We received a prayer request recently – from a person who said that despite everything they had, somehow, they were “dying inside”.  How do you deal with that feeling?  

I was sitting next to an older man, recently, in the bus and I thought I would just love to know your life story. Yet through the anonymity of the internet so many people come to our website, www.christianityworks.com and ask for prayer for things in their lives that (in most cases) they could never talk to anyone else about. And it never ceases to amaze me how great their need is.

This week, anonymously, I’d like to share some of those with you starting with someone who writes, “I’m just dying inside.”

I always remember the story of a young doctor who used to visit wealthy houses in a suburb, near where I used to live. And he said that, it doesn’t matter how many houses he went into, all these large wealthy people, in big houses, he said, ‘Time after time after time, in almost all of them, there was some form of tragedy or abuse or drug abuse or marriage breakdown’. And I guess, that’s the thing, isn’t it? At the train station or the bus stop, you just don’t know.

You look at a person and you see a blank face and you think ‘what happened to them yesterday or last night or today? What’s going on in their hearts? What are they feeling right now – joy or pain or boredom or emptiness or loss or gain? You don’t know. And sadly, so often, no one cares either.

It’s the same with us too. We go out there in life, we may have had an argument or a hurt or a pain or you maybe feeling desperately, desperately lonely and we go out to the bus stop or the train station or to work and we put the face on that hides what’s going on in our hearts.

When people send prayer requests to our website www.christianityworks.com, it’s interesting how the anonymity of the internet allows people to be much more open and frank with what’s going on in their lives. In a way, that’s quite different to face-to-face contact, where they would be much more inhibited about talking about themselves.

This week, on A Different Perspective, I’d like to walk through some of the common types of prayer requests we get (quite anonymously, of course). Not talking about anyone’s names or particular circumstances but just look through some of those things because, to me, those many prayer requests and kind of like a cross-section of what’s going on in the lives of the people at my bus stop and my train station.

One of the ones that we often get, and this is a typical example, is the sense of “I’m falling, I’m plagued by dread and doubt and depression. I’ve stopped having contact with people and I’m afraid of being judged”. Now recently, I had one like that from a person who said, “I’m just dying inside”, and this person identified themselves as someone who actually believed in Jesus Christ. They identified themselves as a Christian.

I wonder how many people feel like they are dying inside? Despite all the worldly goods and things we have around us – whether they have ever met Jesus before or whether they are Christians – they live in this centreless, materialistic world with more choices than we can poke a stick at. And yet, they have this sense that they’re dying inside. It’s so sad to see people to be surrounded by all the good things they could ever want, every comfort, every luxury and yet still, to be dying inside.

All sorts of things promise a new life and a new beginning. And I tried a lot of them before I became a Christian and they’re okay for a while. But ultimately, they lead to disappointment. They don’t work. Religion doesn’t work. I love the fact that Jesus specialised in people who were dying inside.

The prostitute, this woman who is so despised, yet obviously, still had a business. Obviously, there were men in the society who were using her and paying for the privilege. But this prostitute, who just kind of saw Jesus and He encouraged her and He stood up for her when the religious leaders wanted to belittle her and to kick her out.

The demon possessed man, the Gerasene demoniac. This man who was like an animal, living in a graveyard amongst the gravestones and Jesus went and touched him.

All sorts of people; weirdos and unhealthy people. Jesus went and healed them. But something more than that … there was compassion. There was a reality an authenticity, a Jesus just wanted to put His arms around these people and love them.

I remember a time in my life when I drove a large flash car and lived in a huge house with gold taps. And was so full of my own self importance as an International Consultant, that sat with Boards and CEO’s of large Corporations. And the first time I met Jesus, under a tree, after a Church service (I got to tell you, I hadn’t been to a Church for years other than the odd wedding or funeral), I went to this Church service and I went out afterwards and sat down under a tree and for the first time – I encountered life.

