And one more footnote. This one goes back more than fifty years.
Let me retrace the circle.
Prophetic Prayer
In 1960, an evangelist named R.W. Shambach preached a revival in Washington, DC for church planters Fred and Charlotte Hall. Without them even knowing it, Shambach laid hands on the Academy Theatre and prayed that God would give it to them. That prayer was answered in 1962 when The Peoples’ Church purchased that old theater and turned it into a place of worship. They faithfully served God and the community there for forty-nine years.
Shambach also prayed what I believe was a prophetic prayer over that theater. As he laid hands on that building, he bound it for God’s glory: “May this place always be used for God’s glory.”
That prophetic prayer resurfaced one day over lunch. Michael said he knew that prayer was the reason that the nightclub deal fell through. He also knew that we were the fulfillment of that prayer. I knew it too.
It’s hard to describe the feeling when you know that a fifty-year-old prayer is being answered and you’re right in the middle of the miracle. Shambach’s prayer was a binding prayer that sealed the theater for God’s glory forever. Like a time capsule, it was opened and answered fifty years later.
Every prayer is a time capsule. You never know when or where or how God is going to answer it, but He will answer it. There is no expiration date, and there are no exceptions. God answers prayer. Period. We don’t always see it or understand it, but God always answers.
We can live with holy anticipation because God is ordering our footsteps. When R.W. Shambach laid hands on that theater in 1960, he prayed a circle around it. Then I double circled it in 1996 without even knowing it. It didn’t even dawn on me until we were about to seal the deal that I had prayed a circle around The Peoples’ Church when I did my prayer walk all the way around Capitol Hill. I walked right down 8th Street. I walked right under the marquee. Without even knowing it, I had double circled that double miracle fifteen years before.
After signing the contract, I e-mailed a banker-friend who has financed some of our dreams. I had recently told him about my prayer walk around Capitol Hill, so he knew this was the fourth piece of Promised Land I had walked by — along with our first office at 205 F Street NE, our coffeehouse at 201 F Street NE, and the last piece of property on Capitol Hill at 8th and Virginia Avenue — that God had now given us. He jokingly asked me, “Are there any other properties you walked by that I need to know about?” My response: “I did walk by the Capitol. Who knows?”
You can’t never always sometimes tell.
Chapter 17
Bottled Prayer
I love the ending of the book of Daniel. Daniel is thinking long and thinking out loud. In his final vision of the book, he asks the question that all of us want the answer to: “My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?” Well, God always answers, but it’s not always a straight answer. This certainly doesn’t mean it’s not an honest answer; it just means it’s far too complicated, with infinite twists and turns, for our logical left brains to comprehend.
“Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end.”
I realize this specifically references the prophecies given to Daniel by the Holy Spirit, but I also believe there is a universal principle in this passage. Our prayers are prophecies, and God Almighty seals them until their designated time. He’s never early. He’s never late. When the time comes, kairos, not chronos, the prayer will be unsealed and the answer revealed.
At some point, our spoken words cease to exist because they are subject to the law of entropy. Our spoken words, aka sound waves, run into friction and run out of energy. Our prayers, however, are sealed forever. Our prayers never cease to exist because they aren’t subject to natural laws, including the law of entropy. The supernatural laws of prayer defy the natural laws of time and space.
While it’s impossible to trace the pinball path of a single prayer, our prayers somehow exit our four dimensions of space-time in order to get to the God who exists outside of the four space-time dimensions He created when He said, “Let there be light.” Our prayers don’t dissipate over time; our prayers accumulate through eternity.
According to the Doppler Effect, our universe is still expanding. The significance is this: The four words that God spoke at the beginning of time, “Let there be light,” are still creating galaxies at the edge of the universe. If God can do that with four words, what are you worried about? There is nothing He cannot do. After all, He created everything out of nothing.
His words never return void. Neither do your prayers when you pray the word of God and the will of God. The same God who hovered over the chaos at the beginning of time is hovering over your life, and you never know when His answer will reenter the atmosphere of your life. But you can know this: The Lord is watching over His word to perform it.
As sure as our prayers reach escape velocity and enter God’s orbit, the answer will reenter the atmosphere somewhere, somehow, sometime. A binding prayer in 1960 sealed 535 8th Street for the glory of God, and it was unsealed on March 23, 2011. That was the day we put our signatures on a legally binding contract to purchase The Peoples’ Church, but the spiritually binding contract was sealed long before.
Prayers Convey
After we signed the contract to purchase The Peoples’ Church, Michael and I were talking about what things would legally convey and what things wouldn’t. Then, in a moment of revelation, we realized that every prayer ever prayed in that place would be passed on to us. I was so overcome by that realization that tears welled up in my eyes. If The Peoples’ Church is anything, it’s a praying church. In fact, Michael’s parents almost named it The House of Prayer.
