Prayer of Desperation

Our Daily Bread Podcast | Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.6 • 955 Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2011, Karey Packard and her daughter were packing boxes for a move to a new home. Suddenly, Karey collapsed, and her heart stopped—the beginning of a long nightmare. Doctors revived Karey, but her condition worsened through the night. Her husband, Craig, was told to call family to say final goodbyes. They prayed what Craig called, “a prayer of desperation.”

How often have we prayed a prayer of desperation in a crisis? Mary and Martha did. They sent a desperate message to Jesus: their brother Lazarus, “the one you love,” was gravely ill (John 11:3). When Jesus finally arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Martha, in anguish, said to Jesus: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 11:21). She knew Jesus could heal sick people but could not imagine His power to overcome death. Jesus, of course, raised Lazarus, a foreshadowing of His own resurrection weeks later.

Karey Packard had officially flatlined, yet miraculously God brought her back to life. In the stories of both Karey and Lazarus it’s easy to miss the point: God has purposes that we don’t know. He neither heals everyone nor brings all dead people back to life. But He gives us a transcending assurance: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (v. 25). As believers, whatever happens, we know we’ll be with Jesus. Maybe that makes our desperate prayers a little less desperate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jesus said to her,
0:02.2	Your brother will rise again.
0:05.1	John 11, verse 23.
0:09.5	Welcome to this daily encouragement from our daily bread.
0:13.8	Prayer of desperation was written by Kenneth Peterson and read by Wes Ward.
0:21.7	John chapter 11 verses 1 through 7 and 17 through 25.
0:28.6	Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
0:36.8	This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick,
0:39.9	was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.
0:45.6	So the sisters sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is sick. When he heard this, Jesus said,
0:53.5	This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory,
0:58.5	so that God's son may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
1:06.6	So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
1:12.8	And then he said to his disciples, let us go back to Judea.
1:18.1	On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
1:25.1	Now, Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha
1:30.4	and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
1:37.1	she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. Lord, Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.
1:52.1	Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
2:02.5	Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
2:06.9	The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.
2:14.4	Prayer of Desperation
	...

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