Rick Warren - How to Pray in a Crisis - Part Two

Hey, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.

We are so glad that you found us today. I've

got a question for you. Are you feeling stuck like

maybe you've hit a wall and just nothing's moving forward. Well,

you're not alone and you're not without hope. You know,

the Bible is full of people who faced impossible situations

like Mary, Noah, Joe, even the apostle Paul, and they

all experienced one thing that changed everything, a breakthrough from God.

So today Pastor Rick continues his series called Seeking God

for a Breakthrough. Rick's going to walk us through biblical

accounts of faith, prayer, and perseverance, reminding us that God

still moves in powerful ways whether you're in a season

of waiting or searching for hope. This series offers encouragement

and biblical truth to help you keep going and get

the breakthrough unied. And now here's Rick with part two

of a message called how to Pray in a Crisis.

Now, did you know that you can actually do this

with God? You can turn your face to God in prayer,

how physically? Just look up God. I'm here, I'm ready

to talk. I'm checking in for my three times a

day conversation. You go outside and look up at the heavens.

You can stare up at you just look up. There's

nothing in the Bible says you have to close your

eyes to pray. Nothing in the Bible says you have

to bow your head to pray. That's one of the

ways to pray. It's a good way. But many times

in the Bible people didn't close their eyes. They actually

looked up and they talked aloud. I like to pray

aloud to God. When I close my eyes and think

I go to sleep. I don't pray with my eyes closed,

and I don't pray in my mind. When I'm praying,

I'm praying allowed and I'm driving the car, or I'm

looking up or whatever. You could get in your lazy

boy chair and lean back, look up, God, I'm turning

my face to you. Okay. Let me say, but if

a physical reminder that I'm refocusing my attention. Okay, this

is what Daniel did. He physically noticed verse three. In

the New American Standard version, it says this, so I

gave my attention to the Lord to seek him by

prayer circle the word seek. This is the second step

of prayer. The first is listening. The second step of

prayer is seeking. And now we're gonna talk a lot

about this. I'm gonna cheat you. I'm gonna train you

how to do this. You're gonna get really good at

seeking God. And during the thirty four days of seeking God,

I'm going to teach you about this. So I'm not

gonna cover it right now, but let me just show

you some of the benefits. If you'll learn how to

do this, it'll change your life. Your whole life's just

gonna get a whole lot better. Let me just show

you three or four or five promises. How about this

one up here on the screen Amos five to four.

God says this, seek me and you will live. In others,

You're not going to just exist. You're gonna really live.

You're not living life to the fullest. Some of you

just existing, he says, seek Me and you will live.

You're gonna learn how to really live. Proverbs eight, verse seventeen.

God says this, I love those who love me, and

those who seek me. Will what find me find me?

He said, I can't find God. You're not seeking. You

gotta seek in the right way. Those who seek me

will find me. Let me show you another one. Jeremiah

twenty nine, verse thirteen says this. God says, you will

find me when you seek me, what with all your heart.

That's serious, that's emotional seeking. We'll talk about that in

a minute. You're gonna find me when you really want

to know me now. Like ah, I kind of like

to know God in my spare time between the football

game and work. Maybe No, when you with all your heart,

then you're going to know me now. Hebrews eleven, verse

six says this God rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Would you like God to reward your business? Seek him?

Would you like God to reward your finances? Seek him?

Would you like God to reward your marriage? Would you, guys,

like God to reward your children? Would you like God

to reward your relationships, your boyfriend, your girlfriend? Would you

like God to reward your future? Wherever you seek God,

God is going to reward Wherever you don't seek God.

God says, you're on your own. You're on your own.

Let me show you another verse. This is a very

familiar one. Luke Chapter twelve, Jesus says, this, seek, there's

that word again. Seek first, God's kingdom, before everything else.

God's came to this his priorities, not your priorities, His

priorities before everything else, And all the other things you

will need, you need will be given to you. Another

one of those blanket promises. He says, don't seek wealth,

Seek God. He'll take care of what you need. Don't

seek fame, Seek God, He'll take care of what you need.

