PRAYING FOR VERSUS PRAYING THROUGH

        

Mark Batterson tells us, “Our generation desperately needs to rediscover the difference between praying for and praying through.

There are certainly circumstances where praying for something will get the job done.


I believe in short prayers before meals because, quite frankly, I believe in eating food while it’s still hot.

But there are also situations where you need to grab hold of the horns of the altar and refuse to let go until God answers.

Praying through is all about consistency.

It’s circling Jericho so many times it makes you dizzy.

Like the story Jesus told about the persistent widow who drove the judge crazy with her relentless requests, Praying through won’t take no for an answer.

Circle makers {see the post –THE LEGEND OF THE CIRCLE MAKER on the 4/6/12} know that it’s always too soon to quit praying because you never know when the wall is about to fall.

You are always only one prayer away from a miracle.

Praying through is all about intensity.

It’s not quantitative; it’s qualitative. Drawing prayer circles involves more than words; it’s gut-wrenching groans and heartbreaking tears.

Praying through doesn’t just bend God’s ear; it touches the heart of your heavenly Father.

I [Mark Batterson] recently attended the president’s Easter prayer breakfast at the White House, along with a couple hundred religious leaders from across the country.

Before breakfast, a seventy-six-year-old African-American preacher who served alongside Martin Luther King Jr. In the civil rights movement said a prayer.

I could barely hear his words, but his faith was loud and clear. He prayed with such a familiarity with the Father that it was convicting.

It’s like his words were deep-fried in the faithfulness of God. After he said amen, I turned to my pastor-friends, Andy Stanley and Louie Giglio, and said, ‘I feel like I've never prayed before.’

I felt like he knew God in a way that I didn’t, and it challenged me to get closer to God.

I wonder if that’s how the disciples felt when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

His prayers were so qualitatively different that they felt like they had never prayed before.

When was the last time you found yourself flat on your face before the Almighty?

When was the last time you cut off your circulation kneeling before the Lord?

When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter in prayer?

There are higher heights and deeper depths in prayer, and God wants to take you there.

He wants to take you places you have never been before.

There are new dialects. There are new dimensions.

But if you want God to do something new in your life, you can’t do the same old thing.

It will involve more sacrifice, but if you are willing to go there, you’ll realize that you didn't sacrifice anything at all.

It will involve more risk, but if you are willing to go there, you’ll realize that you didn't risk anything at all.

Make the sacrifice.

              Take the risk.

                          Draw the circle.”

Taken from Mark Batterson’s The Circle Maker  by  Zondervan.com  (pgs. 33, 34)

“I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live."  Ps. 116:1, 2, NKJV

           “I called on the LORD in distress; the LORD answered me and set me in a broad place. The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? ... It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”  Ps. 118:5, 6, 8, NKJV


Be sure to check out WHAT PRAYER CAN DO:  AIR LIFT on tonight's post.

Tomorrow’s post:  UNDAUNTED RADIANCE Oswald Chambers