The harder the better.
It’s true in life; it’s true in prayer.
Deep Roots
My father-in-law, Bob Schmidgall, was a circle maker. He founded Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois, and pastored there for more than thirty years. The church grew from one member to thousands of members and became one of the leading missions-giving churches in America. The greatest lesson I learned from him is this: If you plant yourself in one place and let your roots grow deep, there is no limit to what God can do. His example of longevity inspired one of my life goals: Pastor one church for forty-plus years. And his legacy of generosity inspired another: Lead National Community Church to give $25,000,000 to missions.
My father-in-law grew up on a farm in central Illinois, which meant he had a carob-tree perspective. It also meant he got up very early in the morning. He was one of the godliest men I’ve ever known, and I think it’s because he got up at ungodly hours to pray. He spent an hour on his knees before the rest of the world even woke up. On a good day, he also read three newspapers and logged two miles on the treadmill. My mother-in-law once told me that she had to reinforce the knees on his pants because they were always the first thing to go. For thirty years, he planted himself in one place. For thirty years, he planted seeds. For thirty years, he let his roots grow deep.
One of the longest and hardest days of my life was the day of his funeral, a few days after his shocking death at the age of fifty-five. Thousands of people came to pay their respects, some of whom had never even met him but whose lives had been indirectly impacted by the sermons he preached or the prayers he prayed. We met people who put their faith in Christ while listening to one of his radio messages. We met people whose mom or dad, son or daughter, brother or sister started following Christ at Calvary. Even now, when I travel and speak at leadership conferences across the country, it’s rare that I don’t meet someone who was touched by his ministry, even though he died thirteen years ago. His perennial prayers are still bearing fruit.
After the funeral service, our family exited the side door of the sanctuary and got into a car right behind the hearse at the head of the funeral procession. As we drove down Route 59 from Calvary Church to Naperville Cemetery, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the longest line of cars I had ever seen. According to the Naperville police, cars were still pulling out of the church parking lot as we pulled into the cemetery five miles away.
That’s what dreaming big, praying hard, and thinking long looks like. His legacy is a long love. His legacy is the stop, drop, and pray. His legacy is a lot of early mornings and some sleepless nights.
On Call
Our family started attending Calvary Church when I was in the eighth grade. It was already a megachurch with thousands of members, but my father-in-law had an amazing memory for names and faces. If he met you once, he would remember your name forever. Despite the size of the church, he never lost his shepherd’s heart. He had a hospitable spirit that gave him an air of accessibility. Maybe that’s why my parents felt like they could call him at two in the morning after my doctor issued a code blue and half a dozen nurses came rushing into my hospital room in ICU. I thought I was taking my last breath.
My mom stayed by my side while my dad called information and got a home phone number for the Schmidgalls. In less than ten minutes, my future father-in-law was at my bedside in his black double-breasted superman suit that I would later swear he slept in.
My father-in-law was a large man with large hands. They looked more like meat hooks than hands. And when he prayed for people, his hands would envelop their head like a skullcap. When he laid his hands on my head, I remember thinking that there is no way God won’t answer his prayer. He had a familiarity with God that was disarming. He had a faith in God that was reassuring.
He could have called a staff member to make the visit. He didn’t. He could have waited until morning. He didn’t. He settled for a short night’s sleep on short notice to pray for a thirteen-year-old kid who was fighting for his life. Little did he know that this thirteen-year-old kid would one day marry his daughter. Little did he know that this thirteen-year-old kid would one day give him his first grandchild, a colicky baby boy named Parker. There is no way he could have ever known, but that is the glorious mystery of prayer.
You never know who you are praying for. You never know how or when God will answer your prayers. But if you pray long and boring prayers, God will give you some exciting answers. If you are willing to interrupt your sleep cycle, your dreams might just come true.
Praying through Writer’s Block
Aspiring authors often ask me what it takes to write a book. I’m certainly no authority, but here’s my short answer: sleep deprivation. When I’m in a writing season, I set my alarm several hours earlier than I’d like, drag myself out of bed, and pound on my keyboard for several hours before putting on my pastor hat.
Getting a book published is fun. Writing is anything but. It’s a long and boring process that is painfully painstaking when you’re a perfectionist. Do I love writing? Yes. But what I really love is having written. And I wish it got easier, but it doesn’t. Writing this book was just as boring and long as the last one, and I’m sure the next one will be just as boring and long as this one. But that long and boring process will translate into someone else’s miracle.
I had a bout with writer’s block the other day — I’ve come to expect it as part of the process of writing. There are days that you need to pray through and write through, even when you don’t feel any creative flow. But I had a bad case, and it was made worse by my looming deadline. I got so frustrated that I decided to get my third caffeinated drink of the day. That’s the danger of having an office above a coffeehouse. Our baristas know to cut me off after three!
