A Cycle of Dangerous Prayers

You may have heard or even said something like, “Don’t pray for patience!”  We say that in a sort of joking way.   We believe that if we pray for patience, rather than God supernaturally zapping us with patience, He will instead provide us trying opportunities in which we can exercise patience and there by grow patience.  While we say, “don’t pray for patience” as a joke, behind that joke is a terrible accusation.  We are in an off hand way accusing God of evil, giving us something that is not good for us rather than admitting we are selfish and impatient and want to stay that way. If God gives it to us it is for our good, even if it is difficult, painful or something that we don’t want.  Praying for patience is a ‘hard prayer’.

When we ask God to do nice things for us, or to give us things we want, or take away trouble we are praying what I call “safe prayers”.  There is nothing wrong with these kinds of prayers, but for the most part they require very little from us.  But when we pray the hard prayers we are entering into dangerous territory.  I believe that God will rescue us if our following Him takes us to dangerous places.  But God never promises that we will not go to the dangerous place, and sometimes that rescue may come in the form of death, which takes us to glory. Hard or dangerous prayers are where we ask for change in ourselves, where we ask to die to self, and dying to self is never easy.  It maybe those are the best kinds of prayers, but often they are answered in ways that are far from easy.  They are answered when we meet the living God; they are answered in brokenness, repentance and often in great sorrow.   There are answered in changes in our life, changes we likely would not have undertaken without God’s prompting.  They bring about changes we might not have wanted, at least at first. 

In my work as a church coach I teach church members to pray what I call a cycle of prayers.  They are a cycle because it would be very difficult to put them in any kind of order.  You can’t say, “This prayer follows that prayer as 2 follows 1.  Rather these prayers inform each other and shape each other and, hopefully, enrich each other.  As we pray through these prayers we learn about ourselves and find a need to pray them again and again.

Prayer #1

“Holy Spirit bring your loving judgment on me.  Convict me and make me profoundly uncomfortable where my life does not please you.”

Jesus said in John 16 that, “He ( the Holy Spirit) will convict the world”, there is a lot of worldliness still in me.  On the one hand we are honestly unaware of how sinful we are.  On the other hand we are actually pretty proficient at white washing, managing and soft selling our sin.

We have the problem of wanting God to fix everyone else, but leave us alone.  This first prayer is about asking God to reveal our own personal sinfulness and personal wickedness and bring us under such conviction that we come to repentance. 

As you pray this you might want to read and meditate on John 16:7-11

Prayer #2

“Father I surrender to you my rights, my will, and my control” 

God is a giving God.  He gave us life, He gave us His word, and most dramatically He gave His only begotten Son.  He is a giver!  Jesus is a giver.  He gave his life for us.  He gave His body and blood for us.  He gives us a home in Heaven.  He is a giver!  The Holy Spirit is a giver.  He gives us Himself to live in us and He gives us gifts for the purpose of ministry.  NOW HAVING BEEN ADOPTED INTO THIS FAMILY how can we not give ourselves to God.  I believe the great heresy of the 21 century church will be the teaching that God’s ultimate purpose and will is for us to have abundant financial and physical blessings.   No doubt God does sometimes bless in these ways but his greatest will for us is that we die to self so we can live to him.

As you pray this you might want to read and meditate on Luke 9:22-24

Prayer #3

“Lord what do You want to do through me.” 

There are a lot of people who do a lot or religious stuff that has nothing, whatsoever, to do with God.  We pray for what we want, try to pretend it is God’s will, then we get mad at God if we don’t get our way.  As long as we are making the decisions and calling the shots we will not see the hand of God at work, and we will remain an angry, frustrated, discontent people. 

When we pray “God what should I do” notice who is doing it, and guess who will get the glory.  We are incapable of the heroic changes that God wants to work in our lives if we are doing it in our strength.

As you pray this you might want to read and meditate on Matthew 7:21

Like praying for patience these prayers may not bring about ease and comfort.  They may bring about serious heart ache and struggle.  But God will meet us in these dangerous places and there do His great work of transforming us into the image of His Son.

Note: I didn’t originate any of these prayers they came from three different teachers I have known.