Pray Bold IV
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Pray Desperate, Pray Daring, With Or Without Words Just Keep Praying
Psalm 34:6 (NLT) In my desperation I prayed, and the lord listened; he saved me from all my troubles.
1 Samuel 1:10, 12-17 (NLT) Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the lord… As she was praying to the lord, Eli watched her. Seeing her lips moving but hearing no sound, he thought she had been drinking. “Must you come here drunk?” he demanded. “Throw away your wine!” “Oh no, sir!” she replied. “I haven’t been drinking wine or anything stronger. But I am very discouraged, and I was pouring out my heart to the lord. Don’t think I am a wicked woman! For I have been praying out of great anguish and sorrow.” “In that case,” Eli said, “go in peace! May the God of Israel grant the request you have asked of him.”
Romans 8:26-27 (NLT) …the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
I believe the most important thing we can bring to our prayers is desperation. I believe nothing touches the heart of God like our desperation. I have preached a sermon all over the world called Recipe For A Miracle. It is the most favorite sermon the Lord has ever given me. I wish I could preach it to every person on the earth. I contend in this sermon that the recipe for a miracle is three ingredients, 1. Desperation, 2. Daring, 3. Divine Encounter. I illustrate that these three can be found in every miracle in the Bible including the greatest miracle ever, the cross.
Every answered prayer is a miracle and I believe these three ingredients are critical to praying BOLD and sometimes words don’t suffice to express desperate prayers. Hannah’s prayer follows this pattern. 1. She begs God out of her desperation. She’s so anguished Eli thinks she’s drunk. 2. Her desperation drives her to make a daring bargain with God. 1 Samuel 1:11 And she made this vow: “O lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime, and as a sign that he has been dedicated to the lord, his hair will never be cut.” And what was God’s response to that BOLD bargain? Samuel, Israel’s greatest prophet who anointed Israel’s greatest King, David, the ancestor of Jesus Christ! WOW!! That’s quite an answer!
Some prayers are so desperate that words fail. Praise God in those moments the Holy Spirit Himself groans with us. I love the story of the four men carrying the paralyzed man in Mark 4:3-5 & 11 Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, (DESPERATION) so they dug a hole through the roof above his head.(DARING) Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. (DIVINE ENCOUNTER) Seeing their faith, (WORDLESS PRAYER) Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven… Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” MIRACLE!!! These stories are all over the Bible! The woman with the 12-year hemorrhage in Mark 5 has no words nor friends to carry her to Jesus. She’s so DESPERATE, having spent all she had on doctors who couldn’t heal her, she claws her way through the crowd (DARING) and grabs Jesus’s robe (DIVINE ENCOUNTER) and is instantly healed! MIRACLE!!!
How about the blind man in Mark 10:47-52 When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (DESPERATION) “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him. But he only shouted louder,(DARING) “Son of David, have mercy on me!” When Jesus heard him, (DIVINE ENCOUNTER) he stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.”
So they called the blind man. “Cheer up,” they said. “Come on, he’s calling you!” Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked. “My Rabbi,” the blind man said, “I want to see!” And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road. MIRACLE!!!
Is it possible that we are way too dignified, distracted, doubting, or indifferent for a miracle answer to prayer? God help us! Someone once asked me how to get desperate if we aren’t. I thought about that for awhile and I think first a great need will make us desperate, also fasting helps make me desperate, but also picturing what could be if I will pay the price of travail before God makes me very desperate. How many times those whom Jesus healed must have dreamed and hoped beyond hope of being healthy again.
From the time my wife and I met our freshman year of Bible college and married the next summer at 19-years-old for me and 18-years-old for her we had dreamed of having a family of warriors for Christ making a difference in the world. We read literally hundreds of books, listened to literally hundreds and hundreds of cassette tape sermons and Bible studies, we taught and trained and worked in the Lord’s vineyard and prayed for our 6 children and did our best to pass on our faith and passion and vision for shaking the world for Christ. We gave everything we had to Christ’s mission (you can read our story HERE) and yet in 2013 it appeared that this vision was as impossible as walking on water. First, we had lost everything and everyone through church splits, unbelievable Satanic attacks on our family, the financial collapse of 2008, and battles that we took on because we knew we couldn’t look the other way and still name the name of Christ. Second, I had spent a third of the year in bed with terrible Lupus flare ups. Third, many of a our children were bitter, cynical, and wanted nothing to do with church or ministry again. One daughter was a missionary in Africa with another ministry but another daughter was estranged from the family and another daughter was running around with a very bad crowd and becoming a girl we didn’t recognize and another daughter married a man that year that none of us knew was a meth addict and five months after their wedding he went to prison for a long time and she crawled into a bottle to deal with the pain and ended up in jail and one son was away in the Navy and made it clear he was never coming back and for sure he was never working in ministry again. And fourth, the stress and discouragement of it all caused my wife to retreat into a depression that also took her health.