When I gave my life to Jesus it was like I was a little balloon full of helium, you know, it was like I was floating. It was the most awesome experience of my life. And it wasn’t until after I did that, that I could look back on my life and think, there I was with the big car and the big house and the self-importance but all along, deep inside, I had a sense of being an impostor, a sense of dread and doubt and depression. Just like this person (who sent this prayer request to us last week), afraid of being judged, I wanted to be so high and mighty. But inside, there was a secret fear and so I put on a strong exterior, a strong face.

That stuff is completely, completely gone. Why? What happened? Because over the last ten years, I have spent hours and hours and hours, quietly, in the presence of God – praying, listening, reading His word. Just sitting quietly to hear what He had to say; and tasting His goodness, seeing His hand on my life; feeling the blessing of His goodness all around me and what He did; and how He interacted with me as He puts His spirit inside each one of us.

And the greatest thing; the most important thing for me was (over a period of many years of spending time with Him), finally coming to grips with the fact that all my failures, all of them, were paid for by Jesus on the cross.

And today, I know I have a right standing with Him. There’s no dread, no doubt, no depression, no fear of being judged because in Jesus Christ, God accepted me. In Jesus Christ, God accepts me and in Jesus Christ, God accepts you.

We need never, ever, feel as though we are dying inside. And the reason, quite plainly, is this – because Jesus has already done the dying for us, because Jesus has already suffered the pain of all our failures and inadequacies, and He just waits. He longs to spend hours and hours and hours with you and with me, quietly, beautifully, gently pouring His love and His grace and His blessing and His goodness into our very soul and spirit and being.

We need never… ever again feel as though we are dying inside.

One of the most common prayer requests that we receive basically goes like this “I’m so lonely”.  Where do you go, who do you turn to?

It never ceases to amaze me how we can be surrounded by people and yet, still feel lonely. That’s probably because loneliness has nothing to do with how physically close we are to other people. It’s more about how emotionally connected we feel. I remember in a restaurant, recently, having dinner with my wife and there was an older couple at the next table, hardly talking and completely bored looks on their faces. It’s so sad, isn’t it?

Loneliness can strike anyone, anytime, anywhere. We receive so many requests for prayer on our www.christianityworks.com website and one of the most common requests has to do with loneliness.

I’d like to share one of those requests with you today (quite anonymously of course), so we can look at the whole issue of loneliness – from A Different Perspective.

Just the other day, we received this prayer request from a University student who’s away from home studying overseas.

I ask you to pray for me for comfort from the Lord as I’m feeling really lonely just at the moment. I’m away from my family and friends overseas. And I’d ask you to pray for renewed strength and confidence for me over this coming year to lean more on the Lord, to lift up my worries to Him. Thank you so much.

And he signs his name.

It’s so natural, isn’t it? So real and everyday, this problem of feeling lonely. Me, well, I actually enjoy my own company a lot. I don’t like to have a lot of people around me. I’m happy to spend days on my own reading and praying and thinking and walking. But even so, I still (sometimes) feel lonely.

Now, we’re not all like that. Some people depend a lot more on company. Some people, to tell you the truth, are over dependent on other people and that’s not healthy. But whatever our balance is, whatever our fit is, we can all end up lonely. I know people who call themselves Christians who feel desperately lonely.

Now, in part you can understand that. We all need human company – women need female friends, guys need their mates, we all need people around us. But there’s another part of me that is so profoundly sad when I hear that.

There are two promises of Jesus that I’d like to look at today, in this context of loneliness. The first one, He made to His disciples, He said, “It’s good for you that I go away, because if I don’t go, the promised Holy Spirit won’t come.” And the second one was, He said to them, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

You put those two together and really what He’s saying is, just the way that He was physically present with those disciples, a couple of thousand years ago, by sending His Holy Spirit (and this took me a while to come to grips with. I have to tell you, the notion that when I believe in Jesus the Spirit of God comes to dwell in me), so He was saying … just as He was present physically with those disciples two thousand years ago, today, He is spiritually present with His disciples, with those of us who say, “Jesus I want to follow you”, here and now. Just as real, just as amazing.