While waiting in line, I overheard one of our regular customers who works across the street talking about my last book, Soulprint. The barista pointed at me and said, “The author is right there.” He told me that the book had helped him in his journey of recovery. It reminded him of step four in the long and boring twelve-step process called AA. He thought our encounter was a divine appointment for him. The truth is, it was a divine appointment for me. I sat down at my computer with a renewed sense of destiny that helped me pray through and break through my writer’s block.
That encounter reminded me of why I write. My perennial prayer is that readers would circle one page, one paragraph, one sentence that may have helped to change their life. I’ve come to terms with the fact that those miracles only happen after the long and boring process of writing and rewriting. But if I pray through the writer’s block, I believe there is a miracle waiting on the other side.
Chapter 13
The Greatest of Them All
1931 was a long and boring year. The stock market crash of 1929 plunged America into the depths of the Great Depression, and most businesses struggled to stay afloat. Among the struggling businessmen was a hotelier named Conrad Hilton. Americans weren’t traveling, and hotels were suffering. Hilton was borrowing money from a bellhop so he could eat.
It was during those difficult days of the Depression that Hilton came across a photograph of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. The Waldorf was the holy grail of hotels with six kitchens, two hundred chefs, five hundred waiters, and two thousand rooms. It even had its own private hospital and railroad. In retrospect, Hilton observed that 1931 was “an outrageous time to dream.” But the economic crisis didn’t keep him from dreaming big, praying hard, or thinking long. Hilton clipped the photograph of the Waldorf out of the magazine and wrote across it, “the greatest of them all.” Then he placed the photograph under the glass top of his desk. Every time Hilton sat down at his desk, his dream was staring him in the face.
Nearly two decades came and went. America emerged from the Great Depression and entered the Second World War. The big band era gave way to bebop. And the baby boom began. All the while, Hilton kept circling the Waldorf. Every time he walked by
the Waldorf, he tipped his hat in deference to his dream.
Hilton acquired an impressive portfolio of hotels, including the Roosevelt in New York City and the Mayflower in Washington, DC, but the Queen, as he called the Waldorf, eluded him. Several attempts to purchase the hotel failed, but Hilton kept circling. Finally, on October 12, 1949, eighteen years after drawing a circle around his dream, Hilton made his move. He purchased 249,024 shares of the Waldorf Corporation and crowned his collection of hotels with the Queen.
How did he do it?
Well, Hilton certainly possessed his fair share of business acumen and negotiating prowess. He was a hardworking visionary with a lot of charisma. But the true answer is revealed in his autobiography. It’s the answer he learned from his mother who had prayed circles around her son. In Hilton’s own words, “My mother had one answer for everything. Prayer!”
When Conrad was a young boy, his horse, Chiquita, died. He was devastated and demanded an answer. His mother’s answer was the answer to everything: “Go and pray, Connie … Take all your problems to Him. He has answers when we don’t.” That lesson was not lost on him as a young boy or as an old man. For eighteen long and boring years, Hilton worked like it depended on him and prayed like it depended on God. Then his persistence paid off.
The final section of Hilton’s autobiography is titled “Pray Consistently and Confidently.” Here Hilton provides a succinct summary of his approach to business — essentially his approach to everything in life: “In the circle of successful living, prayer is the hub that holds the wheel together. Without our contact with God we are nothing. With it, we are ‘a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor.’ “
The next time you stay in a Hilton, remember that long before it was bricks and mortar, it was a bold prayer. It was a long shot, a long thought. But if you pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you for eighteen years, anything is possible. I particularly love the fact that Hilton tipped his hat to the Waldorf whenever he walked by. It was a gesture of humility, of respect, of confidence. When you dream big, pray hard, and think long, you know your time will eventually come.
Hilton certainly celebrated the acquisition of his big dream, but he never viewed the Queen as his greatest investment or achievement. His greatest privilege and potential was kneeling before the King. That’s what made the Queen possible. The Queen was always subject to the King.
To Their Knees
Daniel ranks as one of the most brilliant minds the ancient world has ever known. He was a Renaissance man two thousand years before the Renaissance, with an unusual aptitude for both philosophy and science. He could explain riddles and solve problems unlike anyone in his generation, and no one could dream or interpret dreams like Daniel. But the thing that set him apart wasn’t his IQ; it was his PQ. Daniel prayed circles around the greatest superpower on earth, and because he got on his knees, he brought kings and kingdoms to their knees.
Daniel didn’t just pray when he had a bad day; he prayed every day. He didn’t just dial up 911 prayers when he was in a lions’ den; prayer was part of the rhythm and routine of his life. Prayer was his life, and his life was a prayer.
I’m sure Daniel prayed with a greater degree of intensity right before he was thrown into the lions’ den, but that intensity was the byproduct of consistency. He approached every situation, every opportunity, every challenge, and every person prayerfully. And it was this prayerful posture that led to one of the most unlikely rises to power in political history. How does a prisoner of war become prime minister of the country that took him captive in the first place?
Only God.
The ascendance of Daniel defies political science, but it defines the power of prayer circles. Prayer invites God into the equation, and when that happens, all bets are off. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the locker room, the boardroom, or the classroom. It doesn’t matter whether you practice law or medicine or music. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. If you stop, drop, and pray, then you never know where you’ll go, what you’ll do, or who you’ll meet.
