Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.

II Corinthians 10:5

I’d rather have 1 God idea than 1000 good ideas. Good ideas are good, but God ideas change the course of history!  Where do you get those ideas?  Not from brainstorming. You get them from prayerstorming. It’s praying in a way that allows the Holy Spirit to conceive ideas in our minds and hearts and spirits.  You never know where a God idea might come from, but prayer is the incubator.  And when the idea is conceived, stewardship demands that you “take it captive.”  By the way, this is where keeping a prayer journal to write down ideas, impressions, and promptings of the Holy Spirit comes in handy.

We have a core conviction at National Community Church: there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet. I also believe that there are ways of doing missions, ways of doing evangelism, ways of doing discipleship, ways of doing worship that no one has thought of yet.  Six times the Psalmist said, “Sing to the Lord a new song.”  Can I also suggest that we need to pray a new prayer?

After we have prayed like it depends on God, and the God idea is conceived, then we need to work like it depends on us.  It takes blood, sweat, and tears to turn God ideas into reality!  But work ethic + prayer ethic = miracles!

I love it when people find creative ways to further kingdom causes via business endeavors.  That’s what we’ve tried to do with Ebenezers coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. Every penny of our $121,000 net profit goes to missions!  I pray that God would raise up a generation of anointed entrepreneurs!  Tom and Alana are a great example.  A few years ago we prayed over them and sent them to Nepal as “business missionaries.”  Their big dream?  To provide meaningful life-changing jobs for 1 million people.  That’s a big prayer circle!  Their most recent endeavor? CloudFactory.  Love the name!  Love the concept!  It’s more than a business.  It’s both a prayer and an answer to prayer for those who are employed by them.  They put computer-based tasks in the hands of talented people in developing countries.  Simple yet revolutionary!

It’s time to praystorm the gates of hell and take back the territory that rightfully belongs to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Good ideas won’t get it done.  Only God ideas!  But 1 God idea is worth more than a 1000 good ideas!

For free resources or bulk discounts, visit www.thecirclemaker.com.

On the seventh day you are to march around the city seven times.

Joshua 6:4

Can I ask a counterfactual question: what would have happened if the Israelites had stopped circling Jericho on day six? The obvious answer is this: they would have forfeited the miracle right before it happened.  The wall of Jericho would not have fallen and the promise would have remained unclaimed.

Nothing has changed.

I wonder how many of us have forfeited promises, forfeited miracles, forfeited dreams because we quit circling too soon.  Please don’t read that and get depressed.  God is the God of second chances!  It should inspire us to pray through.  Or to borrow vocabulary from The Circle Maker: keep circling!

Let me share a prayer testimony from someone who attended NCC for many years while they lived in DC.  They just read The Circle Maker and shared a few of the prayer circles they’ve drawn over the years.  This one involves a piece of legislation.  See if it doesn’t inspire you to keep circling!

In 1994, I authored legislation that forced the cable industry to fully scramble their pornography channels.  In our community, the Spice Channel was just one click away from the cartoon channel.  Congressman Duncan Hunter allowed me to use his office as a base camp as I prepared to personally visit all 435 Congressional offices and all 100 Senate offices.  It took me a week to visit all 535 offices, delivering the legislation and video evidence to each one. Every morning before starting my trek I did a prayer walk around the US Capitol 7 times and prayed for the spiritual walls of evil to come down.  And on the last day, at the end of the last circle, (a little concerned about how the Capitol Police would respond) I shouted loudly for the walls to come down.

A few days earlier I was in the Longworth Congressional Building and had just left the 220th Congressional office totally depressed.   In almost every office that I visited I was told that I was too late; Chairman Dingle had finished the Telecommunication’s Bill and there was no way that he would ever reopen it for an amendment, because if he opened it for mine, it would open it for everyone else’s, and that wasn’t going to happen. I was in the lobby on the second floor of the Longworth, went over to a window, sat on its cold marble sill, and hung my head in defeat.  I said to myself, I should stop wasting my time and go home to San Diego.

Never before, and never since, has God spoken to me so clearly. While I sat there looking down at the marble tiled floor, totally dejected, these words were spoken to me as clear as a bell, “Who is doing this, you or Me?” I can’t explain how I felt when I heard those words, but I straightened up and responded, “You are Lord!”  Instantly I was filled with more excitement than when I had first begun and at each of the following 215 offices, my presentations were given with power and faith.

