A Long Wait
This season of prayer is guided by three words: Bold, Humble, Audacious Prayers. This week we will think about the last word, audacious. Do you pray audacious prayers? Some will say, "Yes." Others, "No." Still others might say, "I used too, but not as much any more." Still others might want to know what we mean by audacious before answering.
Joshua provides a great example for us. In front of all of Israel, in a very public moment, he prayed that the sun would stand still. That's audacious! The dictionary defines the word this way: showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks. Risky prayers. Prayers requiring big faith. Audacious praying believes only God can do this!
Why don't we pray audaciously? For many of us, our audacious spirit grew silent when prayers went unanswered. We prayed with intensity and sincerity, yet no answer unfolded. We came back, prayed it again. Nothing. Again and again we repeated the request. Silence. A long wait. In time, the lack of an answer took a toll.
The Bible gives us many examples of professional wait-ers. Anna and Simeon from Luke 2 waited for a lifetime for the Messiah. Years, literally decades of prayers went unanswered. Hear Anna's backstory from Luke 2:26-27
She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
Can you imagine? Anna devoted her widowed years to worshiping, praying, fasting and waiting. I wonder, did she ever question if it was worth the wait? Did she grow tired of bringing the same prayer to God day after day? Did she doubt? Was she tempted to downsize her prayers? Worshiping, fasting, praying and waiting. A long wait.
Proverbs 13:12 makes a profound observation: Hope deferred makes the heart sick. A sick heart finds it hard to hope. It grows hard to ask. The deferment of hope entices us to shelve our audacious spirit. We find ourselves saying, "I've been here before. What's the use?"
I think Anna teaches us something valuable. Anna's focus was not only on her request. The Bible tells us that she fasted and prayed. It also says she worshiped. What can we take from this? Anna had her eyes fixed on God. We get weary because we have our eyes fixed on our unanswered requests. Audacious prayer is not based on the size of our request. It is grounded in our view of God. The request is not what it audacious. Our believe in God is audacious! We know that only He can do this, and so we will ask and ask and ask. We'll keep knocking as long as it takes.
Today's Prayer
JB Phillips wrote a great little book years ago entitled, "Your God is Too Small." For this prayer time, set aside your request and think about the size of your God. How big is your God?
Final Thoughts
Last night at our Overseer Meeting we were checking in on the fast. I was pretty honest about my struggle with the long wait. Rod Carlson shared the parable about the woman who kept knocking until she got an answer. Luke 11 describes this as shameless persistence. Sounds audacious, doesn't it? Luke 18 shares a similar story of prayerful persistence in the face of a long wait. The story starts by saying, "One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up." Always pray and never give up. Audacious! I'm grateful for Rod's words. I really needed them. No answer yet? Keep knocking.
A Song