Extraordinary Prayer

I joined a group recently that is doing next level worship nights in our local area, once a quarter. They have a prayer team that prays for the people, the event, and the downstream impacts in the larger Washington DC area. They are creating incredible environments of worship that are burning across demographic / religious lines and preparing our hearts for revival.  And hundreds, moving into thousands of local Christians are coming. 

Hallowed be Your Name. Yes to that.

To join the prayer team, they asked a few questions, and one of them was profound:

What is prayer to you?

Holy cats, well… Chapter One… it was a dark and stormy night of the soul.

I mean, how do you answer that question for what it is intended (a short but meaningful answer to join a group that is serious about prayer, showing that you’ve thought about it, that maybe you’re not a complete novice, without a 7000 word diatribe on prayer in all it’s forms…) but still giving the question a proper response?

I wrote something like, “prayer is the means by which we align our will to God’s will, to gain wisdom for His direction and purpose, and to draw ourselves into proper alignment for spiritual preparation and orientation for action.”

That’s not terrible, but goodness how do you give a succinct answer that isn’t a complete half a loaf bag of mediocrity? It’s still a good question, and one we all should take some time to answer, internalize, and DMM “I will” statement out to walk into.

To try to give a comprehensive answer to this is hilarious. But to try is necessary and helpful. Insert the idea of “mystery” once again. How is it that God draws us, ACTUALLY draws us into His working, even in prayer. 

Plato talks about shooting “arrows” (if you will) at a difficult truth to capture… and when you slightly miss, you shoot again. And again. And again.

You may not ever clock the bullseye. But what you’ll find is that over time, you’re near misses produce a lovely outline of the thing you’re looking to define. In this way, our seeing through a glass darkly, is still really useful. And the exercise of “mind aiding the spirit” from Watchman Nee can find helpful things to lead us onward.

So, three things that I intend as directional ideas for the notion of “Extraordinary Prayer.”

First, just do it. You’ll get better at this as you go.

The guidance DMM tends to give is that the idea of “Extraordinary Prayer” is a journey, the end point of which is all nighters, regular multi-hour sessions in corporate activity, and regular rhythms of deep, meaningful, time consuming prayer. As you willfully, faithfully engage in prayer, in your closet, and in your community, you’ll find it easier and easier to go where God leads in a lifestyle of connected prayer.

Just decide to pull the trigger quickly. You’re in conversation with friends, or significant others and a topic, or need, or conclusion suddenly gains weight - and you feel like prayer should cover what you’re talking about. 

Stop talking. Start praying. Just let that be OK, normal, natural, accepted and just do it. You’ll find that these “spot” prayers start to become amazing and it gives God an onramp to lead you well.

Give God permission to interrupt you and give you a burden to pray. Give God permission to wake you in the middle of the night to pray for His people and His working. Give God permission to teach you how to pray. Then buckle up, because the ride will be mystical, fantastical, and deeply good.

Second, pray “over” before you pray “for” and move from general to specific.

James gives us a lovely glidepath for this one. Are any sick? Call for the big kids to help pray. Let them pray “over” the sick person… and this is the sense of petition, of asking God what He’s doing and what He wants to do. When you have confirmed direction, pray “for” and pray with boldness. And the prayer of faith (literally, the vow of faith) will save the sick and you’ll see some cool stuff happen. Or if God is doing something else in that moment, go with that as well. Above all, know that He loves us, wants the very best for us, and is closer than a family member in times of trouble.

We want to pray BIG prayers. We all want to see miraculous outshining of power, of course we do. But we also understand that God isn’t an ATM machine, dispensing gumballs of heavenly power to serve our consumer mentality. Instead, we ask for the kingdom - and for the kingdom to break into our perception of earthly things. And we go wherever God wants to go in that, because our trust in Him is absolute. That’s how you pray without doubting. 

Of course I’m going to doubt my own subjective perception, my own subjective desire, my own selfish motives, my own ridiculous ideas of what God ought to be doing. But if, in the community of mature believers, I can pray “over” and come into agreement about what God is doing, it gives me confidence that can overcome my selfish fear of taking God for granted, or worse, timidly not asking at all because my western mentality separates “natural” and “supernatural” and then says one of them doesn’t really exist outside of a myopic scientific understanding of the world.

Lewis said something like, prayer is more than the will applied to an active imagination. This is quite correct. It is fundamentally a spiritual response to what God is doing. Moving us from where we are (“not my will”) to where God wants us to be (“but Yours be done”).

Jesus, Moses, David, Paul, Elijah, and the bounty of biblical examples of prayer all seem to follow this trajectory. Could it be that if we follow it as well, we’ll learn to ask, seek, and knock in ways that are pleasing to heaven itself?

Third, give the clock to God.

God’s timing is His own and (through His knowledge and perfect perspective) was in motion before the world began. Our patience in the west has been finely honed by McDonalds and microwave ovens and corporate quarterly earnings. 

What do we want? All the things! When do we want them? Right now!

Yet the world teaches us that God moves in times and seasons. Spring, summer, fall, winter are not just the earth tilted on axis… it is also the rhythm of God’s moving in, with, and through us. Seasons of explosive growth and preparation are followed by seasons of incredible outcomes and harvest results. This is followed by the old things passing away, which is turn is followed by a season of silence - and we are often not fans of winter.

We have to come to understand that winter is a critical part of God’s working. Instead of a season of fruitlessness, it is a season of sabbath, where the board resets, and this time of not harvest is an integral part of Spring coming in fullness again. 

Unlimited, unchecked growth is often cancerous. God’s growing is to purpose and glorious mature design, lasting for a season.

Don’t give up. Do the best you can. Let God own the timing and results. If we can trust Him with the timing, we can rest in a peace that passes understanding when things that are coming, are not yet.

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What do all three of these directional pieces have in common?

First, we pray. God calls us to pray, so we pray. The cultural soundbite mocking “thoughts and prayers” simply means that there are people with a microphone who don’t understand either idea.

Second, we allow God to take us wherever He wants in prayer. He sets the agenda, the petition, the burden, the waiting, the really cool outshinings of healing and power. He sets the agenda and we step into it, humbly and expecting great things from His grace, power, and love.

Third, we decide to be OK with God’s timing. He isn’t slow considering His promises, as we all too often consider slowness. In this case, our Father does indeed, know best. Trust His timing and trust His heart towards us.

All of these ideas share the idea of aligning our hearts to His. To pray, how to pray when we do, and deeply desperate trust that He will do what He will do in the perfect time.

So pray. 

Because true prayer, leads to Extraordinary things.