Sometimes I hear people talking about praying as though it were a chore. I just struggle to believe that. Jesus said:

It is good for you that I go away, I will never leave you or forsake you, I will send my Spirit. He said, “It’s good for you, it’s almost better for you that I’ve gone away physically so that you can experience me spiritually through the Holy Spirit.

On the one hand, people are desperately lonely. And yet on the other hand, they’re hungering for some authentic spiritual experience – something that’s more than pews, and choirs, and stain glass windows. You know, something that is real and alive. And so sadly, so many people never put the two together.

We can do that. We can, in faith, put the two together – our problem of loneliness and our hunger for an authentic spiritual experience. Because if Jesus said, it’s good for you that I go away because I’m going to send my Holy Spirit to dwell in you, to make My home in you, through My Spirit … if that is true, if we can believe in that (just with the smallest bit of faith), Jesus wants to do something here. Jesus wants to show the lonely that they don’t have to be lonely anymore.

I remember being desperately lonely when I was going through marriage breakdown, ten years ago. And Jesus did something in me and just gave me that little bit of faith that I needed to believe that He is here, right now. That the moment we say, “Jesus I believe in you,” He sends His Holy Spirit to dwell inside of us – today, tomorrow, forever and ever because He will never leave us or forsake us.

I believe that I can come boldly before the throne of grace. And that I’ll find God’s help with exactly the thing that I need at the time that I need it.

When we have a desperate hunger after human company that just isn’t being satisfied, maybe you’re there now, maybe this is something that you’ve got to tuck away for the future, if only we would just hunger first after God’s company, just as much. In fact, I don’t think that until we’ve been drenched in God’s company, in God’s presence, we’re going to be any good company to anyone else.

And in the same way, I don’t think we can really enjoy other peoples’ company (the full and rich thing that relationships with other people have to offer), until we’ve been so hungry for company that we’ve found in the company of Jesus Christ. That we’ve found the joy of that quite beautiful relationship with Jesus Christ, that can sustain us through every high and every low, and everything that this earth has to throw at us.

So often, Jesus allows us to wander in a lonely wilderness to give us the space to discover Him. And maybe, if today, you are desperately lonely, or you know someone who is desperately lonely, maybe today is the day that He is speaking to you and saying, “The reason I allow this loneliness is so in the midst of it all, you would hear my quite still voice. In the midst of it all, you’d notice I’m waiting for you. I’m here, I’m with you. I so want to have a relationship with you.”

For me (for my part), as I look back on that time in the middle of loneliness, where I got to discover Jesus and have a relationship with Him, I know that I could not be the husband that I am for my wife, Jacqui, today, if I hadn’t first discovered Him. I know that I wouldn’t enjoy the fullness of our relationship, if I hadn’t been lonely and bumped into Jesus in the middle of that. And I know, I couldn’t love her and honour her and bless her with who I am unless first, I discovered who Jesus was. Unless first, I let Him change me, take out some of the rubbish that was swimming round inside me.

I’m not perfect, nor are you, none of us are. Some days, I’m just not your perfect husband. Some days, I’m grumpy and tired. But you know something, most days, I’m not. Most days, I get to enjoy the life that Jesus gave me and enjoy the relationships that He has brought me because of that lonely dark time in the wilderness when there was just One Light. And that light was called Jesus Christ!

God has a plan. That plan is to bless us. And when we are starving and hungering for company and there’s just nobody around, there is – Jesus is! And He’s waiting.

Sickness is a fact of life.  Doesn’t matter who we are, what we do, what we believe, ultimately our body is going to give way.  Then what?

The reality is, that some people aren’t well. We all get sick, sometimes it’s just a cold, or the flu for a couple of days and we feel miserable, but other times it can be much worse. My Mother, who’s seventy-five years old, just had shingles, which is an incredibly painful disorder and a bit dicey at that age. She’s out of the woods now and on the mend.