Don't seek pleasure, don't seek a husband, don't seek to

all these other things you're seeking, he says, seek first me,

And if I'm in first place, he goes, I'm gonna

take everything else into consideration. You put me first. I

bless the people who put me first. You have probably

never realized this, but with a lot of the pain

you're in right now, the difficulties, the stress, the pressure

you feel, the troubles you're facing, the mess that's all

tangled up in relationships, almost all of that stuff that

you're facing right now is the result of you not

seeking God. Because you didn't ask God first. You didn't

seek his guidance, you didn't seek his wisdom, you didn't

seek his help, you didn't seek his permission. You just

made a decision, and so you went out and you

bought something without even asking God, God, should I buy

this house? Should I do this job? Should I do

this car? Should I get in this relationship? You didn't

even ask God, you didn't see God. You just did it.

And now you're reaping the consequences of it. And that

causes so much of the problem in your life because

you made a decision without talking to God first. You

weren't having that daily conversation with God. God, I'm getting

ready to Costco. Go to Costco. Help because I don't

want to come home with four giant jars of pickles

that I really don't need. In every area you ask God,

you see God, he'll help, even blessed, he'll bless your shopping.

Now here's a very important point. Anytime we ignore God,

we don't ask for his help. We don't ask for

his guidance. We don't ask for his blessing, we don't

ask for his permission, we don't ask for his wisdom.

You know what God does when we don't ask for

those things and ask res direction. God just backs off

in your life. Fine, I only go where I'm invited,

So God says to you, Burger King, have it your way,

go right? Ahead. Okay. You didn't ask me if you

should buy that. You didn't ask me if you should

date her. You didn't ask me if you should accept

that job. You didn't ask me if that was a

good goal. You just did it. So fine, have it

your way, and God just backs off. I'll just go

back to heaven, hang out there and let you reap

the results of your decisions. And then you got all

kinds of chaos and problems and trials and troubles in

your life. And then you cry out to God, said God,

I'm seeking you. He goes, Okay, I'm coming back. And

that's what happens when we reap the consequences of our sin.

Let me show you this on the screen. HOSEI, chapter five.

God says this, when I don't seek God in everyar

of my life. He says this, Okay, I will return

to my place on high and I'll just wait and

I'll just wait until they, that's you and me, acknowledge

our offenses. We didn't seek God, We didn't ask him

his opinion and this decision, and they feel their guilt

and then they seek my face. And then in their

troubles and distress, which is always getting our attention, they

will earnestly seek me, saying, let us return to the

Lord so that he may heal us. Friends, that is

the description of what's happening in America and in the

world right now because we have not sought God. We

didn't ask God's permission, we didn't ask God's wisdom, we

didn't ask God's help, we didn't ask God's guidance. We

just did whatever we wanted to do. And we're in

trouble and distress. And that's in our lives and our

marriages and our families, in our work, and finally gets

so bad. You know, we don't change when we see

the light. We change when we feel the heat, and

we say, let us us return to the Lord so

he may heal us. What needs healing in your life? God,

I need you to heal me of my depression. I

need you to heal me of my anxiety. I need

you to heal me of my secret fears that scare

me to death that I'm panicked about. God, I need

you to heal my body. God, I need you to

heal the finances that I messed up because of my

own decisions. God, I need you to heal my marriage.

I need you to heal my relationship. God, I need

you to heal my nation. I need healing my job,

my career needs healing. I don't know where you need it,

but he says it starts with focusing my attention on

God and seeking him. So let me ask you a

couple questions here. Is it possible that the pain you're

going through right now is because you did not seek God,

but you just went ahead and made a decision without

checking in with him. Highly probable, And now God said,

I could have saved you a lot of effort if

you just sought me. Just have a conversation with you

two or three times a day, and I'll go red

light danger. Read Will Robinson, that's danger, don't go that direction.

