One of my responsibilities as a father is not only circling my children in prayer but also teaching them to circle the promises of God. Parents are prophets to their children. And part of our prophetic role is knowing the Scriptures and knowing our children well enough to know what promises they need to circle. Josiah has been fighting some fears lately, so we’ve been circling Philippians 4:4 – 8. I’ve been praying that the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, would guard Josiah’s heart and mind in Christ Jesus. My bedtime prayers have been hyperlinked to this promise. So we circle Scripture by praying it. Then Scripture encircles us.
A few years ago, our friends Dennis and Donna, who pastor a neighboring church on Capitol Hill, told us about something God had impressed upon them to do for their children. They identified words that were descriptive and prescriptive of their kids; then they had them framed to hang on the walls in their rooms. They often wondered whether those words meant anything, but their oldest daughter, who is now grown up and out of their house, recently told them that on some nights when she couldn’t fall asleep, she would look at those words on the wall, and they would speak to her. Those framed words started to frame her. She started to see herself in light of her God-ordained identity and destiny.
Lora and I loved that idea, so we adapted it for our daughter, Summer. Prior to Summer’s most recent birthday, Lora recruited two of Summer’s aunts to help come up with a list of prophetic words to speak into Summer’s life. Each of them took three words and talked about them over a special birthday dinner. Then we had a graphic designer turn those nine words into a poster. Each word is in a different font, and these different fonts represent nine different dimensions of her destiny. That poster hangs in Summer’s room as a reminder of her true identity in Christ.
Not unlike the day I defined success at a Starbucks on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, these nine words define the character of Christ that we see in Summer. These nine words are nine prophecies that we will pray around Summer for the rest of our lives. Putting them on a poster was a way of circling them.
The Favor of Him Who Dwelt In the Burning Bush
The longer I live the more I crave the favor of God. The greatest moments in life are the moments when God intervenes on our behalf and blesses us way beyond what we expect or deserve. It’s a humble reminder of His sovereignty. And these favor moments become our favorite memories.
I’ll never forget August 12, 2001.
National Community was a fledgling church for five years. Like plowing rock-hard soil, there was nothing easy about planting a church in Washington, DC. It took us five years to grow from our core group of 19 to 250 people. Then it was almost like the Lord declared, “Now is the time of God’s favor.”
A religion reporter from The Washington Post asked for an interview because she was intrigued by our church demographics. She proceeded to write an article about how we were reaching emerging generations and told me it would appear in the religion section. I picked up a two-inch-thick Sunday edition on my way into Union Station that morning and quickly flipped to the religion section. I was disappointed when I didn’t find the article. I figured it didn’t make the editorial cut, so I put the newspaper back on the stand because I wasn’t going to buy it if we weren’t in it. That’s when I discovered that the article was on the front page!
That was the day God put National Community Church on the map. It had taken five years to grow to 250 people, but we doubled in size over the next year. It was as though God had opened the floodgates of favor, and hundreds of readers visited National Community Church as a result of that one article. And the beautiful thing about it is that we couldn’t take credit for it. It was nothing more, or maybe I should say nothing less, than the favor of God. It was God’s time. It was God’s favor. It was God’s word. And God was watching over it.
Every verse on favor is circled in my Bible, but my personal favorite is one of the blessings that Moses pronounced over Joseph:
May the LORD bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield; with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills; with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush.
Did you catch “the favor” in the last phrase? God’s favor is multidimensional, but this may rank as my favorite kind: “the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush.” And I love the fact that this blessing is pronounced by Moses himself. He knew whereof he spoke because he is the one who heard the Voice in the bush.
The hard thing about praying hard is letting God do the heavy lifting. You have to trust the favor of God to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. You have to trust God to change hearts, even the heart of Pharaoh.
Full Circle
Let me circle all the way back to the old crack house.
We prayed for that old crack house at 201 F Street NE for several years before I finally mustered up the courage to call the phone number listed on the For Sale sign. I felt foolish. What was I going to say? “Hi, I’m the pastor of a church with no people and no money. We’d like to buy your crack house and turn it into a coffeehouse.” It sounded like a ridiculous idea to me, and I thought it would sound even more ridiculous to them. But, believe it or not, that is precisely what God told me to say.
I knew that the two lawyers who owned the property, both of whom were Jewish, might not understand or appreciate who we were or what we wanted to do as a church, but I felt like God wanted me to humbly yet boldly tell them who we were and what we wanted to do. So I didn’t pull any punches. I prayed for favor. Then I shared our vision like I was casting it to our congregation. And guess what? They loved it. My only explanation for their reaction is the favor of Him who dwells in the burning bush.
The favor of Him who dwells in the burning bush is a unique dimension of God’s favor that enables you to stand before those who would naturally stand in opposition to you, but they supernaturally step aside or stand behind you. That is how the favor of Him who dwells in the burning bush manifested itself when Moses stood before Pharaoh. It gave a slave, on whom there was a warrant out for his arrest, the boldness to declare the promise God had given him at the burning bush: “Let my people go.”