I, for one, am a shocking patient. I’m so active and out there doing things, that within about half a day of getting sick, I’ve had enough. I just want t get back on my feet. Fortunately, I’m a pretty healthy beast so it doesn’t happen too often. But when we’re sick, it’s easy to see the rest of the world getting on with life and we feel like we’ve been left behind or deserted.

At our website www.christianityworks.com, lots of people come and ask for prayer. Often, we have people ask for prayer, either for themselves or for family, or friends in times of sickness. It’s a very common reason why people ask for prayer. A couple that just came in this other week; was to continue to pray for someone who was involved in a tragic motorcycle accident (just recently). And to pray for a friend who was in hospital with a critical condition of pneumonia. They asked us to pray for full recovery for him and that Jesus would give him the strength to fight this.

It happens you know, people have accidents, and it happens so quickly, a motorcycle, a car. I remember when I was younger, my young two-year old son reached up and caused me to pour boiling water over myself and over him. It was just a normal everyday morning and within a split second, it all changed, and boiling water was all over my face.

Sickness can be so unexpected. Everything is going fine, we’re just drifting along and then the doctor tells you … you have cancer or your husband has a heart attack. We feel so helpless, so lost. We go into shock and when that sinks in, despair, and anger, and all sorts of different emotions. Or there’s the person suffering from chronic pain, arthritis, back pain, all sorts of disorders, or mental disorders – both sufferers and carers. How can a loving God let this happen?

Come on, how can God let these sorts of things happen to people? Then we look around at all the other people and think, “Well, we used to be like that. We used to have a normal life-like that until, until this happened.” And it hurts so much. People pay a bit of attention to us in the first week or so, and then they just get on with their lives. You even watch a high-profile Christian preacher on television and they’re talking about how to succeed and stuff. Or you listen to some joker on the radio and you think, “Well, it’s okay for you, God’s with you but what about me? I’m sick?” Got the picture?

My hunch is … this is pressing a few buttons out there. God seems to be doing stuff everywhere else, except right here where I need him at the moment. That’s how we tend to feel so often when we feel sick. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever had this sense of abandonment and, “Well, what’s going on in my life? How long is this going to last? How long is it going to hurt? How long am I going to be disabled?”

Imagine what it must be like to be perfectly healthy and fit one minute and a quadriplegic the next, for the rest of your life? That would take an enormous amount of adjustment – take an enormous amount of courage.

So, whether we have a serious disease or whether we have the cold, or flu, or feel miserable, sometimes we get this sense we have been left alone and deserted. I’d like to shine just a little bit of light into that, with a very simple statement “Jesus, Jesus specialises in sick people”. It’s not the “hoi faloitin” preachers He hung around with; it wasn’t the wealthy businessmen.

When they accused him of hanging out with the flotsam and jetsam of society, you know what He said? He said, “Look, the physician came to heal the sick people not the ones who are already well”. Jesus specialised, specialised in sick people.

You know how we get this funny thing when we’re sick and we’re crook, and we’re lying on the couch or the bed, and we’re thinking “Jesus can’t possibly be here with me. He must be with that fancy preacher out there, or He must be with that wealthy Christian business person out there. That’s where Jesus is, He’s not with me.” Exactly the opposite is true, exactly!

You read just one of the four historical accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Just pick one. Mark’s the shortest one, it’s a two to two and a half hour read and have at look at who Jesus spent his time with. And it wasn’t the people that we expected Him to spend His time with. It was the sick people – the ones in the lonely place, in the nursing home, and the hospital, and the bedroom, and the lounge room – so alone.

When we’re sick Jesus chooses to be with us in that place. Now, we can know that in our heads. We can hear some guy say that on the radio, we can hear that, read that, write that a million times. But all of a sudden we get sick (when the doctor tells us we have skin cancer, when the doctor says you’ve got five times the risk of having a heart attack because of your blood disorder), all of a sudden when the reality of sickness hits us – the reality of who Jesus is and who He wants to spend His time with, and His compassion, His grace, and His desire to bless us in the middle of sickness – all of a sudden that disappears out the window.