From one perspective, it could’ve appeared that Satan had won and that God’s promises had failed us. But another thing was also happening. Something I believe Satan is quite frustrated at today. We were becoming CRAZY DESPERATE. And that desperation was driving us to be CRAZY DARING in our prayers and in our actions. We got mad at the devil. We threw caution to the wind and began to run after God like never before, we got ahold of the hem of His robe and refused to let go. We gave our kids to God and began to put every minute and every dime and all of our energy into pushing out the borders of the kingdom of God into dark places. I would get on a plane every 90 days wether the bills were paid or not and go preach the gospel to desperate people. Lisa and I began to spend more and more time in prayer and we began to pray crazy prayers. I remember stomping around the neighborhood at night wrestling with God like Jacob at Peniel and many times I had no words at all. I would walk for hours just saying, “Oh God!” or “Mighty God!” or “Come on, Lord!” I didn’t know what else to say. I’m grateful the Holy Spirit was saying it or groaning it for me.
In the fall of 2013 our oldest son and I had a supernatural trip to Colombia. God met with us in ways I don’t have room to tell you about here but neither of us have ever been the same. Today he and his wife are an integral part of our ministry. In the spring of 2014 our youngest daughter and I had a crazy supernatural trip to Colombia. She had a DIVINE ENCOUNTER that so transformed her life that she came home, quit college and her job, and went to Colombia full time as our missionary. On that trip she also met my dear friend and translator and a deep friendship developed between the two of them. They were married this last August and God is using them in ways my wife and I never dreamed we would live to see! In the fall of 2014 in the midst of putting her life back together our middle daughter went to Colombia with my wife and me on a supernatural trip and recommitted her life to pursue Christ among the nations. She and her family is a huge blessing to our ministry today. Also, while we were on that trip our daughter who was formerly estranged from the family came home and we have had the sweetest relationship ever since. She is now serving in our ministry and also serving in a church in the DFW area. She is nothing short of a miracle and our inspiration for much of what we do around the world. In the winter of 2014 God miraculously called our daughter in Africa home to give herself to our family ministry around the world. She is a mighty warrior princess for Christ and a powerful leader in our family and ministry. My wife and I watched in awe as God answered our desperate prayers in ways we hadn’t even imagined. I was thrilled and grateful beyond words but anytime someone mentioned our son in the Navy and when was he going to come home and join the family ministry I would shake my head and say, “No, that one will never happen.” He was extremely successful and loved what he was doing and he had made it abundantly clear that he loved us but he would never put himself through the pain of working in ministry again. BUT GOD! In the fall of 2015 through a series of Book of Acts like miracles and Damascus Road revelations, God made it clear to this last son that he needed to come home and join the family ministry. Wow! Words cannot express the inexplicable joy that we have experienced this year as we have traveled the world with these amazing children of ours on God’s mission. Many a night this last son and I have sat on our balcony and laughed and talked about the crazy things God is doing for us and through us and he always says, “Dad! Look at the crazy lengths God went to to get me home working in this ministry! I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on this.” This Sunday he will be preaching in a church in the bush of Zambia, Africa… DESPERATION + DARING + DIVINE ENCOUNTER = MIRACLE!
[quote] “The Kingdom of Heaven is not for the well meaning; it is for the desperate.” – James Denney[/quote]
[quote]“The condition for a miracle is difficulty; the condition for a great miracle is impossibility.” ― Angus Buchan[/quote]
[quote]”We pray not out of discipline, but out of desperation.” – Paul E. Miller[/quote]
Suggested Further Reading: Breakthrough Prayer, by Jim Cymbala>
See previous posts in this series
A big thank you to our dear friend and ministry partner, Shannon Arnold, for prompting this series…