I was in the Canon Congressional Building, and had just made my last presentation to the last Congressional office (I am not exaggerating when I tell you this); as my leg crossed the threshold as I exited the 435th office, my pager rang.  Chairman Dingle had just agreed to allow my amendment to be added to his Telecommunication’s Bill.

Maybe you’ve been praying for the salvation of a loved one what seems like an eternity.  Maybe you feel like you can’t handle the financial stress or relational tension any longer. Maybe you feel like your dream is as distant now as it was a decade ago.

My advice?  Keep circling!

What other option do you have?

To pray or not to pray.

That is the question, isn’t it?

Don’t just pray. Keep praying.  Then pray some more!

For free resources or bulk discounts, visit www.thecirclemaker.com.

My book tour kicks into high gear in the next few days.  It’s a little overwhelming to be honest. I’m a homebody. Love my family and my church family.  At the same time, I’m so excited to see the beginnings of a prayer revival.  I saw it in New York and Baltimore last week. All of that to say this: I covet your prayers!

I’ll be in Cleveland, Ohio Thursday night.  Come on out to A Greater Cause conference.  There are also live streaming venues in several cities across Ohio.

On Sunday, I’ll be in Baltimore with Ken Patterson at Grace International Church.

Gonna be a crazy weekend. We have our NCC leadership retreat on Friday and Saturday.  I’ll speak at NCC on Saturday night and Sunday morning.  Then up to Baltimore for a late AM service.  I’ll finish up in Lancaster, PA speaking to a group of independent bookstore owners.

This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

John 9:3

Pray.

Pray Hard.

Pray Through.

But don’t pray away.

How many times did the blind man in John 9 pray for healing?  How many times did his parents beg God to give their little boy his eyesight?  I wonder how many prayers went unanswered.  Or did they? Ultimately, the man born blind was healed but not until it would yield the greatest glory.

Let’s be honest, 90% of our prayers revolve around personal comfort, not God’s glory.  Too often we try to pray away every problem.  But what if that is the very thing that God wants to leverage for his glory?  Let’s not be too quick to pray away the pain, the suffering, the situation, the problem.  Let’s not just pray “get me out” prayers.  We sometimes need to pray “get me through” prayers.

We need a paradigm-shift in our prayer lives.  It’s not about us. It’s all about God.  And when you begin to pray for God’s glory above and beyond everything else it’s a game changer!  You no longer pray away every problem.  You pray through the problem.  You know that God might do a miracle, but that isn’t the goal. The goal is God’s glory.  And if suffering with grace yields more glory to God then so be it.

Remember when Paul prayed that God would take away his thorn in the flesh?  God didn’t answer that prayer the way Paul wanted. Why?  I’m not entirely sure.  Maybe it forced a greater dependence upon God which yielded more glory for God.  Maybe it kept him humble.  But God has reasons that are way beyond our reason! I’ve prayed that God would heal me of asthma so many times I’ve lost count, but God hasn’t chosen to answer that particular prayer.  I’m still asking, but in the meantime I’m trusting that Father knows best.

Too often we’re so anxious to “get out” of difficult situations that we never “get anything out” of those difficult situations.  We don’t learn the lessons God is teaching or cultivate the character God is developing.  Sometimes prayer is meant to change external circumstances and bring deliverance.  Sometimes prayer is meant to change us internally and help us walk through those situations with His grace, His power.  It takes discernment to know what God wills, but let’s not try to pray away the very thing God wants to leverage to put His glory on display!

Don’t pray away. Pray through.

For free resources or bulk discounts, visit www.thecirclemaker.com.

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Exodus 17:10-13

There are moments in life where you lack the ability to pray for yourself.  You lack the faith. You lack the patience. You lack the strength.  That’s when you need a prayer partner or prayer circle to hold up your arms like Aaron and Hur. Who is your Aaron and Hur?  In other words, who is interceding on your behalf and holding up your arms?  Who is your Moses?  Who are you lifting up in prayer?