We are going to reap what we have not sown. Why? Because The Peoples’ Church planted carob trees on Barracks Row, and we will bear the fruit of the seeds our spiritual fathers planted long ago. And it’s not just the prayers that pass on; the visions convey too.
A few days after signing the contract, Michael texted me about a vision he had ten years before we met. In his vision he saw young people raising their hands in worship and packing the theater all the way out the front door and onto the sidewalk. Michael said, “I thought it was for us, but I now realize it was for you.”
That vision was fulfilled at our first service on our first weekend. It was standing room only. We literally filled every seat, packed the lobby, and spilled out the front door. I wasn’t thinking about the vision when I asked everybody to raise their hands during worship, but Michael said it was the picture the Lord had showed him ten years before.
Double Anointing
Do you remember when Elijah gave his mantle to Elisha? It was more than the conveyance of physical property; it was the conveyance of spiritual anointing. It was no coincidence that Elisha did many of the same miracles that Elijah did. That anointing was far more valuable than the mantle.
When I stood beside my father-in-law’s casket the day after he died, I had a flood of thoughts and feelings, but my predominant memory was asking for a double portion of his anointing, just like Elisha received from Elijah. I don’t think I even knew what I was asking for, but that hasn’t kept God from answering that prayer. His answers are omniscient and omnipresent. I asked for a double portion because I wanted to honor his legacy with my ministry, and I believe God has honored that.
I feel the same way about Michael Hall and The Peoples’ Church. I pray for a double portion of their anointing. I love the physical building, and I love where it’s located. We’ll find ways to leverage it creatively and make it a place where church and community cross paths. Like Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse, this movie theater will become a postmodern well where our community gathers and the gospel is preached. But far more valuable than the physical property that is transferred are the prayers that pass on. We’re the beneficiaries of forty-nine years of accumulated prayers by the saints of God. And every single one of them conveys
. Not one of them is lost on God.
Bottled Tears
One of the most beautiful and powerful images in Scripture is found in Psalm 56:8. It’s a precious promise that begs to be circled. It’s the last promise I’ll circle, but maybe it’s a place for you to begin circling.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
There are many different kinds of tears. There are the tears shed by the mother of a little boy in ICU who is far too young to fight leukemia, but he fights anyway. There are the tears shed by the father of the bride as he walks his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. There are tears that stain divorce papers, and tears mixed with sweat that stream down the faces of grown men who have just won a national championship. Then there are the tears shed in prayer.
Each and every teardrop is precious to God. They are eternal keepsakes. The day will come when He wipes away every tear in heaven. Until then, God will move heaven and earth to honor every tear that has been shed. Not a single tear is lost on God. He remembers each one. He honors each one. He collects each one.
In much the same way that God bottles our accumulated tears, God collects our prayers. Each one is precious to Him. Each one is sealed by God. And you never know when He’s going to uncork an answer.
Sometimes I struggle with fear.
My greatest fear is that my kids might someday walk away from the faith, but I have learned to rebuke that fear, because fear is not of God. Then I remind myself that I have circled Luke 2:52, and I have circled my children with that blessing thousands of times. Those prayers are bottled by God, and the Holy Spirit will unseal them in the lives of my children long after I’m gone.
Sometimes I struggle with doubt.
I’m afraid that I will someday mishandle the blessings of God. Then I remember that I have circled Psalm 84:11: “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” All I have to do is stay humble and stay hungry.
Sometimes I struggle with faith.
I’m afraid that the last miracle might be the last miracle. Then I
remind myself that I have circled Deuteronomy 33:16: “The favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush” is upon me. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. Your life is in His hands, and your prayers are in His bottle. And like a message in a bottle, your prayers are carried by the current of His sovereign will. When and where they will land no one knows. But those bottled prayers will be unsealed in God’s time, in God’s way. He will answer somewhere, sometime, somehow. All you have to do is keep circling.
Dream big.
Pray hard.
Think long.
Chapter 18
Now There Was One
In his epic history Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus notes the deeds of Honi the circle maker, aka Onias the rainmaker. He documents the first-century drought and points to Honi as Israel’s only hope. Josephus makes one statement that punctuates every turning point in history: “now there was one.”
Now there was one, whose name was Onias, a righteous man he was, and beloved of God, who, in a certain drought, prayed to God to put an end to the intense heat, and whose prayers God had heard, and had sent them rain.
Honi stood alone. Then he knelt down in the circle he had drawn. And that’s all it takes to change the course of His-story. In the words of theologian Walter Wink, “History belongs to the intercessors.”
