Bold Prayers
The other day a good friend texted me this quote:
“God honors bold prayers because bold prayers honor God.” —Mark Batterson
[Tweet “”God honors bold prayers because bold prayers honor God.” —Mark Batterson”]It was one of the first things I read when I woke up Tuesday morning. As I sat down to pray, that quote began to resonate with me. At first, I always push back when I hear things like this. Prayer to me is a bit mysterious. I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t want to ever assume in prayer that God wants what I want. I don’t ever want to treat God like a genie in a bottle. I don’t ever want to barge into the throne room of God with my last minute requests & then blame Him when things don’t go my way.
Prayer is a holy exercise. What I mean by that is prayer is an entirely other thing to do & enter into. In prayer we have one foot in this world & one foot in the other. We come into the presence of a Holy God only because of Jesus. We are allowed to be in the presence of Yahweh. This is no small thing.
How do we pray bold prayers?
So how do we pray? What do we pray? And can we pray bold prayers before this God?
I think the answer is a resounding yes. Here’s why I think that.
1. The prayers we read & find in the Bible are bold prayers.
Just a quick glance at the prayers of Moses, Abraham, Nehemiah, David, Paul, & Jesus himself remind us that the way people pray in the Bible is quite different than how we pray. The way they prayed was with a boldness I rarely match in my prayer life.
2. Scripture reminds us that He’s ready & waiting to do much more than we could ever ask or image.
The reality is nothing is outside of God’s ability, power, reach or possibility. We serve a God who is the same yesterday, today & forever. He is with us & in us & for us. Why not invite Him into our situation? Ask Him to help in our family? Pray for His hand to work in our churches, our communities & more?
Bold Prayers = Transformation
I believe God does honor bold prayers because it shows our faith, our trust & our willingness to put all our hope in Him. I believe when we pray for the things that are in line with the heart of God in a bold way powerful things can & will happen.
I’m not saying I have it all figured out or there is some magic formula in prayer. I don’t believe there is. But I can’t get around the fact that we have a God with unlimited power to save us & unlimited desire to help us because He loves us.
I’m thankful for the reminder to pray bold prayers today. And I’m ok with however the Sovereign God of the universe wants to answer those prayers.
At the end of the day, I believe it’s helpful to remember God’s goal in prayer for us. Too often we pray with a goal that is self-seeking. We need something, we need God to come to our aid, we’ve tried to fix the problem & we can’t so we turn to God, etc. So we have certain expectations when we pray.
We need God to do what only He can do. And that’s a great reason to pray. But when God doesn’t answer, when His voice falls silent, or when things work out differently than we hoped, we can get frustrated in prayer.
But God’s goal for us in prayer, I think, has something much larger in mind. God’s desire in prayer for us, I believe, goes way beyond the request we make.
I think God’s goal in prayer for us has to do with relationship. And I believe God’s goal for us in prayer is transformation. If there is a formula to prayer I think it would go something like this:
Prayer over Time = Transformation.
As we pray, as we wait, as we seek His face, as we continue in prayer when it seems like no one is there, as we stand in awe when He does act, as we do this day after day something happens, something changes, something deepens. And we are changed. Christ transforms us more & more into people of peace, people of hope, people of faith, people that look a little more like Jesus than we did before.
Make us more like Jesus
May we pray boldly today, with confidence in the Living God, with expectation, with hope, to see God move in our midst for the good of the church & the glory of His great Name! And as we pray may we be continually & forever changed into the likeness of His Son, Jesus.
“And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” 2 Corinthians 3.18
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