Whenever I find myself either struggling to pray or it feels like my prayers are focused solely on fixing a situation, I go back to a simple prayer I have learned to pray over and over again.
“Lord, make me hungry for you. Give me a greater desire for you. Increase my longing for you.” I learned to do that following a profound experience of the Holy Spirit I had more than 24 years ago. I understood the simple truth that “no one can come to me [Jesus] unless the Father who sent me draws them” (John 6:44). So I began a regular practice of asking the Father to draw me. And it has radically changed my life.
When I get caught up in the day to day busyness of life or work, and start to neglect my relationship with Him, or let spiritual disciplines slip, I pray that prayer. Whenever I feel a disconnectedness from God, I use that prayer again. As I pray it, my longing for Him intensifies, and He fills me again with His presence.
We, like Adam, find it easier to run from His presence. This simple prayer brings me back. If you are going through a season of spiritual disconnect, or a dry spell, I encourage you to pray “Lord, make me hungry.” No matter where you are in your walk with the Lord, if you begin praying that pray things will change!
One of my spiritual heroes, David, once prayed: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.” Despite David being one of the worst sinners (by our hierarchy of sin) on the pages of Scripture, God called him a “man after my own heart.” I think it had something to do with his hunger for God.
–Jonathan Graf is the publisher of Prayer Connect and a popular speaker on prayer.