Purchasing the property at 2nd and F Street was the first miracle in the process of building Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse. I would not recommend this kind of risk unless you know it is Spirit prompted, but we purchased the property knowing that we would need to get a change in the zoning code in order to build the coffeehouse. If our rezoning efforts were unsuccessful, our dream would die. For eighteen long months, we met with everybody from Historic Preservation to the Office of Planning to the Capitol Hill Restoration Committee. Overall, we had tremendous community backing. After all, we were investing $3 million to turn a crack house into a coffeehouse. But during the rezoning process we discovered that some influential neighbors decided to oppose our rezoning efforts because of misinformation about what we planned to do. I followed a link to a website where they were slandering our motives. To be perfectly honest, I was ticked off. Their opposition had the potential to short-circuit our dream of building a coffeehouse, and I got angrier and angrier every time I thought about it. That’s when I discovered the power of praying circles around the pharaohs in your life. Every time I got angry, I converted that anger into a prayer. Let’s just say that I came as close as I had ever come to praying without ceasing!
I prayed for those neighbors for several months leading up to our hearing before the zoning commission. I’ll never forget the feeling as we walked into the hearing room and sat down at our tables on either side of the aisle. I had absolutely no animosity toward the people who were opposing us. None whatsoever! I felt an unexplainable compassion for the people who opposed us and I wasn’t worried at all about what they said or did because I had circled them in prayer. I had also circled the zoning
commissioners. Not only did we win unanimous approval from the Zoning Commission, which is a testament to the favor of Him who dwells in the burning bush, but one of those people who opposed us is now a regular customer at Ebenezer’s.
I’m not going to lie. The entire two-year ordeal of rezoning was emotionally and spiritually exhausting, but that is how you increase your persistence quotient. When it was all over, I thanked God for the opposition we encountered because it galvanized our resolve and unified our church. It also taught us how to pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. I learned that we don’t have to be afraid of the enemy’s attacks. They are counterproductive when we counteract them with prayer. The more opposition we experience, the harder we have to pray, and the harder we have to pray, the more miracles God does.
Chapter 10
The Cattle
on a Thousand Hills
Shortly after Dallas Theological Seminary opened its doors, their doors almost closed because of bankruptcy. Before their 1929 commencement day, the faculty gathered in the president’s office to pray that God would provide. They formed a prayer circle, and when it was Harry Ironside’s turn, he circled Psalm 50:10 with a simple Honi-like prayer: “Lord, we know you own the cattle on a thousand hills. Please sell some of them, and send us the money.”
The time lapse between our requests and God’s answers is often longer than we would like, but occasionally God answers immediately. While the faculty was praying, a $10,000 answer was delivered. One version of the story attributes the gift to a Texas cattle rancher who had sold two carloads of cattle. Another version attributes it to a banker from Illinois. But one way or another, it was God who prompted the gift and answered the prayer.
In a moment that is reminiscent of the day Peter knocked on the door of the house where his friends were praying for a miraculous jailbreak, the president’s secretary interrupted the prayer meeting by knocking on the president’s door. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder and president of DTS, answered the door, and she handed him the answer to prayer. Turning to his friend and colleague, Dr. Harry Ironside, President Chafer said, “Harry, God sold the cattle!”
One of my oldest and fondest memories is driving from Minneapolis to Red Wing, Minnesota, to go apple picking with my grandparents. I can still hear my Grandpa Johnson singing the old chorus “God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.”
I don’t just believe that promise of provision. I hear my grandfather singing it every time I read Psalm 50:10. While I’ve certainly gone through tough financial times, I’ve also experienced enough miracles to know that when God gives a vision, He makes provision.
Back On Our Knees
I’ll never forget the day we signed the contract to purchase 201 F Street NE. Part of what made it so memorable is that the deal went down the day after Josiah was born. Our realtor had to come to the hospital so I could sign the papers.
We celebrated that miracle for a few minutes, but then we got right back on our knees because we needed another one. We got the contract knowing that we didn’t have the cash for the down payment. We had thirty days to come up with a 10 percent down payment or the contract would be null and void.
After twenty-nine days of exhausting all options, we had scraped together $25,000, leaving us $7,500 short. We didn’t know where else to turn, so we turned to Him who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. We knew the dream of building a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill was from God, and we kept circling the promise in Psalm 50:10.
The very next day, the day before our deadline, we received two checks in the mail from former NCCers. Both couples had recently moved away from the DC area, but they hadn’t found a church home yet, so they continued to tithe to NCC. I later found out that one of the checks was larger than their normal tithe because it was the tithe on a signing bonus with a new law firm. Neither couple had any clue that we had twenty-four hours to come up with $7,500, but God knew. Neither couple knew that their obedience was our miracle, but God knew. He always knows. And if we pray in alignment with the will of God, He always provides. The total of the two checks combined?
