Do your prayers resemble last-minute cries more than first-response chats? You’re not alone in calling out to God in life’s pitch-black moments and wondering if He’s listening.
Rachel Wojo is on the show sharing the powerful secrets of the Bible’s eleventh-hour pleas of men and women in her book Desperate Prayers. Each prayer is a simple three-word prayer that will deepen your trust and affirm your heart that it’s best to be you before God.
Rachel vulnerably shares her heartbreaking experiences of loss while pointing you to your Father. Her prayer journey and promising principles will guide you from frenzied desperation to dependent faith. Join us to realize that praying in a panic can create a powerful pathway to peace.
Summary
In this episode of the Love Offering Podcast, host Rachael Adams engages in a heartfelt conversation with Rachel Wojo about the significance of prayer in our lives. They explore the journey of understanding prayer, the simplicity of three-word prayers, and the challenges of prayer perfectionism. Rachel shares personal stories of answered prayers, including a miraculous financial provision, and emphasizes the importance of cultivating a relationship with God through prayer. The discussion also touches on the desperate prayers found in the Bible and how they relate to our own struggles today. Ultimately, the episode encourages listeners to approach prayer with honesty and openness, trusting in God’s love and sovereignty.
Takeaways
Prayer can be simple and powerful.
Desperation often leads us to depend on God.
Three-word prayers can encapsulate deep meaning.
Prayer perfectionism can hinder our communication with God.
God sees and hears our prayers, even in desperation.
The stories of desperate prayers in the Bible are relatable.
Answered prayers can build our faith.
God’s love is constant, even in unanswered prayers.
Prayer is an offering of love back to God.
Cultivating a relationship with God through prayer is essential.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
01:32 The Evolution of Prayer: From Superficial to Deep
03:28 Cultivating Faith Through Life’s Storms
05:29 The Power of Three-Word Prayers
08:56 Simplicity in Prayer: A Beautiful Conversation with God
11:34 Overcoming Prayer Perfectionism
14:13 Drawing Inspiration from Desperate Prayers in the Bible
18:47 Answered Prayers: Stories of God’s Faithfulness
26:16 Encouragement for the Desperate
29:43 The Biblical Concept of Love in Prayer
30:44 What Rachel Wojo is Loving Right Now
32:21 Closing Prayer and Conclusion
34:35 New Chapter
Transcript
Rachael Adams (00:00.962)
Well, hi, Rachel, and welcome back to the Love Offering podcast. I’m so happy to have you again.
Rachel Wojo (00:05.816)
Thank you for asking me to be here. I am honored. I appreciate you so much. And the love offering is such a beautiful place.
Rachael Adams (00:15.886)
Well, thank you. So the last time in case listeners didn’t tune in last time, you were here to talk about how a little healing goes a long way. And so today, we’re talking about your book, Desperate Prayers, and I had the honor of reading an early copy of it and endorsing it. And I just want everybody to know that it is fantastic, well-written, and relatable, but more than your book, Rachel, you are just such a special person to me in my life. I’ve seen you model prayer so well and so beautifully. You’ve prayed over me on multiple occasions, and in fact, God has answered many of those prayers, and so I just want people to know that about you. This is not just a message that you’re writing about; it’s something that you are living, so just admire that in you and be inspired by that in you and so I’d like to start today’s conversation by just talking about prayer in general. Has this always been easy for you or an integral part of your life?
Rachel Wojo (01:14.594)
No, definitely not. When I was young, I was always, you know, my parents raised me in church and I was always focused on being a good Christian. I wanted to be a good Christian and so as a kid and a teenager, I was very, I was a journaler and, but I will just tell you Rachel that all of that was basically a checkoff list. I didn’t have a depth of understanding. It was as mature as I was at that time. So I don’t think it was inappropriate, but I look back now and go, wow, I sure had a lot to learn in the area of prayer. I think so much of it was structured and I thought that God wanted to hear, I needed to keep prayer requests lists and that God wanted to hear certain things from me and he had expectations in prayer and yeah when I have a special needs child who was given a terminal diagnosis my prayers shifted so much so thank you for asking that question it was definitely not always the way that I have been.
