Praying Boldly – Mission Critical International

Pray Bold

Pray Bold IV

by Matt Bullen February 3, 2017

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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]

Pray Bold III

by Matt Bullen January 26, 2017

Pray, Record, Rejoice, Pray Bolder

Psalms 116:1-2 (NLT) I love the lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!

David says quite tenderly that his love for the Lord and his commitment to pray is significantly bolstered by the fact that God hears and answers his prayers. I know exactly what he means. One of the most encouraging things you can do and one that will become an impetus for bolder praying is keeping a prayer list and marking down the dates when those prayers are answered. Oh my goodness! I can’t count the times I have gone back and looked at my old prayer lists and realized that God had answered some HUGE prayer request but in my frail humanity I had already forgotten that I prayed for it or at least that I had written it down. And oh! the joy and the upbuilding of my faith when I go back and read those old prayer lists and see all that God has done. It makes me want to pray all the more and it makes me want to PRAY BOLD because I know He hears me and He answers.

When our children were young we had a spiral notebook in which we wrote our family prayer requests. We would sit down periodically, review the former prayer requests, write down the answers that had come, pray over the ones not answered yet, and write in the new requests on a fresh page with that day’s date. It was stunning how specifically and supernaturally God would answer those prayers. Eventually it was many pages long and we would go back and just rejoice in seeing the crazy answers God had given. Our children didn’t have to be convinced that God answers prayer. They witnessed it firsthand! And talk about life impact! Many of the dreams/prayers we wrote in that spiral notebook we are living today.

On January 1, 2013 I wrote out 6 items in my Evernote App that for the most part seemed totally impossible to me at the time but were heart desires that I wanted to ask God for in 2013. I wrote them, closed the app and frankly forgot all about that note. I didn’t see it again until December of 2013 and I’ll never forget the way my heart leapt into my throat when I ran across it again because God had stupendously and miraculously answered each one and I had forgotten that I even wrote them down. My oldest son Luke and I did have a miraculous mission trip to Colombia together that forever changed both of our lives. On that trip was born the idea for our current Global Evangelism ministry. Also on that trip we cemented our relationship with a young man by the name of Oscar Useche who is now my son-in-law and our director of Mission Critical Colombia. And Rebekah did go to Zambia 2 months later and lived there for 2 years and was instrumental in establishing an orphanage that is changing the lives of children every day and gave us the idea for Mercy’s Houses all over Africa. I love the Lord because He hears my voice…

Well, you can bet I have made a similar list at the beginning of each new year since and you can bet that they have gotten larger and bolder… much BOLDER. And you can bet that God has and is answering them in stupendous ways. On January 7, 2014 I wrote a list of 21 things I desperately wanted from God. Not all of them have been answered yet but some of the most outlandish ones have been answered in vastly more outlandish ways than I even asked for. There were names of some of my children on that list who at the time were VERY far from God with only one word “Awakening” written next to their name. Praise our blessed Savior!!! They are all on fire for God and working with us in the ministry today. MIRACLE!!! OUTLANDISH CRAZY MIRACLE!!! I can hardly type right now for the tears in my eyes. I love the Lord because He hears my prayer for mercy… In 2015 I named the list “My Crazy Prayers 2015” (See Photo). You can see the answers in bold type next to the prayer request (PTL is Praise The Lord). The requests with nothing after them are as yet unanswered… I love the Lord… He bends down to listen to me…

I have 4 Evernote prayer lists going right now called “Personal Prayer List”, “2017 Prayer Budget”, “Crazy Prayers”, and “BIG HARRY AUDACIOUS PRAYERS” (BHAP)… You don’t get to see the last three. Those are for our (superlatives fail me) God’s eyes only! I can tell you that the BHAP prayer list starts out like this, “Written on October 15, 2015 on the porch in Liberia looking out at the sea…” I can tell you the Crazy Prayers list starts out, “Written on the balcony of Dian Fossey Hotel, Rubavu, Rwanda July 20, 2016.” I can tell you that the 2017 Prayer Budget is over a half million dollars and that $36K has already come in this month for projects in South America and Africa solely by prayer alone. The answers are not all about money either.

The miraculous money answers are just easy to cite but He has healed people, saved people, dramatically called and sent people into the mission field, literally saved lives that were about to perish, paid the rent at the last moment straight out of the blue on numerous occasions, and on and on solely by prayer. And He has done it in ridiculous ways that can’t be explained apart from answered prayer. So even having 4 prayer lists with each one escalating in ridiculousness, God gave my wife and me a wonderful gift this year that was so crazy it didn’t even dawn on me to ask for it or to put it on any of those lists. That gift was our entire family, minus one daughter and one daughter-in-law, ministering together on the same mission trip in Colombia in June. He even answers prayers we haven’t thought of or don’t have the faith to pray.