I’m so grateful for the Prayer Circle at National Community Church that has been praying for me with great specificity, intensity, and consistency since I began writing my first published book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.  I don’t think I would have had the endurance to finish it if they had not endured in prayer.  They held up my arms!  And I don’t think God would have used my books like He has without their unceasing prayers.  One of the targeted prayers we’ve prayed for each of my books has been this: “let it get into the right hands at the right time.”  That prayer has been answered thousands and thousands of times. Some of supernatural synchronicities that are the byproduct of those prayers are nothing short of miraculous!  I never cease to be amazed at the stories people tell of getting a book during a critical season when they needed to make a tough decision, needed some hope to hang on to, needed a boost to their faith, needed to know that God was still on the throne.

One of my prayers for The Circle Maker is that people wouldn’t just read it by themselves.  I’m praying that prayer circles would form. I’m praying that small groups would become prayer groups. I’m praying that friendships would go deeper and grow stronger as they covenant to pray for one another. I’m praying that churches would gather for corporate prayer to hold each other accountable.

Do we believe what Jesus promised in Matthew 18:18-20?

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

All it takes is two prayer partners to form a prayer circle!

For free resources or bulk discounts, visit www.thecirclemaker.com.

If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.  Mark 4:23

Praying isn’t about talking as much as it is about listening.  Prayer is the way we tune into the still small voice of the Spirit.  Call them holy hunches.  Call them God ideas.  Call them prayer promptings.  When you get into God’s presence, you’ll start hearing that inaudible yet unmistakable voice of God.

Last year I spoke at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama for my friend, Chris Hodges.  While I was there, I toured their Dream Center in downtown Birmingham because we are on the verge of launching a Dream Center in Washington, DC. They have an amazing outreach to pimps and prostitutes.  They mentor kids.  They feed the hungry.  You name the need and they are meeting it.

One of the women working there is a former journalist named Lisa.  She had a good job with a good salary, but she quit because she knew God wanted her to work at the Dream Center.   Lisa is one of those people who exudes joy, exudes life, exudes energy.

During our tour, Lisa talked about their daily dependence upon God to meet the overwhelming needs in their community.  It’s takes hard work and hard prayer. Then she told me about one of the miracles she had experienced.  One day, as she was circling the Dream Center in prayer, she felt the Holy Spirit prompting her to take her woolly socks with her to work.  She thought she was losing her mind.  It was one of the strangest promptings she’d ever had, but she couldn’t shake the impression. So she grabbed her woolly socks, put them in her purse, and headed downtown.  When she got there, a prostitute was literally passed out on the doorstep.  Lisa opened the door, carried her inside, and just held her on the floor until she regained consciousness a few minutes later.  She was so cold she was shaking.  That’s when Lisa asked her: “If you could have anything, what would it be?”  Without hesitation, the woman immediately said, “Woolly socks.”  Lisa about lost it.  As she told me the story she started tearing up.  Then I started tearing up.  Lisa then told her, “Look what I have.”  She pulled out the woolly socks, and the woman said, “They even match my outfit.”

God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him.  God is great because nothing is too small for Him.  A sparrow doesn’t fall without Him noticing and caring, so it shouldn’t surprise us that he cares about a woman who wants woolly socks.  God loves showing his all-encompassing compassion in little ways, and if we would learn to obey His promptings like Lisa, we’d find ourselves in the middle of miracles a lot more often.

The reason many of us miss the miracles is because we aren’t looking and we aren’t listening.  The easy part of prayer is talking.  It’s much harder listening to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. But two-thirds of praying hard is listening and looking. Then we need to obey those prayer promptings.

For free resources or to purchase The Circle Maker, visit www.thecirclemaker.com.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

James 5:16

Before there was a Mother Teresa there was a Mother Dabney.

In 1925, Elizabeth J. Dabney and her husband went to work for a mission in the city of brotherly love, but there wasn’t much love in her neighborhood.  It was a hellhole. Her husband was called to preach. She was called to pray, but she didn’t just pray, she prayed through.

One afternoon she was thinking about a bad situation in their North Philly neighborhood and she asked God if He would give them a spiritual victory if she covenanted with Him to pray.  He promised that He would and she felt the Lord prompting her to meet Him the next morning at the Schuylkill River at 7:30 AM sharp.  Mother Dabney was so nervous about missing her prayer appointment that she stayed up all night crocheting. The next morning she went down to the river and made a prayer covenant with the Lord.