Rachael Adams (02:37.442)
Yeah, I’m growing and you’re actually helping me grow in it and that’s why I’m just so excited to know you and to share about this book. So your main tagline for your ministry is cultivating faith to weather life’s storms. That’s basically the heart of your ministry and you mentioned your daughter Taylor but how has your faith been cultivated through the storms in your own life?
Rachel Wojo (03:01.91)
Without the storms, I would say that I thought I could exist independently of God, from God. I would stiff arm him a bit when hard things came my way and try to act like a little girl who wants to do things by herself. When my oldest daughter was little, she used to say to her daddy, I wanna do my, myself, daddy and all by myself. And isn’t that how we are? Like so many times we are looking at God going, but I want to do it all by myself. And that’s really not what we want. So it was quite a process for me to learn that that’s not really what I wanted. But the Lord has just shown me how to walk with Him and commune with Him. enter in prayer conversation that is intimate and beautiful and ongoing and all of the things that revive us and I don’t want to live any differently. I don’t want to live dependent on myself. I want to live dependent on God because I’ve lived a life that shows that’s the best place for me. So what I’ve found though is that desperation is usually what sends us to that dependence on God. And that certainly was the case for me in my life.
Rachael Adams (04:38.488)
Yeah, it has been for me as well and you know I think sometimes we kind of over complicate what a prayer life should look like and I think that’s what I appreciate so much about your book because you focus on these three word prayers. So I’d love for you to give us an example of one and how a simple three word prayer creates a powerful impact.
Rachel Wojo (04:59.156)
Yeah. So each chapter of Desperate Prayers has just a tiny little three -word prayer. The first one that comes to mind is, God help me. God help me. And I think the reason why these three -word prayers encapsulate so much is that when you say, God help me, you’re saying, first of all, that you are honoring God, that you recognize who He is. And then when you say, help, you’re recognizing, okay, need something here. I need something more than I can provide for myself. I need divine intervention in this situation. And then by saying the word me, you’re just admitting I’m… I surrender to you Lord. And so that that three -word prayer, even though it’s just three words and it’s very simple, it actually encapsulates so much depth because we’re recognizing that God is God and we are not and we need his help. And so each chapter throughout the book tackles this little three word prayer, God heal me, God hold me, God reassure me. And I feel like those prayers can just really solidify our hearts because our lives are so complicated. And you and I, you know, we share family life and we share businesses we’re running and all of these complications of life on this planet. To have prayer also be complicated just feels like too much. You know, it feels like, wow, I can’t do that. I can’t do one more thing. And so to simplify it down to just, God help me, it makes you realize, all right, this doesn’t, prayer doesn’t have to be complicated.
It can be just a beautiful conversation between you and God. And I think you and I talked about the last time I was on the love offering how in the mornings when I start praying, often in the morning first thing I open my eyes and I’m like, okay, Lord, you’ve got a plan for me today. Before my feet even hit the floor, I will say good morning, Lord, you’ve got a plan for me today. And then throughout the day,
Rachel Wojo (07:16.608)
I talk to God, especially in the morning, I never close with the word amen. I just will say, Lord, let’s keep the conversation going and I want to talk to him throughout my day and so regardless of what it consists of, I try to remember to pray about whatever it is I’m doing or saying or, you know, touching. I often will fold my laundry and pray for the kid, whoever’s laundry it is, you know? And so I think those are just some simple ways, hopefully, that the person listening can say, I want to grow my relationship with God, I wanna go deeper. But it doesn’t have to be hard, it can be really simple.
Rachael Adams (08:05.536)
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because that was one of my favorite parts of our live conversation. I actually wrote about it in my new book because it was just so impactful and something I’ve carried with me. And, you know, I’m just thinking our school just started for our kids and praying for them before they jump out of the car. And it was simple. And, you know, even my daughter’s friend was with her. She’s been riding with us to school and praying over her. At first I thought it’s so silly. I had this moment of like, I don’t want to embarrass Kate.