Exactly $7,500.
The Game of Chicken
God must love the game of chicken because He plays it with us all the time. He has this habit of waiting until the very last moment to answer our prayer to see if we will chicken out or pray through. If we chicken out, we miss out on the miracle; if we pray through, God will come through, but it may well be at the last moment possible. And, of course, if you chicken out of the game of chicken, God will always give you another chance to get back in the game.
This pattern of last-second provision is repeated throughout Scripture, and I think it reveals God’s playful personality. Sometimes we are so focused on the character of God that we forget that God has a personality too. He loves hiding around corners and surprising us. You can’t convince me that Jesus didn’t have fun sneaking up on the disciples in the middle of the night in the middle of the lake by walking on water. You can’t convince me that God didn’t enjoy the befuddled look on Moses’ face when he heard the talking bush. As I read Scripture, I can come to no other conclusion than this: God loves showing up in unexpected ways at unexpected times.
I love this part of God’s personality. While it sometimes adds stress, it also adds drama. In big and small ways, it is prayer that adds the unexpected twists and turns in our personal plotlines that make life worth living. It is prayer that precipitates and culminates in the climatic moments when God shows up in dramatic fashion. It is prayer that can turn any story, your story, into an epic drama.
I have scribbled the initials JEJIT in the margins of my Bible at various places where God provides just enough just in time. He did it with the widow who is down to her last jar of olive oil. He did it when the Israelites are trapped between the Egyptian army and Red Sea. He did it when the boat is about to capsize on the Sea of Galilee because of hurricane-force winds. And He did it with us when we had twenty-four hours to come up with $7,500.
Maybe you’re in a desperate situation right now. It feels like you’re down to your last jar of olive oil, or the Egyptian army is closing in on you, or your boat is about to capsize. It may seem like God is nowhere to be seen, but maybe God is setting the stage for a miracle. This I know for sure: God is always stage right. He’s ready to make His grand entrance. All He is waiting for is your prayer cue.
The Manna Miracle
When God provided the miraculous manna for the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness, it says He provided “enough for that day.” Just enough. The language describing God’s provision is extremely precise. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered a little had enough. God provided just enough. Then He gave them a curious command: “Do not keep any of it until morning.”
So why does God provide just enough? Why would God forbid leftovers? What’s wrong with taking a little initiative and gathering enough manna for two days or two weeks?
Here’s my take on the manna miracle: The manna was a daily reminder of their daily dependence on God. God wanted to cultivate their daily dependence by providing for their needs on a daily basis. Nothing has changed. Isn’t that the point of the Lord’s Prayer? “Give us today our daily bread.”
We want a one-week or one-month or one-year supply of God’s provision, but God wants us to drop to our knees every day in raw dependence on Him. And God knows that if He provided too much too soon, we’d lose our spiritual hunger. He knows we’d stop trusting in our Provider and start trusting in the provision.
One of our fundamental misunderstandings of spiritual maturity is thinking that it should result in self-sufficiency. It’s the exact opposite. The goal isn’t independence; the goal is codependence on God. Our desire for self-sufficiency is a subtle expression of our sinful nature. It’s a desire to get to a place where we don’t need God, don’t need faith, and don’t need to pray. We want God to provide more so we need Him less.
Holy Complicati
ons
One reason many people get frustrated spiritually is that they feel like it should get easier to do the will of God. I don’t know if this will be encouraging or discouraging, but the will of God doesn’t get easier. The will of God gets harder. Here’s why: the harder it gets, the harder you have to pray.
God will keep putting you in situations that stretch your faith, and as your faith stretches, so do your dreams. If you pass the test, you graduate to bigger and bigger dreams. And it won’t get easier; it’ll get harder. It won’t get less complicated; it’ll get more complicated. But complications are evidence of God’s blessing. And if it’s from God, then it’s a holy complication.
You need to come to terms with this two-sided truth: The blessings of God won’t just bless you; they will also complicate your life. Sin will complicate your life in negative ways. The blessings of God will complicate your life in positive ways. When I married Lora, it complicated my life, and it really complicated her life! Praise God for complications. We have three complications named Parker, Summer, and Josiah. I can’t imagine my life without those complications. With every promotion, there are complications. As you earn more income, your taxes will become more complicated. My point? Blessings will complicate your life, but they will complicate your life in ways God wants it complicated.
A few years ago, I prayed a prayer that changed my life. I believe it can change your life as well, but it takes tremendous courage to pray it like you mean it. And you have to count the cost.
Lord, complicate my life.
Afflict the Comfortable
My portfolio as a pastor is twofold: (1) comfort the afflicted and (2) afflict the comfortable. It’s the second half of the job description that is more difficult. Let’s be honest: many, if not most, of our prayers are selfish in nature. We pray as if God’s chief objective is our personal comfort. It’s not. God’s chief objective is His glory. And sometimes His gain involves a little pain.
The Circle Maker_Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears Page 10