What do you crave? Or, do you? Remember this verse "what things so ever you desire, when you pray, believe you receive them and you shall have them", Mk. 11:24? The word "desire" also means to crave, beg for, require. Oh, I know, we have heard this verse preached until it runs out of ours ears, but did we get it? Prayer is based on cravings, not whims, not wishes, and not religious duty words we label "prayer". Perhaps we have faith, as the verse above this demands we have if we are to speak to mountains, but we don't have desire, cravings, passion. The true law of successful prayer is that we have faith, but the truth about faith is that if we have it, it stirs up passion and desire and aligns those desires with the Kingdom. It is not humdrum, hohum praying that faith produces.
Ever prayed for anything that you didn't really have a fire in your belly to receive? Come on now - you know you have. The cost of things in this covenant with God is that you desire. It might not be your faith that is the problem but your passion, your cravings. It could be that you need to relax a bit about faith and ask yourself if your desires are what they should be. According to Mark 11:23-24, you can have faith, but when it comes to getting answers, you got to have desire.
I love a passage in Isaiah that calls us to come and buy "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath not money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price", Is. 55:1. No passion for the Spirit? Those who want the Holy Ghost, can have Him if they have the price and the price is simply that they "thirst". (Jo. 7:37-39). Often God moves, and offers us wonderful things and it seems seasonal. We call it a "move" of God. It comes like a wave and then seems to go away. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think it always works exactly like that. It comes, we enjoy and get full, and then lose our appetite, our desire, our craving, and the shelf becomes barren. We stand, then, with religious voices and somberly declare "The move is over". Really? Is it over or did we lose our appetite, our desire? I think this is more likely what goes on. The enemy of our souls doesn't even have to attack our faith. Just drain our appetite. Faith without desire leaves you with the mountain still there in front of you.
What can we do? The Bible says we can "set" our affections on things above. To set your affections is to redirect your desires, to intensely interest ones self in something. You can begin to deliberately interest yourself in the things of God. The Holy Ghost will help you if you choose to do it. The Psalmist said that if you "delight" yourself in Him, He will give you the "desires" of your heart. This is not prayer answer, this is holy desire. The Spirit stirs up and aligns within you righteous desires that become the power of prayer. The promise of Holy Ghost relationship is not just baptism but baptism with "fire". This is the fire of passion, desire and cravings. Perhaps this is where your confession might also help. Start confessing desire, passion and cravings. All of the month of Febuary, I have stopped asking God for this or than and started crying out "Lord I crave this". I've been telling Him "I crave souls saved, bodies healed, Holy Ghost outpourings in our meetings, etc.". I am training myself, when I pray, to make it a plea of passion and not a religious monologue. "I crave a greater anointing". "I crave more open doors". "I crave a home church". "I crave great ministry for my kids". "I crave greater strength and total healing".
Try it with me. Pray your cravings.
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