Fresh Wind Graphic
Summer Reading Challenge. Chapter 3 Commentary.

When I read the title “A Song for the Desperate,” I thought … How appropriate for me!  I remember my desperate moments and the circumstances which drove me to the cross and kept me there in dependence (the best place to be).  Just as some of the stories depicted in this chapter, God will track us down (as the hound of heaven) through music, message, or messengers (Christians – us).  Sometimes God allows the rebel to lose all hope so that he/she reaches the point of total surrender to God, the Creator.  This spiritual awakening begins new life for the individual and from that salvation moment on, even in “fear and trepidation,” the believer is to share his/her story of how Jesus forgives and redeems.

For us, for Grace Church, several points can be made from this chapter:

  • God sometimes allows us (and our loved ones) to be broken and desperate so that we (they) look to Him for hope
  • God can redeem the worst of sinners and He wants to use us in the process
  • We must “give the Holy Spirit time to work” and not get in His way (might this alter our carefully orchestrated church service time frames?)
  • We must not grow weary in our mission and our outreach
  • Prayer must be our “life-line” and our priority, “born out of a whole environment of felt need”

Do I — does Grace Church — have a yearning to pray?  Do we pray?  How many of us are excited to participate in our prayer gatherings?  Do we as individuals and as a corporate body have “driven” prayer lives?  Do we truly believe that prayer moves God?  Are we, as individuals and as a church, alive or dead in our prayer lives? According to Cymbala, the best preaching and teaching cannot make up for the “prayerless” church.

Farra Morrow