Is it possible, Yes, that pain is because you did

not seek God in the past. You made a bunch

of dumb decisions, and now you're paying the results of it. Question,

let me rephrase it in the more positive way. What

are you really really looking for in life? What are

you really looking for in life? If you were to

paint out next year and say this is the way

I want my life to be next year, this would

be the ideal year. For me, This would be the

perfect year for me. I'd like to see this thing's

happen in my life. I'd like to see these changes

in my life. If you painted out that picture, what

would it be? And I follow up that with this question,

is it worth spending thirty four days seeking God to

get you ready for next year? Yes? And it'll save

you from an awful lot of pain and heartache and discouragement.

And that's where we're going to go next. It's thirty

four days of seeking God. Okay, here's the third step.

The third step in prayers that get answered is express

my desires with emotion. Express my desires. When I want

to ask God for something I'm praying about. God, I

need this, whether it's a physical need, a material need,

a spiritual need, and emotional need, whatever you're asking for God,

in prayer, you express my emotion my desire with emotion.

So many of our prayers are just cut and dried.

We just say these words. We don't even know what

we're talking about. We have these little you know, things

we've memorized. Now I lay me down to sleep, I

pray the Lord my soul to keep you know, and

if I should die, before I wake, I pray the

Lord my soul to take that means nothing, it's just

little thing. Or you sit down free, bless this food

to the nourishment of our bodies, the bless the gift

and the andes. And it's it's not there's no emotion,

there's no authenticity. It's just things you've learned. God doesn't

care how beautiful your prayer sounds. In fact, God doesn't

even care as much about the words as he cares

much about the emotions. Have you learned that you can

say the right words and the wrong emotion and your

spouse doesn't get it. Yes, you can say all the

right things, but you didn't what do you mean by that?

Because of the tone of your voice? And so he's saying,

God is an emotional god. The only reason you have emotions,

the good ones and the bad ones, is because you're

made in God's image. Human beings have emotions that none

of the animals have. We have a whole pentipley of

emotions because God is an emotional god. The Bible says

God gets happy. The Bible says God gets sad. He's

sad when he sees a rape, when he sees a molestation,

and he sees a war. God is sad when he

sees what people do to each other out of selfishness,

and the Bible says, God gets angry. That's why you

can get angry. You're made in God's image. The Bible says,

God gets jealous. Why because and that's why you get jealous,

Because when God sees you giving your love to something

else instead of him that belongs to him, he gets jealous.

The Bible says, God gets frustrated. He looks down and

he sees all of the stuff we're doing. He goes,

I told you not to do that, and you're doing

it anyway. It's gonna mess you up. He gets frustrated.

Now could God change it? Of course, he could turn

us all into puppets. But God's gonna just back out

of your life. Have it your way. I'm not going

to force you to love me. I'm not going to

force you to do the right thing. So you and

I make selfish decisions every day, and people get hurt.

That's why there's sin, that's why there's evil in the world,

because God gives us the freedom to choose. And so

God just says, well, I'll just back off. Let you

reap the results of your own own decision. But God says,

I'm an emotional god. God, Jesus dying on the cross

was an emotional scene, highly emotional. Jesus dying the cross

was emotionally agonizing to him. It was agonizing to God

the father watching his son die that way, but doing

it for your benefit. It was agonizing with the people

who are watching. It's an emotional thing, and God is

very emotional about you. Do you realize this? God? Just go, Oh,

I love you now. God loves you passionately, emotionally. God

has deep, deep, deep feelings for you. How much he

loves you. If you don't know how much he loves you,

look at the cross. I'm willing to die. I'm willing

to die for you. That's how much God has emotion

for you. And so God says, I want you. When

I have such emotion for you, I want you to

talk to me emotionally. Don't just do these little prayer

things where you read a prayer and there's no emotion

in it. Let me ask you. Does tone make a

difference and you make a request. Of course it does,

you know. I mean, how about guys, if you had

said to your future spouse on a date, you go,

like you to marry me. Oh please, I want you

to marry me. She go, buddy, If you can't say

it with a little bit more passion than that, forget it.