Lord, if You will bless my husband in the place You sent him to establish Your name, if You will break the bonds and destroy the middle wall of partition, if You will give him a church and congregation—a credit to Your people and all Christendom—I will walk with You for three years in prayer, both day and night. I will meet You every morning at 9 AM sharp; You will never have to wait for me; I will be there to greet You. I will stay there all day; I will devote all of my time to You. Furthermore, if You will listen to the voice of my supplication and break through in that wicked neighborhood and bless my husband, I will fast 72 hours each week for two years. While I am going through the fast, I will not go home to sleep in my bed. I will stay in church, and if I get sleepy, I’ll rest on newspapers and carpet.

As soon as she made that prayer covenant, the glory of God was poured out in a new way! Every morning at 9 AM, Mother Dabney greeted the Lord with a hearty, ”Good morning, Jesus.” She wore the skin off her knees, but God extended His powerful right arm.  She fasted seventy-two hours a week, but the Holy Spirit was her direct supply.

Soon the mission was too small to accommodate the people.  Her husband asked her to pray for another meeting place nearby. She prayed, and a man who had been in business for 25 years closed up shop so they could rent the building.  Mother Dabney would not be denied.  She was a circle maker and circle makers have a sanctified stubborn streak.  When they know something is in the will of God they won’t take no for an answer!

Mother Dabney’s prayer legacy would be a long forgotten footnote if it weren’t for one headline.  The Pentecostal Evangel published her testimony under the title What it Means to Pray Through.  That one article sparked a prayer movement all around the world.  Mother Dabney received more than three million letters from people who wanted to know how to pray through.

Our generation desperately needs to rediscover the difference between praying for and praying through.  Praying through is grabbing hold of the horns of the altar and refusing to let go until God answers.  Like Honi the Circle Maker, you refuse to move from the circle until God moves.  You intercede until God intervenes.

In the grand scheme of God’s story, there is a footnote behind every headline.  The footnote is prayer. If you focus on the footnotes, God will write the headlines. And your prayers will change the eternal plotline!

For free resources or to purchase The Circle Maker, visit www.thecirclemaker.com.

It’s day 12 of the 21-Day Prayer Challenge.

Let me share one of the defining moments in my prayer life.

About a decade ago I was at a small group meeting.  At the end of the discussion, we took time to share prayer requests and then I led in prayer. One of the guys in my group mentioned that he needed a computer for the campus ministry he worked with.  I started praying for him and the Lord interrupted me. He told me to quit praying.  It’s one of those rare moments when you’re pretty sure you’ve just heard the inaudible yet unmistakable voice of God. The still small voice said, “Why are you asking me? You’re the one with the extra computer!”  It stopped me in my tracks!  The truth is that we had an extra computer we weren’t even using!  So I quit praying mid-sentence and said to this guy, “We don’t need to pray about this. I’ve got a computer I can give you.”

There are some things you don’t need to pray about.  You don’t need to pray about whether or not to sin. You don’t need to pray about doing good when it’s within your power to bless someone.  You don’t need to pray about it. You need to do it.

Too often we get our job description and God’s job description confused. We want to do God’s job for Him and we want God to do our job for us.  That’s when prayer becomes a cop out.  We’re too lazy to do something about it so we pray about it.  Don’t get me wrong!  You need to pray like it depends upon God.  But here is the second half of the equation: work like it depends on you.  It can’t be either/or. It’s got to be both/and. And if you pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you, all bets are off.

To purchase The Circle Maker or get free resources, go here.

It’s day 11 of our 21-Day prayer challenge.

“We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”

Romans 8:26

Long before you woke up this morning and long after you go to sleep tonight, the Spirit of God was interceding for you with wordless groans.  He has been circling you since the day you were conceived and He’ll circle you till the day you die.  He is praying hard for you with ultrasonic groans that cannot be formulated into words and those unutterable intercessions should fill you with an unspeakable confidence.  God isn’t just for you in some passive sense.  God is for you in the most active sense imaginable: intercession.

And it’s not just the Holy Spirit who is circling you in prayer.  A few verses later in Romans 8:34 it says that Jesus is at the right of the Father interceding for us.  You are double circled today!  The Spirit and the Son are both interceding on your behalf to the Father.