Rachael Adams (08:34.176)
and pray, you know, with her, you know, I thought, you know what, that’s ridiculous. I’m just going to pray over both girls and they’re going to both have a great day, hopefully. you know, just, you never know the impact of a prayer. And so it’s funny that I can even, even as a woman that is speaking about it, writing about it, sharing on podcasts that can sometimes in real life get a little bit nervous about doing that in front of people that you don’t normally do that with. But I’ll go ahead.
Rachel Wojo (09:02.316)
Well, and I do think that’s normal because we live in such a culture where we don’t want to offend anyone. But I think if the Spirit’s guiding you, it won’t be offensive. It will be just fine. I often get these urges to pray for people in the strangest places, the grocery store, just all kinds of places. And sometimes I know I’m supposed to say it out loud, and then sometimes I know this is just God speaking to my heart and this is only for me to intervene on their behalf when they may not even know what the situation is, but they know I’m looking at them in the eye and rather than praying in that moment right there, I feel like it’s supposed to be something that God holds in my heart. Having the discernment to know the difference in those two situations takes a lot of practice. It’s not something that you just learn by osmosis. It really takes practice. So that’s why I encourage people to pray because the more you pray, the more comfortable you get in your prayer life.
Rachael Adams (10:17.484)
Yeah, yeah, and I think that speaks to something you talk about in your book about like prayer perfectionism. Like we think that we’ve got to be so eloquent or else we’re not going to do it at all. This actually happened. We were at like a group meeting at lunch and the leader asked another woman to pray and she’s like, I can’t pray, you know, and I think she’s she in her mind just like I shared in my mind. It’s like, well, if I’m not going to do it perfectly, if I’m not going to do it well, or if every, you know, then I’m not going to do it at all. So do you think that that is, why do we get so caught up in this prayer perfectionism and how do we ditch it?
Rachel Wojo (10:50.91)
Yeah, well, we ditch it by just refusing to adhere to it and just saying, okay, I may not have the perfect words, but this is just a conversation between me and God. And I think most of us who have that perfectionistic attitude, it’s sort of, are two camps. One is we’ve grown up in the church and we’ve heard all of these eloquent prayers and we’ve heard all of these and the thou’s by the usher at the offering plate. And we’ve heard the sweet little grandma who sounds like she could be just one fingertip away from heaven. And so between all of that, I think so many of us would like to have this perfectionistic prayer. We want our prayers to sound beautiful and we want them to reach heaven.
There’s so many desires that we have but to think that the power is in what we say is so wrong. Because the power is not in what we say or how we say it. The power is in who God is. And so just throwing ourselves at His feet and saying, I don’t have the right words. There are times when I’ve had no words. I couldn’t even get the words to come out of my lips because they were storming around inside my head. And so even when we don’t have the words, if we just drop that prayer perfectionism attitude and say, Lord, I’m just coming to you. I’m a little child. I’m your daughter coming to you. And we need to, whether it’s in a public place, whether it’s in private, just having that initial moment of recognizing God for who he is, that’s where the power of prayer is because he does all the rest. And so we don’t have to have the perfect words and I’m so glad. I’m so glad that we don’t.
Rachael Adams (12:54.232)
Same. You know, I think we can be really encouraged to believe that our prayers matter and God hears us and God will answer our prayers. Not always in the way or the tongue that we think that He should, but He will. And I think we can just look to the Bible and see, you know, how all the people that prayed and how God responded. It’s so faith -building to me and you cover a lot of those in your book. And so, and you call them desperadoes, guess, each Bible character. So what do you think, what do the desperate prayers of the Bible have in common with ours today? And how does that encourage us to pray knowing that God answered theirs?