Maybe you’re sick right now and maybe you need to hear this right now – Jesus Christ is in that place with you. And maybe God’s plan, the reason that you’re listening to this program today, maybe God’s plan is just to tuck that away in your heart. For one day, when you might need it. To tuck away the reality that Jesus Christ spent His time with people who are marginalized, people who are hurting, people who were alone and people who were sick, He healed some of them.

And some of them He healed in such an amazing way but others He didn’t. Why does that happen? How come God does some amazing miracles in some people’s lives and not in others? If I could answer that I’d be God and I’m not. I don’t know why God chooses to heal some people and not others. I just don’t know, but He does, and He cares.

And when we’re sick, He is more powerfully, profoundly, amazingly, intimately, personally, beautifully present with us than we can ever imagine. That’s a blessing. That is an enormous blessing! Jesus is a healer.

The Old Testament says that He is a God who heals our every disease and He’s the lover of our soul. He’s there to be with us when we’re sick.

I know that when someone has cancer and when someone has a serious health issue, they can be Christians, they can pray for healing but it is not always God’s plan that they should be healed. We all die eventually, our bodies all give out eventually. And the only instance in which that won’t happen is if Jesus Christ comes back before it’s my time to die or yours. That’s the reality of the life we live, we are mortal, we will die physically but never spiritually.

Spiritually we will live on, either in the presence of God or in the outer darkness called hell away from Him. Jesus is in this place when you are sick.

And Father, I pray for anyone who is sick today, that you will just give them the most amazing sense of your presence with them right now. Father, I pray for their complete healing in their body, their soul, their mind, everything that’s wrong with them. And above all Lord, whatever your will is in terms of this person’s health and future and life, I pray that you’ll bless them with the knowledge of your presence that is indescribable. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Poverty is a reality for much of the world’s population.  But even for the wealthy – poverty can strike anytime.  But no matter how poor – God is in that place with you. 

Some days – we just feel.  That’s it.  Stop the world.  I want to get off.  Well, when we’re at the end of our tether, exactly where is God.  

Have you ever found yourself completely at the end of your tether? You just don’t have anything left. You just don’t know which way to turn or what to do. It’s a desperate place, a confusing place, a fearful place and a place where God is ready and waiting to touch you, to bless you and bring you peace.

We get a lot of prayer requests at our www.christianityworks.com website from people who are at the end of their tether. I’d like to share one of these with you today, anonymously of course, because my hunch is that there are so many people who are just struggling with this, who are at the end of their tethers.

This is the prayer request that we received just recently from a woman.

I just had an uncontrollable anger situation between my husband and our teenage son. My husband had come to visit and a heated argument started over our son’s attitude to choices of sport, and it resulted in a hard slap across my son’s face. Then he left again in one of our cars whilst he’d lost his license for drink driving. I feel so confused and sad and upset and unhappy. When is my husband going to control his anger? When is he going to control his drink?

I’m so fed up. When are our three boys going to have a controllable loving father? We’ve been separated so often now. I know these boys are just so desperately wanting a happy and balanced and controllable family. Will you please pray that I keep falling and picking myself up? I just don’t know what’s going to happen this year.

It’s the anniversary of my Dad’s passing away, its twelve months ago and it’s been so hard. I had an accident from falling off a horse, which left me immobile for the last six months. And with all of these going on, no family, no support, barely any friends, I’m so lonely. I just don’t know where I’d be without God. Please pray for us.

This woman is at the end of her tether. She’s nowhere to turn except God. And things are happening over and over again, like you can never break out, like you know that movie Groundhog Day. You never escape, it’ll never change. Here is this man who has a drinking problem and a problem with anger over and over again back together, separated, back together, separated. The boys have arguments … you know, it is so hard when we feel that we have problems that just keep repeating themselves and we can’t break out of them.

