be a joy that overshadows my circumstance. A peace that I see in the eyes I serve. Behind my smile is the confidence in my Savior. And in the midst of my pain a refreshing breeze of His presence.

I love the Valley of Vision of the Puritans prayers…The Puritan Movement was a religious phenomenon of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, yet its influence continued at least to Spurgeon (one of my favorites).

This prayer is my prayer this year…the cry of my heart. Join me in praying- for the sake of our lives, for the sake of Uganda, for the sake of the countries that are still waiting for the Name Jesus, for America.

O FOUNTAIN OF ALL GOOD,

Destroy in me every lofty though, Break pride to pieces and scatter it to the winds, Annihilate each clinging shred of self-righteousness. Implant in me true lowliness of spirit, Abase me to self-loathing and self-abhorrence. Open in me a found of penitential tears, Break me and then bind me up;

Thus will my heart be prepared dwelling for my God; Then can the Father take up his abode in me, then can the blessed Jesus come with healing in his touch, Then can the Holy Spirit descend in sanctifying grace.

O Holy Trinity, three Persons and one God, inhabit me, a temple consecrated to thy Glory. When Thou art present, evil cannot abide; In thy fellowship is fullness of JOY, Beneath thy smile is peace of conscience, by thy side no fears disturb, no apprehensions banish rest of mind, With Thee my heart shall bloom with fragrance.

Make me meet, through repentance, for thine indwelling.  Nothing exceeds thy power, nothing is too great for thee to do, nothing too good for thee to give.

Infinite is thy might, boundless thy love, limitless thy grace, glorious thy saving name.

Let angels sing for

Sinners repenting,

Prodigals restored,

Backsliders reclaimed,

Satan’s captives released,

Blind eyes opened,

Broken hearts bound up,

The despondent cheered,

The self-righteous stripped,

The formalist driven from a refuge of lies,

the ignorant enlightened,

and saint built up in their holy faith.

I ASK GREAT THINGS FROM A GREAT GOD.

In this prayer, I hear desperation. In this prayer I see all my friends spoken of above rescued in the song of the angels. In this prayer I see revival..that only comes from sacrifice and one of a lowliness of spirit. In this prayer I see the heavens rejoicing for His people have been stripped and they have been enlightened to the beautiful story of why He came, in His desperation, in His suffering..so that we might know Him.