Prayer Postures
Physical posture is an important part of prayer. It’s like a prayer within a prayer. Posture is to prayer as tone is to communication. If words are what you say, then posture is how you say it. There is a reason that Scripture prescribes a wide variety of postures such as kneeling, falling prostrate on one’s face, the laying on of hands, and anointing someone’s head with oil. Physical postures help posture our hearts and minds.
When I extend out my hands in worship, it symbolizes my surrender to God. Sometimes I’ll raise a clenched fist to celebrate what Christ has accomplished for me on the cross and declare the victory He has won. We do it after a great play, so why not during a great song?
During the most recent Lenten season, Parker and I got up a half hour earlier than normal to allow a little extra time to read Scripture. We also decided we would get on our knees when we prayed. The physical posture of kneeling, coupled with a humble heart, is the most powerful position on earth. I’m not sure that the kneeling position betters my batting average in prayer, but it gets me in the right stance. All I know is this: Humility honors God, and God honors humility. Why not kneel? It certainly can’t hurt.
One of my favorite prayer postures I learned from the Quakers. I lead our congregation in this prayer frequently. We begin with hands facing down, symbolizing the things we need to let go of. It involves a process of confessing our sins, rebuking our fears, and relinquishing control. Then we turn our hands over so they are facing up in a posture of receptivity. We actively receive what God wants to give—joy unspeakable, peace that transcends understanding, and unmerited grace. We receive the fruit and gifts of His Spirit with open hands and open hearts.
There is nothing magical about the laying on of hands or bowing the knee or anointing the head with oil, but there is something biblical about it. There is also something mystical about it. When we practice these prescribed postures, we are doing what has been done for thousands of years, and part of thinking long is appreciating the timeless traditions that connect us to our spiritual ancestors.
The church I pastor is absolutely orthodox in belief but somewhat unorthodox in practice. Meeting in movie theaters makes it difficult to have a lot of High Church traditions. The movie screens are our postmodern stained glass; the smell of popcorn is our incense. But just because we don’t practice a lot of extrabiblical religious rituals doesn’t mean we devalue biblical tradition. Just because we believe the church should be the most creative place on the planet doesn’t mean we devalue tradition. We aren’t religious about religion, the human constructs created over the generations to surround our faith with rituals. We do, however, hold religiously to the timeless traditions of Scripture.
I’ve learned that what goes around comes around. What is in vogue now will eventually be out of vogue, and what is out of vogue now will eventually be in vogue. Human tradition is like a swinging pendulum. Singing hymns may be old-school, but give it enough time, and singing hymns will be cutting-edge creative once again. One thing I know for sure: Biblical traditions never go out of style. They are as relevant now as they were in ancient times. And when we practice the prayer postures prescribed in Scripture, it helps us dream big, pray hard, and think long.
Tip the Hat
I love the detailed description of Daniel’s prayer posture. The nuances are not insignificant. He prayed three times a day. He went upstairs. He got down on his knees. And he opened a window toward Jerusalem. It’s the open window that intrigues me. Even when prayer was outlawed, Daniel didn’t close the window to conceal his illegal actions. I bet he opened the window a little wider and prayed a little louder. The question, of course, is why he opened a window toward Jerusalem in the first place.
It wasn’t like God couldn’t hear him if the window was closed. It wasn’t like God’s answer depended on his principal direction. God can hear us, whether we’re facing north, south
, east, or west, but facing Jerusalem kept Daniel pointed in the direction of his dream. His physical posture mirrored his mental posture. It was his way of staying focused. It was his way of keeping the dream front and center. It was his way of circling the promise. Opening his window toward Jerusalem was Daniel’s way of tipping his hat at the Waldorf.
There is something powerful about being in proximity to the person, place, or thing you are praying for. If there wasn’t, my future father-in-law would have just prayed over the phone and gone back to bed. Sometimes physical contact creates a spiritual conduit. Proximity creates intimacy. Proximity proclaims authority. Drawing a prayer circle is one way of marking territory — God’s territory.
I spent many a Saturday night praying on the plaza in front of Union Station when we held services there. Then on Sunday mornings, I walked the aisles, laying hands on every single theater seat. When we did our first bulk mailing as a church, we couldn’t afford to get the envelopes labeled, so we did the work ourselves. We didn’t just put labels on envelopes; we laid hands on every single name, every single address, every single mailer. One of the most unique and special proximity prayers involved the dedication of a Senate office to God. We went from office to office laying hands on everything from chairs to cabinets to candy jars.
After I introduced our congregation to Honi the circle maker, I’ve heard dozens of different applications. There are lots of offices and apartments in Washington, DC, that have been circled in prayer. In each instance, praying in proximity made these prayers more than perfunctory. Like the promise given to Joshua, “I will give you every place where you set your foot,” it’s a way of exercising the authority God has given us as His children.
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