Recently, I have been struggling in my prayer life. As long as I can remember, many of my prayers and the way that I have been taught to pray is to pray sincerely, give thanks in all circumstances, and ask God to provide in ways that we could not do ourselves; however, I was also taught and still currently (with slight modifications in my mindset) believe that God’s will ultimately will be done no matter what. This has been an issue that I have been trying to wrap my head around concerning my prayer life recently. It has been bothering me to the point where I almost didn’t want to pray because ‘logically,’ my thoughts told me that my prayers, in the end, don’t matter.
I just finished reading a book called The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. This book came at a crucial time in my prayer life. When it comes to prayer, we need to set aside our logic and use our imagination. Mark Batterson says,
“When imagination is sacrificed on the altar of logic, God is robbed of the glory that rightfully belongs to him. In fact, the death of a dream is often a subtle form of idolatry. We lose faith in the God who gave us the big dream, and we settle for a small dream that we can accomplish without his help. We go after dreams that don’t require any prayer. We go after dreams that don’t require divine intervention. And the God who is able to do immeasurably more that all our right brain can imagine is supplanted by a god — lowercase g — who fits within the logical constraints of our left brain.”
After thoroughly reading through this book, I have realized that I am entirely guilty of this. I have relied on my logic and have placed God in a box. Just look at the miracles that have been performed in the past. The Israelites circled the walls of Jericho and after walking around it the number of times that God had promised, the walls crumbled. Elijah prayed to the Lord constantly and challenged the prophets of Baal to a prayer contest and it has earned him a reputation in the Bible that has been passed down for centuries. Daniel risked his reputation in front of everyone in Babylon by opening his window toward Jerusalem and praying to the God of Israel, even though it was outlawed. God did amazing things through these two men.
And that’s just it, they were men; just like me. One major revelation that I have come to is that at the root of prayer is faith. While I have faith in God and in his existence, I think my faith in the fact that He can, and wants to, do what we ask has been quenched by my logic. God deserves all the glory. He is our Father and He loves to fulfill His promises. Does not a father wish to do whatever he can for his children? This is exactly how our relationship with God should be, and He is infinitely more generous and loving than we could ever be.
Reading this book and changing my prayer life has also changed my relationship with God as a whole. By considerably changing the way that I pray, I feel like my faith in Him has a better foundation. By setting major goals and having faith that God will answer them I feel much more intimate in my prayer. I talked with my girlfriend, Charity, and we have, both together and individually, established some “Jerichos” in our lives that we will pray over, and will be patiently waiting for God to give His answers.
Throughout my time on the World Race, including training camp, launch, and life on the field, they have talked constantly about praying to God and thanking Him for already answering our prayer. Instead of praying for our requests or for God to perform a miracle, we need to pray through it. God has already answered our prayers, even before we ask. We just need to be patient. For the record, God will not always answer our prayers in the way that we want, but we still need to praise Him. This is when it is most difficult to praise Him, but it is also when our praise is the most pleasing to Him!
“Well-developed faith results in well-defined prayers,
and well-defined prayers result in a well-lived life.”
-Mark Batterson
I want to live like these bold men of faith. God, give me faith like Daniel.
