Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.
– Isaiah 64:1
Part of me wants to just keep reading through this whole chapter because this tone from the first verse just carries on. It’s a tone of desperation in prayer. Oh God, that you would rend the heavens and come down.
Isaiah 64:1 is a prayer of desperation.
The prayer is basically saying, God, without you, we are hopeless. We need you. We are desperate for you to do what only you can do. When you get to verse four, from of old, no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no, I have seen a God besides you who acts for those who wait for him, who trust in him. And when I read this chapter in Isaiah and I see this prayer of desperation, I’m challenged in my own life to pray like this, to pray with total desperation for God to do what only God can do.
I think about my life, my family, and the church I’m a part of… The city I live in, about my country. I think about the nations in every sphere of my life that I can think about in the world, that I can think about. We are desperate for God to do what only he can do. Even the simple things that I might think in my life on a daily basis, like fighting sin.
I need, I am desperate for God’s help today to not fall into temptation. My relationship with my wife and my kids, to love my wife as Christ loves the church, to lay down my life for her at every moment. I need Jesus to help me do that, to have the wisdom to shepherd each of my kids’ hearts, to love and serve them well at every moment.
Isaiah 64:1 reminds us God acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
And then in the work that I do, and this is true for any of us, this is John 15:5, Jesus saying, apart from me, you can do nothing. Which means we need a posture of desperation in our prayers, in our daily lives. And then when we think of broader things in the church and in the world, I think about my country. We are desperate for the mercy of God. We are desperate for God’s grace for God to bring about spiritual awakening.
I see that in my city where I live in metro Washington DC, I long to see God rend the heavens and come down and cause people to turn to him and trust in him. And then as we pray for the nations, when I think about praying today for the Mappila people of India, 10 and a half million of them who speak the Alam language in southern India, this Muslim people group, no known followers of Jesus.
That’s desperation. God rend the heavens and come down and cause the Mappila people to be reached with the good news of your grace. So let’s pray every day with desperation for God. Let’s acknowledge our total need for him in every way. And trust that he does act for those who wait for him. Those who trust in him, those who call out to him in faith and desperation for him.
Isaiah 64:1 reminds us God listens to our desperate prayers.
So let’s pray. Now. God, we confess in our lives right now that apart from your grace, your help, your strength, your provision, we can do nothing. You are our only hope. Oh God, in every facet of our lives, our families, our churches, our countries in the world, you are our only hope. And we praise you. Oh God, we praise you that you do act for those who wait for you, that you do here our desperate prayers.
You don’t turn a deaf ear to us. Jesus, we praise you for dying on a cross, rising from the grave that cur to the temple being torn into so that we could have access right now to you, oh God in prayer, to know that you hear us and you will answer according to your wisdom and your power and your love and your purposes in the world that are good for all those who trust in you.
This verse reminds us God is our only reliable hope.
So we pray, oh God, please rend the heavens and come down in what we might perceive as little ways today in our lives that are not little ways at all. Rend the heavens and come down and help us to resist sin and temptation today. Help us to love the people around us well today, to put others first… To love you with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We need your help to do that. Oh God. And God, we need your help in your church. We pray for the purification of your church. We pray that you would awaken us out of complacency and compromise. Help us to worship you with all of our hearts and souls and minds and strength. God, please bring about revival in your church. And God, we pray for spiritual awakening in our cities, in our communities, in our country. God, we pray we need you. We’re desperate for you, your hand, to work among us in salvation and repentance and confession and turning to you.
Prayer for the Mappila People
And God, we do pray for the Mappila people of Southern India… For this Muslim people group of over 10 million. Rend the heavens and come down and cause the gospel to spread to the Mappila people. We pray that they might be reached with the good news of your grace and your love… That they might be counted among those who wait for you, Jesus, who know you. God, we pray all of this with desperation for you and with confidence in you, with faith in you. Rend in the heavens and come down, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
