[1]Editor’s Note: This is an adapted excerpt from “Marked by Prayer [2],” released by B&H Publishing this month.
Plenty of other things in life can make us feel helpless. A flat tire in the middle of rush hour while it’s raining. Being given a task to complete by our boss that no one else has been able to figure out. Looking at our bank account and knowing there is more month to cover than there is money in the bank. Approaching storms, relationships, injustices, and a variety of other items could be added to this list. The point is we have all faced things in life that leave us feeling helpless. If this has not happened to you yet, get ready. It will.
When we look at the lives of people who are marked by prayer, we tend to find a defining life event that made them feel helpless. This event can be a cancer diagnosis for themselves or a spouse, a child born with a disability, a prodigal child or a work challenge. Most of these events relate to someone they love or trust with that event testing that love and trust. Since we all face situations that cause us to feel helpless, the issue is more about how we respond to the event rather than about the event itself. Two people can face the same challenge, both feeling helpless, but one feeling hopeless while the other is filled with hope.
People marked by prayer understand that hopelessness can be avoided. They live with the realization that God can always be found, and as long as He is present, there is hope.
Helpless King David
David dug himself into a helpless situation. He had faced many challenges in his lifetime including a giant and a father-in-law who was out to get him. He had fought many battles, and now his troops were fighting yet another one. Instead of being in the field, we find him staying behind in one of his palaces. He spied the spouse of one of his elite warriors bathing. David would have known she was married since she was introduced to him as the wife of Uriah. He summoned her and they committed adultery. Bathsheba discovered she was pregnant, and since her husband was deployed, David was obviously the father of the child.
David arranged for Uriah the mighty warrior to get some leave, thinking he would spend that time with Bathsheba so the child would appear to be his. That did not happen, and Uriah was sent back to the front lines with a sealed letter. True to the directions in the letter, Joab sent Uriah into the fiercest part of the battle where he was killed (see 2 Samuel 11).
Thinking he had covered all his tracks, David then took Bathsheba as his wife. Enter Nathan who confronted David about his adultery and murder conspiracy. In 2 Samuel 12, we are told that David would be forgiven, but the child yet to be born would not survive. After birth the infant became ill, so David fasted. After seven days the child died.
[3]Imagine those seven days as David prayed and fasted, knowing that the child was ill because of his own sin. David was helpless at that point. He could do nothing to change the situation or hide from his sin. Out of that helplessness David turned to God. Where else could he turn? No other help was available. He was king, but the crown on his head and accolades received were useless now. Most would view David as a resourceful and capable person, able to get himself out of some tight situations. He even played like he had gone mad and was able to escape from the hands of Achish (see 1 Samuel 21:12-15). No escapes were present for David to get himself out of the mess he had created.
Out of that season of helplessness, David wrote Psalms 32 and 51, two of the most read and studied psalms. Both psalms point to our need for help when it comes to our sin. We are not sure how many of the other psalms came out of this experience, but we know these two did at least and can imagine that this experience profoundly impacted how David dialogued with God moving forward.
Other Bible personalities experienced helplessness: King Hezekiah in Isaiah 38, the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15, Peter while imprisoned in Acts 12, and Paul and Silas while in prison in Philippi in Acts 16. In and of their own power, no actions would change their situation. They needed help and found it in the only One who could help. That helplessness drove them to trust God. They were not hopeless but helpless, unable to find a resolution in and of themselves.
When we are helpless
When we read about the experiences of people marked by prayer, we eventually find them sharing about a time in which they felt helpless and embraced it.
Those helpless moments make us useful vessels for God’s purposes. We do not fully understand the power and promise of prayer until after we become helpless because that helplessness pushes us to fully depend on God. Helplessness also invites us to seek His heart and not ours. In those helpless moments we learn to follow Him, staying in step as He leads, and we learn that our hearts can and will deceive us. Once we align with His heart, we find contentment.
This alignment begins with accepting that we are helpless. Salvation is the ultimate expression of helplessness as we come to Christ acknowledging our inability to rescue ourselves. But salvation is just a first step. As we face other challenges, we find ourselves needing to accept that we are helpless once again. Freedom is found in embracing our helplessness because we are turning to the One who is able to provide the needed aid. We grow in our trust of God as a result, which is manifest in our prayers.
G. Dwayne McCrary is the author of “Marked by Prayer [2],” released Feb 2026 by B&H Pubhsling. He serves as manager of Adult Ongoing Bible Studies at Lifeway and as an adjunct professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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