Rachel Wojo (13:33.654)
Yeah, so I didn’t completely answer your last question in that I probably should say the other camp, a lot of us have been in church and we’ve had that practicing, but the other camp is people who are just brand new Christians or they’ve never had biblical examples that they’ve read of or seen or they’ve never had people in their community or their family who have prayed and so they want to get it right. You know, they want to get it right just as much as anyone else. And so I think then that that kind of translates into the question you just asked me about the prayers of the people in the Bible, because they were rock bottom most of the time. Like this, the 15 that I list in Desperate Prayers, the book, one per chapter, were in messy places, hard places, stuck places, places where there was no way out. And so many of them, I call them desperados because they were desperate. They were seriously desperate with no way out except for God to do something. You have someone like Hannah who was facing infertility and the circumstances in her family were such that she was continually persecuted and continually had this nagging woman that she had no choice but to live with. And then you move on to Hagar who had a baby, her arms were filled, but her heart was still empty because her husband didn’t want to have anything to do with her as a result of the influence of his wife.
I mean, each one of these scenarios, these women and men are so rock bottom and they have no way and they call out to God and their prayers are just these incredible examples, all different kinds of ways that they prayed that we can learn from and that we can look at and say, I can model that prayer. That’s a pretty easy prayer just to say, God help me.
Rachel Wojo (16:01.396)
I really loved diving into each one of those Bible characters and I appreciate you asking me about them. I think it’s easy to relate to them because they are, they’re just human. They’re human like us. And so when you recognize the difficulty of their circumstances, the frailty of their hearts, then you can see yourself and it’s like, wow, if they can do this and learn to pray and learn to always turn to God when they’re in these dark places where there’s no way out except up, then it can be just such a cool thing for you and I to learn from. And I loved, absolutely loved diving into each one of those prayers.
Rachael Adams (16:52.718)
So not only do you dive into the prayers of those in the Bible, but you tell a lot of really relatable stories of and stories where God answered your prayers. was, that one of my biggest takeaways from your book was Rachel prayed and God answered. And it sounds so simple, but it’s like that is, that is faith building to me. It’s like, don’t I pray more? God is answering. And do we have not because we ask not sometimes. And so I’d love for you to maybe share one of your answered prayer stories because I believe that that will encourage the women listening as well to start to pray and believe that God will answer too.
Rachel Wojo (17:28.992)
Yeah, well, I do tell stories in the book about answered prayer and I’m not sure my mind is rattling on which one would be the best one for your audience. Rachel, do you have a favorite from the ones that you read in the book?
Rachael Adams (17:44.172)
Well, I’m even just thinking about, I mean, on the cover of your book, you have this beautiful yellow envelope. And at first you’re like, there’s got to be significance to this envelope. And there is in the story, so you’ve got to keep reading. So maybe if you’re willing to share that one.
Rachel Wojo (17:57.752)
Yeah, I would love to share that. So our family was in a rough situation financially because in 2021, my husband came home from work and said, I got let go today. And it was just crazy, out of the blue kind of thing that happened because most folks, if you think about the timeline there, a lot of people were struggling with their jobs in 2020, know, late 20 most of 2020 but by 2021 I feel like the the job market had stabilized just a little bit and people were working consistently. But in March of 2021 that is what happened to us. My husband lost his job. He was out of work for nine months. He is a medical professional so I mean you would have thought that he could get a job anywhere but the doors just weren’t opening and it was quite the struggle. And so we had to learn to rely on God. We have five children at home and as you know, mortgages don’t stop, clothes wear out and mouths have to be fed. And so you don’t get a break from the financial stress. Everyone knows this, right? It’s the way life works. And so I just prayed, Lord, there’s something special you have in all of this for us. But one of the coolest prayers that was prayed over me, which I don’t tell this part in the book, but one of my friends initially when we found out about Matt’s job loss, this was in March of 2021, she prayed for an avalanche of finances. That’s what she prayed for, an avalanche of finance. And she’s just praying over me. And I will never forget those words coming out of her mouth because time after time, God provided for us in a lot of small ways. But one particular way was the day he finally went back to work. was his first day back to work in a contract position and we were so grateful. And I thought the answer to our prayer was the job, right? I thought, but I did see this backlog and wondered how on earth are we going to dig out of this financial backlog?