I hope you know I am only sharing these things because I want YOU to PRAY BOLD. We’re dumbfounded and humbled by what God is doing in our ministry and family and we never ask for money except from the Lord. No one has ever seen these prayer lists until now, not even my wife. But I knew when I started this blog series that I would have to show some of them because He deserves the glory!!!! We also have a journal that we sit down as a family and just like back in the day review previous requests, marvel and rejoice at the answers, write down our new requests, pray over them (sometimes this gets pretty wild, lots of tears, agonizing, and lasts a long time), and then we charge ahead trusting Him to carry our burdens. I have prayer notifications on my phone that go off everyday at 7:00 a.m., noon, and 9:00 p.m. that remind me to pray for certain people or things on other lists. And at the end of every day I wish I had prayed more. I plead with God to make me a mighty man of prayer because I know that the greatest need of the thousands of people I love is more of Jesus.

Many a night as I fall asleep, I can see my wife’s candle flickering under the prayer closet door and I know she is shaking heaven’s door off the hinges. Many a morning when I awake, I can see her candle flickering under the door and hear her cries for God to move on our behalf and I know craziness is about to ensue. I’ve watched God answer so many HUGE prayers for my daughter Rebekah that I tease her, “Please, just don’t ever pray against me about anything!” In January 2016 our son Luke stood up at a Mission Critical meeting and said, “We just need to write down every crazy thing we want to do for God this year and pray and believe it.” And we did and God heard and gave us the best year of our lives. When my daughter Misti decides God wants her to pray a little boy out of foster care in Florida and into her home in Texas, better get a room ready. Sometimes the answers to my son Levi’s prayers are so sudden and showy they scare me a little and I look over at him like, “Dude! That was you wasn’t it?” When my daughter Brooke starts beating the floor and marching around and singing while she’s praying for someone, get ready! You had better get ready!! When my son Oscar says he is praying about a preaching tour with me through Colombia, you better get some sermons ready and pack your bags! When my daughter Mercy tells you she asked God for a school for Liberian orphans, watch out! When our daughter Beverly writes down big crazy prayers on yellow poster board and hangs them on your living room drapes, get ready for your ministry to go to whole new levels! When your son Travis says he is praying about going on a mission trip with you, get ready for the whole family to get in on he idea. When your son Juan David that you adopted out of the streets of Bogota, Colombia tells you he’s praying for you, your heart just melts and runs out onto the floor… BOLD Prayer is REAL, POWERFUL, and REQUIRED. He hears us and He acts. He alone has done these things and is doing these things in answer to the feeble prayers of a little family from Texas… and He will do it for you. We will PRAY as long as we have breath…

[quote] “So take Jesus at his word. Ask him. Tell him what you want… Write out your prayer requests; don’t mindlessly drift through life on the American narcotic of busyness. If you try to seize the day, the day will eventually break you. Seize the corner of his garment and don’t let go until he blesses you. He will reshape the day.” ― Paul E. Miller[/quote]

[quote]“If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You’ll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But, if like Jesus you realize you can’t do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray.” ― Paul E. Miller[/quote]

Pray Bold II

by Matt Bullen January 19, 2017

Read Part I HERE

Pray, Risk, Pray Harder

1 Kings 18:36-37 (NLT) At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, “O lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. O lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”

I said in our last post that often we don’t PRAY BOLD because we have never allowed ourselves to get into a situation where we REALLY need God to show up. Praying bold requires RISK. Elijah’s prayer is all the more bold because he is standing on Mt. Carmel in front of the leaders of Israel and 450 false prophets with an altar that has been doused with water three times and if God doesn’t answer in the next few seconds, he is going to be cut into little pieces! Nothing elicits bold prayers like getting yourself in a jam that only God can get you out. BOLD PRAYERS go hand in hand with BOLD RISKS for God.

1 Kings 18:38-39 (NLT) Immediately the fire of the lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench! And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out, “The lord—he is God! Yes, the lord is God!”

Looking back on the greatest personal stories of answered prayer in my life, I’m amazed that so many times it was when I had felt the nudge of the Spirit to step way out on a limb for Him and I was absolutely in trouble if He didn’t come through. That will make you pray bold prayers! The Holy Spirit and I have some things in the works right now that scare me to death! Whether BOLD PRAYING or just terrified CRYING OUT best describes it, I can’t quite tell but I am knocking hard on heaven’s door right now!