I think 99% of our prayers are self-centered.  They focus on our needs, our problems, our situations.  And those are things we need to pray about.  But we also need to follow the example set by the Holy Spirit and intercede for others!  Intercession is grabbing hold of the horns of the altar and representing someone else’s need to the Father.  It’s very different than conversational prayer.

During our early morning prayer time today, we formed a prayer circle and interceded for Hannah (24) who works at the State Department.  She had chest pains a month ago and doctors discovered a tumor that fills 75% of her chest cavity.  Like Aaron and Hur who held up the arms of Moses during battle, we are lifting up Hannah to the Lord.  We are praying that God would put His glory on display!  We are praying that God would mystify the doctors.  We are interceding for a miracle!

The viability of our prayers is not contingent upon scrabbling the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet into the right combinations like abracadabra.  God already knows the last punctuation mark before we pronounce the first syllable.  The viability of our prayers has more to do with intensity than vocabulary.  That is modeled by the Holy Spirit Himself, who has been intensely and unceasingly interceding for you your entire life. And while we don’t pray that way all the time, there are moments that we need to pray with blood, sweat, and tears.  There are moments when we need to fall on our face and cry out to God.  There are moments when we need to pray like the Spirit, in the Spirit, and intercede with with wordless groans.

To purchase The Circle Maker, go here.

It’s day ten of the 21-Day prayer challenge.

Blessed is he who is not offended at me.

Luke 7:23

At this point in the 21-Day prayer challenge, you might be experiencing a little faith fatigue. You aren’t alone. All of us go through prayer slumps!  Sometimes it’s the slow erosion of faith. But more often than not, the loss of a prayer life is traced to unanswered prayer.  Death by disappointment.  What do you do when God doesn’t answer how you want or when you want?  Let me tell you what you don’t do: you don’t stop praying! It’s always too soon to quit. It’s always too soon to give up. You need to resolve that you’ll keep circling until the day you die.

John and Heidi are part of the prayer circle that prays for me. In fact, they are some of the most prayerful people I know.  God has given them some amazing answers to their prayers for others, but many of their own prayers for their own challenges have seemingly gone unanswered.  But there is no quit in them.  They just keep on praying like it depends on God because they know it does.  They haven’t thrown in the prayer towel despite the disappointments.  Their secret?  One promise has sustained them through the toughest times and deepest disappointments. They circled Luke 7:23: blessed is he who is not offended at me.

Here’s the context.

Jesus is doing miracles right and left. He is healing diseases, casting out demons, and restoring sight to the blind, but John the Baptist misses the miracle train.  It seems like Jesus is rescuing everybody except his most faithful follower who is in prison.   And John is his cousin, nonetheless.  It seems like Jesus could have, and maybe should have, organized a rescue operation and busted him out before he was beheaded.  Instead he sends a message via his disciples.  He tells them to tell John about all the miracles he is doing and then he asks them to relay this simple promise: blessed is he who is not offended at me.

Have you ever felt like God was doing miracles for everyone and their brother, but you seem to be the odd man out?  It seems like God is keeping His promises to everyone but you?  I wonder if that’s how John the Baptist felt.  What do you do when you feel like God is answering everyone’s prayers but yours?

In the words of my friends who have experienced their fair share of unanswered prayers: “We try to live our lives unoffended by God.  Jesus promises that we will be blessed if we aren’t offended.  Obviously we aren’t in prison about to be beheaded, but we have seen many answers to our prayers for other people when we have prayed for their finances, their health and their kids.  Yet in our own lives, well…”

When God doesn’t answer how or when you want, you have a choice to make.  You can give up or hang on.  You can let go or pray through.  You can get frustrated with God or choose to live unoffended.

My friends have chosen to live unoffended: “Jesus promises blessing if we are not offended when He does things for others.  And if He does it for them, He might do it for us. I don’t know why God does what He does.  I do know that 100% of the prayers I don’t pray won’t get answered.” I love that approach to prayer, that approach to life.  It’s the circle maker’s mantra: 100% of the prayers you don’t pray won’t get answered.

Live unoffended.

This devotional is taken from The Circle Maker. To purchase copies, go here.