Rachel Wojo (20:23.112)
And so I just went to the sink one night, started washing dishes and received a text and the text said, Rachel, you don’t know me, but a friend wants to give you a gift. Please go outside to your backyard and look for a yellow envelope underneath the green balance beam. And so I thought,
Wow, should I grab the pepper spray first or what? this a click here and win a million dollars kind of thing? But I had this piece in my heart and the person knew my name and had my number and I just thought, okay, can’t hurt anything. So I slipped on my shoes and went out and sure enough, there was a yellow envelope underneath the green balance beam. And so I ran immediately to the garage where my husband was working on prayer card stands that he makes for my shop. And I said, look at this text. And he read it and I started to open the envelope and I pulled out two envelopes, inside the yellow envelope. And one was a typed letter. It said, Matt, Rachel and family, our God sees you. Nothing escapes his notice. I’m gonna cry after telling it. I’ll probably cry every time I tell this story for the rest of my life because it’s just so intimate. And the note said, this is a reward. This is a reward for your faithfulness. and it was unsigned. And so I thought, wow, this, this is just like a movie. It feels like a movie. And my hands were shaking and I opened the other envelope and it was a bank envelope and I pulled out this stack of cash and I’m just in shock and can hardly even believe that it’s real. And so I started fanning it out and the first five bills were $20 bills and then every bill after that was $100 bill. Someone had left $5 ,000 in our backyard and I knew that someone was God because he was answering our prayers. And I know the people listening to this story may be like, wow, I would love for God to drop $5 ,000 in my backyard.
Rachael Adams (22:50.19)
Right. Everybody’s praying for the yellow envelope right now.
Rachel Wojo (22:57.128)
They’re like, wow, that’s amazing. But on the flip side of that, Rachel, is our family story of unanswered prayer, where we prayed for my daughter to be healed and she was not healed on this earth. She got her healing in heaven. And so I think sometimes we believe that prayer is the end all be all and that God is a genie in heaven with a great vending machine and that prayer is us punching the buttons on the vending machine but it’s not like that at all. It is really about that intimate communion with Him and learning that He longs to have a close relationship with us. When we go went back to the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve walked with him in the cool of the day. And that kind of relationship is what he’s still seeking with us today. So my prayer is that we would continue to experience God’s love that we would continue to experience answers to prayer and that the Lord would just move in our lives, in our prayer lives to where we understand that communication with Him, whether the answer is $5 ,000 or a child in heaven, He can do above and beyond what we’re asking or thinking or imagining. But it does start with that first ask.
Rachael Adams
So I think that that is such an important point to make that sometimes we don’t get exactly what we’re praying for. And so I’m thankful that you share that story. Sometimes we do get the yellow envelope and sometimes we don’t, but God still sees us. And I forget exactly who said it, but we’ve got to believe that God is able and God is willing, but he’s also wise and he’s sovereign and so we just really have to trust that he is doing what is best for us and for everyone involved for his kingdom and for his glory. But I am really mindful today of maybe the woman that is just in that really desperate dark place. So how would you encourage her today?
Rachel Wojo (27:20.856)
So I remember when I was in a very dark place while I was sitting by my daughter’s bedside and she was suffering so greatly and I said, I was mad at God. I was angry, but I at least had cultivated my prayer life to where I could go to God with that anger. And I said, God, you don’t know what it’s like to watch your child suffer and die and he immediately replied back to me in my spirit, yes I do. I watched my child suffer and die for you. And so for the one who is really hurting today and feeling like God has abandoned you, he doesn’t know what’s happening in your life, he does, he sees you, he hears you, he knows your needs and he longs to meet you in those needs. But he first wants you to be willing to come to him. And so I would encourage you just to start by default asking the Lord, help me pray, help me remember that you are near me, help me remember that you see me. And then asking him, show me a way that you know that you see me.
That’s one of the prayers in the book is God show me. And I think when we start to walk with him, little by little, we see, we have our eyes open and we can see those things that he is doing and working on our behalf. But a lot of times we’re so bound up in our own sorrow that we forget what he’s done in the past and we forget that he’s the God who holds the future in his hands and so we get stuck in the moment and I just want to encourage that desperate person to turn to the Lord in prayer, grab a copy of the book and just start little by little asking the Lord to show you, to meet with you and I really believe that he will do that. He promises that where two or three are gathered, he’s amidst us, he’s in our midst, and he promises that he will never leave us or forsake us when we’re alone. So I hope that that’s encouraging to that desperate person today.