That ain't gonna happen. Do any of you remember when

you were little and somebody was tickling you and it

was fun at the start, and then it got too

much and when you wanted to stop taking you go

you stop tickling me. No, please stop tickling me. I

can't handle it anymore. And you are passionate of passion

intensity shows house up much. Something matters to you. Now

if you ask God about something, God, I really like this,

but you're not passionate about it. God go ww do

I know it's just a if you only pray about

it once, you're not willing to pray about it more

than once. And you never talked to God about God,

I really need this. I gotta have this, you know

I've got to have it. Then God goes, well, what

is this a wish or a whim or is it

really a true desire? And so the Bible says this,

here's the third thing Daniel did. Verse three. The second

part of it, He says, I began pleading with God

earnestly in prayer circle. The word pleading, pleading means to

ask with emotion. It's not cut and dry. It's more

than a mundane request. I'm asking with emotion. I'm pleading.

The Hebrew where there is pakash, it means an emotional request.

It's a serious seeking. It's searching with all your heart.

It's earnestly begging. It's I'm begging you. I'm begging you.

I'm begging you please, please please, I'm begging you please.

I'm down on my knees. I gotta have this. That's pleading.

God listens to pleading. Makes me think about a story

I heard a while back where as a kid, a

young kid who at Christmas time he wanted a Star

Wars watch and it was a really cool watch. I

had Yoda on it. He just and so he was

bugging his parents, Mom, I want this Star Wars watch

for Christmas, Dad, I want this Star Wars watch for Christmas.

He just keeps on and on and on, every conversation,

every meal, he's mentioning the Star Wars watch, and finally

his dad goes Johnny we got it. If you mentioned

this one more time, you're not gonna get the watch.

Smart kid backs off, doesn't doesn't do anything. About a

week later, they're having this the whole family sitting at dinner,

and the dad says, hey, you know what, it's good

for us to talk about the Bible. So everybody just

share your your favorite Bible verse, anything or Bible verse

that you know you could say. And so one of

the kids goes John three sixteen because everybody knows that

one for God so loved the world. And the teenager

goes John eleven thirty five. Jesus wept shortest verse in

the Bible. Anybody can memorize that two words, Jesus wept,

So okay, john John love the third right. Jesus wept

that his verse. So they're going around the room and

they come to Johnny and Johnny goes So they said, Johnny,

what's your favorite verse? He said, well, my favorite verse

would be Mark thirteen thirty seven, where Jesus said I

told you once and I sand to you again. Watch good, Yeah,

smart kid, Okay, that's what you get for going putting

your kid in saddle back Kids Ministry. They're gonna learn

Bible verses like that, watch as so you know he was.

He was already. Look at this verse in the Message paraphrase,

Daniels nine three says, I poured out my heart to God,

bearing my soul to God. Have you ever done that?

Have you ever poured out your heart to God? Have

you ever bared your soul to God? This is not

wimpy week praying. This is gut cease praying. This is

gut wrenching praying. I'm pouring out my soul to God. God.

I gotta have your help in this business. I gotta

have your help in this marriage. I've got to God.

I am telling you, I'm pouring out my heart. I am.

I am being authentic. I'm burying my soul. It's kind

of like Jacob wrestling with the Angel. I'm not gonna

let go until you bless me God. Now, when was

the last time you ever prayed like that, pouring out

your soul to God? Emotionally? I can tell you may

have forgotten, but I can tell you the last time

you prayed like that, As your pastor friend, spiritual coach,

the last time you prayed like that is when you

were in deep, deep pain. Because we don't pour out

our hearts to God like that when we're things are

going great and we're skipping the hills of Jerusalem picking

flowers and talking about peace, love and Bobby Sherman, you know,

just to have a happy day, smiling faith. No, you

pour out your God when you are in deep pain?