What’s life look like at the end of your tether? What are the things that keep going round and round and over and over again – kids or spouse or work or addictions or loneliness or fear or pain? So many people these days suffer from multiple alienations, not just one but two or three at the same time. And it drives them to the edge; it drives them to the end of their tether.

The Apostle Peter wrote a wonderful passage in one of his letters. If you have a Bible, you can go and look at it sometime. It’s in the book First Peter Chapter 5 verse 7. It’s almost right at the end of the Bible, 1 Peter 5:7. He writes this, it’s beautiful:

Cast all your anxiety on God because he cares for you. Cast all your anxiety on God because he cares for you.

Now, I always kind of thought of anxiety as being a twentieth century or a twenty-first century word, you know. It seems to be a symptom of the speed we live life at, the technology, the pressure, the emails, the phone calls, the here and now. I always thought of anxiety like that. But here two thousand years ago, Peter the Apostle talks about anxiety. He talks about being at the end of your tether, about being anxious and threatened and not being able to cope and just not being able to deal with any more.

“Stop the world, I want to get off”, is what Peter was talking about here two thousand years ago. I’m sure there were angry husbands. I’m sure there were drinking problems. I’m sure there were alienated teenagers. And on top of all that, he was writing at the time to a Church that was being persecuted in a brutal way – Christians were being killed for their faith. And he writes “Cast all your anxiety on Him.” Why? “Because He cares for you.”

My hunch is that when we’re anxious – when we’re at the end of our tether, when we are dealing with alcoholics and angry people and all these horrible things that happen in our relationships and our lives – the last thing we ever expect is … that God cares for us. He seems to care for successful people. He seems to care for people that are doing well.

You look at other people and you think, “Well, God’s looking after them. They haven’t got a problem in their lives.” Of course, the reality is we don’t see the problems in their lives most of the time. And we look at our own little dung heap that were scratching around in, we look at our own little lot and we think, “Well, where the heck is God for me?”

I actually sent this woman an email just the other day to encourage her and say, I personally will be praying for her husband. Because you know something, the Bible says that the prayer of a righteous man achieves much. I have an enormous faith in God. I believe that as I pray for this man – I don’t know where he lives, I don’t know what his name is, I don’t know what he looks like – but I know that God does. I know that as I sit down in prayer and say, “Father I just pray for this man, and I pray for this relationship”, I know God can and will do mighty things.

Whether you’re at the end of your tether now or whether this is something that you need to store away for the future, I’d ask you to let this simple truth sink in to your soul. When you have no other options; when you have no other place to turn; when you just can’t take it anymore; when the past just keeps repeating itself over and over again; when everybody else is turning against you; right at that point … Jesus Christ is standing next to you waiting, supporting, believing, and calling you. Calling you with the words:

Come to me all you who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest. I’m lowly and humble of heart and my yoke is light. (Matthew 11:28)

Right at the point where you can’t take any more, Jesus Christ is in that place with you to take the load off your back. That’s His desire. He is a God of the practical. He is a God of grace. He is a God of love. He is a God that will reach each one of us at the lowest point, especially when we feel like God’s looking after everyone else except us.

If you are at the end of your tether, I’m going to pray for you right now.

Father I pray for each person here, right now who for whatever reason, whatever their circumstances, whatever is going on in their space, because of that they are at the end of their tether.

Jesus, you are a God who specialises in the end of the tether. You’re a God who comes to meet us in those dark places. Put your arms around us to pour your Spirit over us, to comfort us, to bind us up, to heal us, to lift us up, to give us a new life and give us a new hope.

Lord we believe that, we believe that you are a God of healing, a God of future, a God of grace.

Father, I pray each for person who’s at the end of their tether. Lord, I pray that you would pour your goodness and your grace and your peace and your comfort into their hearts right now.

Father, I pray that in the name of Jesus, I pray that you would bring people around them, to hold them close, to comfort them, to help them in the healing process.

And I pray that right now through the words that we’ve spoken together today, you would give each person a sense of the wonderful future and destiny that you have planned for them.

Father, I pray that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.