What little nudge or perhaps giant push from the Holy Spirit have you been shrugging off because it seems foolish, scary, ridiculous, irresponsible, or maybe even “calling fire down from heaven” level absurd? Maybe God in His tender lovingkindness wants desperately to show you an astounding miracle if you will just trust, step out… and pray like crazy. Jump out of the boat! You might just find yourself walking on water…

I’ll never forget the time my wife and I needed to travel 800 miles to preach somewhere. We counted up our nickels and dimes and realized we had only enough gas money to travel 600 of the 800 miles and no money for food. We decided that we would head out anyway. We would fast and we would pray that our little car got the best gas mileage of it’s life or that God would give us a strong tailwind all the way. We prayed like crazy. But God didn’t do either. As our fuel light was blinking 600 miles in, we pulled over to a little truck stop in the middle of nowhere to use the restroom, lay hands on the car, and pray until God showed up. When I came out of the restroom I saw three rough looking men speaking to my wife and she looked concerned. I walked over and introduced myself. They asked us to sit down at a table in the diner with them and we reluctantly agreed. They began to ask about our ministry and it was then I realized we were both wearing matching ministry T-shirts. As we told them about what we were doing for the kingdom they became very excited. One of the men asked if we had eaten and could he buy us dinner. I said, “Oh, no thank you. We are fine.” I felt my wife kick me under the table. Of course, they knew nothing of our current situation. We talked a little longer and then we told them we had to get back on the road. As we stood to go, the same man reached into his pocket and handed me the exact amount of money we needed to get to our destination. He said he felt the Lord wanted Him to invest in what we were doing. We thanked him profusely, walked outside, and began to dance around the car praising God! That trip lead to over 1 million people hearing the gospel. To this day I half believe that those three men were really angels but I don’t know. All I know is God shows up when we PRAY BOLD, RISK BIG and PRAY HARDER.

[quote] “I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.” ― William Sloane Coffin Jr.[/quote]

[quote] “But God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through.” ― Francis Chan, Crazy Love[/quote]

Pray Bold Blog Series

by Matt Bullen January 6, 2017

Shameless Audacity

Luke 11:5-8 (NIV) Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Donʼt bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I canʼt get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your SHAMELESS AUDACITY he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.”(Emphasis Mine)

This passage never ceases to shock me every time I read it. God is telling us to approach Him with shameless audacity. Really? Wow! That stuns me. And it completely stokes my passion to pray. The Greek word here is anaideia. Other translations are “unembarassed boldness” or “shameless persistence.” Jesus is taking the gloves off here. He’s saying to you and to me, “Come at Me, what you got? Be brazen, ask Me for anything and don’t stop asking Me until you receive it.” Wow!

Some things in this story, that Jesus seemingly makes up off the top of His head, that I love are, 1. The man has a great need that drives him out into the night, 2. The need is to feed others, 3. He refuses to go home empty handed and so he gets “as much as you need.”

Many times I believe we don’t Pray Bold because we haven’t allowed ourselves to become involved in the mission of God in the world to the point where we have a great need that drives us out into the night. As I type this my heart is in my throat thinking of all the things I need for the people I am ministering to here and around the world and I’m thinking about how I will march around our apartment complex tonight with my hands raised toward heaven shamelessly begging God to give me what they need.

When is the last time you went before God about a great need and wouldn’t go home empty handed? How about tonight. Start with walking the block and just tell the Lord your needs that come to mind and then go back home. Try it. I dare you!

For two years my daughter Rebekah, who was living in an orphanage out in the bush in Zambia, Africa, pleaded with me to come to Africa and spread our ministry there. Though I had been working in South America for a few years already, I had never even crossed the Atlantic before. Going to Africa felt like going to the moon for me. Because of chronic health challenges I didn’t even know if I would survive the 24hr journey to get there. But Rebekah prayed and pleaded with shameless audacity. One night in late December 2014 while she was home for Christmas we were sitting on our balcony and she braced me one more time about Africa. I quickly figured out a budget and announced to her that it would take $10,000 we didn’t have and didn’t know where to get. She grabbed my hand and said, “Let’s pray daddy. God can give us $10,000 easy. Reluctantly I bowed my head and prayed, “Lord, if you send us $10,000 from somewhere we are not expecting and give me strength, we will go to Africa.” Rebekah happily looked up, “There! It’s done. We are going to Africa daddy.” We didn’t tell a soul about our prayer. Three days later a man who had never before sent us money wired $10,000 into my bank account. I was stunned and a little scared. We immediately booked the trip and went in early January 2015 and God poured out a waterfall of grace on our heads the whole trip. Not only that, He also healed me. Not only that, He also laid the foundation on that trip for our current ministry in 5 African nations, two Mercy’s House schools/orphanages, 5 churches planted, hundreds of precious souls added to the kingdom, multiple other trips, and we are just getting started. PRAY BOLD, BELIEVE BIG, and CHARGE HARD.

[quote] “Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn’t offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren’t impossible to you, they are insulting to God.” – Mark Batterson, Pastor, National Community Church, Washington, D.C.[/quote]

[quote] “God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.” – William Booth, Founder, The Salvation Army[/quote]