DAVID: And I said Lord Jesus. You know why? Because when I talk about it you say I want that and when you say you want that that desire draws Him closer because that desire is a form of worship. And so I was in the room and I shut the door and I said I’m not leaving Jesus until you touch my life, until something happens. And I remember I had my fan in my room was on because it got very warm in that room. My fan was on. My Bible was open. My light was on so I can read the Bible and I had music playing in the background, soft worship music. And so I had set the atmosphere and I was ready to do everything that I knew to do to seek the face of God. So I go in and I start praying and I remember I got going and I was excited. I was filled with zeal and I had made that ultimatum very clear. Lord, I’m not leaving until You touch me. And so I’m praying and I’m praying and I’m praying and one hour goes by and nothing happened. How many of you know when you’re digging a well every shovel full is dirt until you hit water?
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
DAVID: And so I’m digging and I’m saying Lord, I’m praying. I’m praying. I’m praying. And that first hour was so discouraging to me because often I would do that. I would say Lord, I’m going to pray for one hour. I would pray. I felt like heaven had invaded my life and I would look up and maybe on the clock ten minutes had gone by. And how many of you have experienced that?
AUDIENCE: All of us!
DAVID: It’s because that’s the flesh. It’s what I was doing was in the flesh. I was putting forth my effort. So the second hour goes by. I said okay. I’m going to reach for the more melancholy aspects of my emotion and I’m going to cry. I’m going to weep. I’m going to seek Him. And what we do here you see it’s we try to guilt God into a response.
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
DAVID: Lord, don’t You hear me? Don’t you see me? Don’t you love me? We say Lord, don’t you love me. Can’t you hear me and we say it because we’re trying to manipulate Him in a way that He can’t be manipulated. He doesn’t respond to that. Do you know when I get a call on my cell phone and the call starts going bad I’ll often tell the person on the other line I’ll say listen, you’re not coming in clear. The call is breaking up. And what do they start doing? Most of the time they start yelling so that I can hear them. I say no, no the problem is not the volume, it’s the connection.
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
DAVID: When you’re praying we try to exude emotion. We exert our effort with emotion. You’re raising the volume. The volume’s not the issue. It’s the connection. And so that second hour had gone by where I’m praying that way and guess what happened? Nothing! Then I reached for the more aggressive, the more, the more, the more spiritual. I had read books on spiritual warfare. I’m mean I’m telling you if there was an adjective I took that adjective, attached it to a demon and rebuked it!
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
DAVID: The spirit of this, the spirit of that, the spirit of this goes, the spirit of that goes! And I’m praying against all of the things I could think of praying against. I’m going back to when I was 5. Lord, if there was anything when I was 5 years old blocking me. I’m doing the generational deliverance, all of these different things that I knew to do and I had got aggressive and I got angry and I said I’m not going to be you know subdued. I’m not going to be held back in the name of Jesus! And it’s good to pray like that when it’s spirit-led but I initiated it.
AUDIENCE: Wow.
DAVID: So finally that third hour goes by and nothing happened. And now, I’ll be honest with you, I started to regret my ultimatum.
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
