Jesus, Master, have mercy upon me! I wake this morning poor, wretched, empty, and needy—as though I never before had heard of your dear name, or had never been living upon your fullness.
But you know I cannot live upon the alms of yesterday, no more than my body can stay healthy from the food I ate many days in the past. Without a new supply, Lord, I know that I am yours, and that you are mine.
So I come to you for a new supply, and surely you will not send me away empty.
Lord, I rejoice even that I feel my poverty—that way, as an empty vessel, I am better suited to receive your fullness.
Give in, blessed Jesus, to my poor hungry soul. Then I will find a reason to rejoice that my emptiness and begging pushed me to seek you, and that my need gave you an opportunity to display your grace.
Yes, blessed Lord, I am not only content to be poor and to be needy, but to be nothing, to be worse than nothing. As long as you receive glory by showing your love and giving out of your riches, I will glory even in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
A beggar still I wish to be, and to lay at your gate, if only to glimpse your face, and to receive one token from your fair hand. Then am I most full, when most empty, to be filled with Jesus. Amen.
—Robert Hawker
Elmer, Robert. Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans. Lexham Press, 2019.
Abba,
How I resonate with this prayer! Daily do I feel the desperate need for You. Daily does it feel like I have never before claimed the riches of Your abundance for myself! Daily does it feel like I am coming to You for the first time.
There is deep sense of unsettledness with this reality. There is a deep sense of frustration with this truth. I suppose, in my foolish earthly wisdom, I am desiring to reach a place where the sense of daily desperation is not as profound as the day before. Maybe, what I am truly disgruntled with is my lack of growth into self sufficiency. Without realizing it, perhaps I have adopted a thought that I could achieve a daily strength, endurance, and constancy that was not dependent on Your daily supply of grace OR that it would not seem such a desperate plight every time I reach for it.
I don’t know. The older I grow, the less I feel like I know. The older I get, the more I sense answers alluding me. More questions remain than I have answers for. A lack of truth understanding and insight seems to assail me and I am left feeling like I have never understood anything.
Thus, the sense of daily desperation.
But isn’t that how You intend it to be? Isn’t that how You have designed it? Isn’t that the heart of Your desire? That I would come to You DAILY with a humble pleading for the grace You supply, that I would stay close, and be intimate with You?
Why then do I rail against the reality of this?
Because I want to view myself as stronger and better than I really am. Because I want to view myself as having arrived. Because I want to view myself as spiritually strong and mature and that means LESS need for You, right?
At least that is the thinking. But it is wrong. Spiritual maturity means recognizing and accepting my daily desperation for Your grace and a humble supplication for it. Spiritual maturity means recognizing my weakness and failures and living in utter dependence upon You.
Perhaps I am just tired of the fight and the battle. Perhaps I am tired of daily having to surrender and yield. Perhaps I am tired of the ongoing struggle. I want to be free from it. I want to be free from the need for the daily grace You supply. I want to NOT NEED IT. Yes, that is it. Subconsciously, I think that is what I have been contending with.
But I DO need it. Today. This moment. The next moment. And the moment after that.
Abba, help me to humbly surrender to that truth and accept it with the might of Your grace.
A Singular Passion 