Is that the only time you pour out your heart

to God when you're in deep pain? Can you do

it any other time? This is called traying with emotion,

called quote crying out to God.

I am so grateful for that message by Rick, and

I hope you are too. And now here's Rick to

tell you how you can partner with daily Hope to

take the word of God to the world.

Today. I'd like to read a testimony that really blessed me.

It shows how even when you make mistakes, God's faithful

to forgive you, and that He's always working in your

life to bring about everything together for good in your life.

Not everything is good in your life, but God works

at all for good in your life. Now, this is

from a man who says he's a recovering addict, and

this is part of his story that starts when he

listened to a daily Hope podcast. Here's what he wrote

past Rick. A couple months ago, I started a twelve

step program. In working the steps and in turning my

addiction over to God, I searched out many sources for

daily inspirational, daily devotionals, daily meditations to help me reconnect

with the Lord as a support for the progress in

my recovery. Now, in what just seemed to be a

random chance, seemed to be I just came across your

Daily Hope podcast and I blindly just picked a message

from early July. I'm sure some of a lot of

other people have done that too. Well. The very first

one I listened to was on Roman seven, which is

all about why do I do the wrong things that

I don't want to do when I know what's wrong?

And what makes me do that? I can't believe that

was the first one you listened to. Well, knock me

over with a feather. It was a bolt of lightning

that I needed to hear, and it was followed by

tears of joy because the very next podcast, of course,

was Roman's eight, which is the solution to my dilemma.

That's right, folks. Roman seven explained the mess we're in.

Roman Zata explains how to get out of it. He says, Rick,

it was like a smack on the head by divine intervention.

So I joined a small group and I haven't missed

a week since and I love it. And I have

a weekly Bible study with a close friend who graciously

offered to help me. And I subscribe to your daily

devotional email, and I've continued to listen to your podcast

when I go for my morning walk. He says. The

spiritual growth that I've achieved in a relatively short period

of time is really nothing short of remarkable. It's a

miracle and it's a blessing, and it's helped me turn

my life around. I now understand why God allowed me

to suffer through all my addiction, and that the path

to recovery is through Jesus Christ. From the bottom of

my heart, Rick, thank you for all you do through him.

Well wow, wow wow. This testimony is a powerful reminder

of how God can take everything in our lives, the sins,

the failures, the hurts, the bad decisions, even destructive habits,

and guess what, God can even bring good out of them.

The Bible says, in all things, God works for the

good of those who love him. It doesn't say all

things are good, because not all things are good. But

in all things God is working for the good of

those who love him. That's Romans eight twenty eight. Now

this story is a beautiful example of Romans eight twenty

eight and that truth. Listen very closely. No matter what

we've done, I'll say it again, no matter what we've done,

we're never outside of God's master plan for our lives.

Your life is not random. In this case, God led

somebody Daily Hope podcasts just at the right moment to

hear exactly what he needed. Now, God could have used

any method. He could have used any person, He could

have used any podcasts, but God, in this instance, chose

to use Daily Hope. You know, friends, it's because of

your support, your prayers, and your giving that we're able

to make Daily Hope Bible teaching available to over thirty

five million people every month. So thank you, thanks a lot.

I mean this from the bottom my heart. Thank you

for your support. This man who is a recovering addict

was helped because you. You cared enough to support this ministry.

So let me just say it again. I don't ever

get tired of saying it. Thank you from the bottom

of my heart.

If you'd like to help support Pastor Rick in this

ministry with convenient, automated monthly giving, please go to Pastorrick

dot com or text the word hope to seven oh

three to oh nine, and when you do, we'll send

you a special welcome gift to say thanks again. That's

pastor Rick dot com. Or text the word hope to

seven oh three to oh nine, and we can't tell

you how much we appreciate your support. Thank you. We

hope you'll join us next time as we look into

God's word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored

by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.