Rachael Adams (29:51.145)
It’s certainly encouraging to me and Rachel one of the questions I’ve been asking all of my guests this year since this is the love offering podcast is there a biblical concept of love that you feel like applies to this topic today?
Rachel Wojo (30:06.744)
Mmm, that’s such a great question. When I go to John 3 16 it says for God so loved the world that he gave and that really is what your podcast is all about right and so when I look at trying to apply prayer in that context it’s an offering my words my thoughts to God and communing with him. That’s an offering. That’s love back to him. And when he experiences that love from us, then it opens us up. It’s his power that opens us up to receive more of his love and to know just how much he really does love us. So hopefully that concept is really clear and can help someone listening today.
Rachael Adams (31:02.399)
Yeah, absolutely. And we can continue like you were mentioning earlier interceding for other people. You know what a beautiful love offering to other people as well as a way to love other people is to pray on their behalf. So I think that is so beautiful. And so a little bit. It can be spiritual or it cannot be that there is something that you are loving right now? That’s another one of the questions we’ve been asking that season. Yeah.
Rachel Wojo (31:26.776)
Something I’m loving right now. Okay, this is going to sound really cheesy and corny, but we got a McDonald’s close to our house and the iced coffee. You use the app, it’s 99 cents. So you can get a large iced coffee or a large sweet tea for 99 cents and for some reason that just brings me so much joy because I don’t like paying four or five dollars just to get a quick drink when I’m out and about running errands or whatever. So that’s my tip for today. Use the app. 99 cent large sweet tea or iced coffee at McDonald’s.
Rachael Adams (32:10.325)
Listen, that is a good suggestion and I think that there isn’t their slogan like I’m loving it. So that was actually a really good answer. But there’s something about their ice and their straws and their cups there. I don’t know what they do with their drinks, but they are better. All of them.
Rachel Wojo (32:17.342)
Yeah, that’s true.
Rachel Wojo (32:26.521)
The sweet tea, the sweet tea especially. I know I have all the Chick -fil -A lovers are gonna get me right now but I just love McDonald’s sweet tea.
Rachael Adams (32:35.573)
Now me too. So since today has been all about prayer and this is the way we’ve been closing out each of our episodes this season, would you pray for us?
Rachel Wojo (32:43.928)
I would love to do that. Thank you Rachel. Lord, I come to you and just thank you for Rachel for her beautiful podcast for how she continually faithfully commits her words and her life to you and gives it back to you. And so God, I pray that you would bless the words of this podcast as we’ve broadcasted today. Lord, I pray that the person who is hurting right now who needs healing, the person who needs help, the person who needs guidance, Lord, that in their desperation, they would see the path upward is to lift their eyes to you and just turn to you with all their emotions, with all their problems, Lord, you have promised us that you hear us, you see us, you know our needs. And so I ask that you would encourage the heart of the one who’s listening today to remember those things and to have a fresh anointing of time with you where they feel your pleasure in them. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Rachael Adams (33:55.983)
Amen. So I know I want to stay connected with you. I’m sure listeners are going to want to. So tell us how we can get a copy of your book, listen to your podcast, have you come speak at our churches. We’d love to hear all the things.
Rachel Wojo (34:09.908)
Thank you so much Rachel. So for the book you can go to DesperatePrayers .com. You’ll see I’m not sure when Rachel is airing this broadcast but whether it’s pre -order or after the book releases October 8th so it’s available right now. DesperatePrayers .com is the very best place to go. And then if you’d like to connect with me on RachelWojo .com, I would be honored if you’d come over there and check out all of the resources we have available there, wonderful resources to help you cultivate your faith through the storms of life. So thank you, Rachel, for hosting me. I’m so honored that you would share this time with me and I appreciate you.
Rachael Adams (34:52.851)
Thank you for joining us. You have certainly helped me in my prayer life and I pray the same for each person listening.
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