After the rain fell and the dust settled, Simeon ben Shatah, the ruling head of the Sanhedrin who threatened excommunication, wrote to Honi:
Were you not Honi, I should decree excommunication against you … But what can I do to you, for you act petulantly before the Omnipresent and he does whatever you want for you …
A generation that was shrouded in darkness did you illuminate through your prayer … A generation that was sunk down you lifted up with your prayer … A generation that was humiliated by its sin you saved by your prayer.
One Prayer Circle
Never underestimate the power of one prayer circle.
When you dream big, pray hard, and think long, there is nothing God cannot do. After all, He is able to do 15.5 billion light-years beyond what you can ask or imagine. When you draw a circle and drop to your knees, you can’t never always sometimes tell. It changes the forecast of your life. It’s always cloudy with a chance of quail.
You can’t fell a fifty-foot wall, but you can march around Jericho. You can’t shut the mouths of lions, but you can stop, drop, and pray. You can’t make it rain, but you can draw a circle in the sand.
Don’t let what you cannot do keep you from doing what you can. Draw the circle. Don’t let who you are not keep you from being who you are. You are a circle maker.
There is a Mother Dabney reading this book, I know it. There is a Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Bill Groves, and a Michael Hall.
Now there was one.
All it takes is one person, one prayer.
Why not you?
It’s as simple as drawing your first prayer circle, just like I did when I prayed all the way around Capitol Hill. It might be a promise or a problem. It might be a friend or an enemy. It might be a dream or a miracle. I don’t know how it’s spelled, but you need to spell it out. Then you need to keep circling.
Don’t attempt this by yourself. Israel had an army. You need to invite others into your prayer circle. Together you will form a prayer circle. And when two or three agree in prayer, double circling their God-ordained dreams, all bets are off.
Echo through Eternity
At the end of our prayers, we say “Amen,” which means “so be it.” It signifies the end of a prayer. But the end of a prayer is always just the beginning. It’s the beginning of a dream. It’s the beginning of a miracle. It’s the beginning of a promise.
The legend of Honi the circle maker began with a prayer for rain. Now it’s time to reveal the amen.
In 63 BC, Palestine was torn in two by a bloody civil war. Hyrcanus
II and Aristobulus II — sons of Alexander Jannaeus, king of Judea — met in battle near Jericho. Aristobulus was forced to flee to the temple in Jerusalem to make his last stand. Hyrcanus and his ally, the Arabian sheik Aretas, surrounded the temple with fifty thousand troops. None but the priests and temple guard stood by Aristobulus.
That is when the army of Hyrcanus found the old rainmaker, Honi, who had been in hiding. The superstitious army brought Honi to Hyrcanus, who commanded him to invoke a curse on the defenders of the temple. Honi could not and would not obey the command, even at sword point. Like the prophet Balaam, who refused to curse Israel and prayed a blessing according to his conscience, Honi drew his last circle in the sand.
In one of history’s sad ironies, the man who saved a generation with his prayer for rain was put to death because of a prayer that went against the wishes of Hyrcanus. But Honi stayed true to his convictions, not just in life, but also in death. Many years before, a crowd of thirsty souls surrounded Honi as he drew his circle in the sand. Now he was encircled by savage soldiers whose lives he had saved with his prayer for rain. They compelled him to speak, so Honi uttered his last words while living on this earth, but it’s a prayer that will echo through all eternity.
O God, the King of the whole world! since those that stand now with me are Your people, and those that are besieged are also Your priests, I beseech You that You will neither hearken to the prayers of those against these, nor bring to effect what these pray against those.
Then those who surrounded him turned on him and stoned Honi the circle maker to death. It may seem like a tragic ending, but Honi died the way he lived. He prayed until the day he died. In fact, his dying breath was a prayer that ushered him into eternity. I don’t think the circle maker would have had it any other way.
What a way to live.
What a way to die.
What a way to enter eternity.
Afterword
He never received a formal education, yet he lectured at Harvard. He was born i
n a gypsy tent, yet he was summoned to the White House to meet two presidents. Born in the Epping Forest outside of London in 1860, Rodney “Gypsy” Smith crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean forty-five times, preaching the gospel to millions. Few evangelists have preached with more passion. His secret? Private prayer. More powerful than his preaching was his praying.
Gypsy’s secret was revealed to a delegation of revival seekers, who asked him how God could use them, just as he was using Gypsy. Without hesitation, Gypsy said, “Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.”
My friend Michael Hall told me this story after I had already written The Circle Maker. The cover of the book, complete with chalk circle, had already been designed. Honestly, I wasn’t sold on the cover design before I heard the story about Gypsy Smith. After I heard the story, I felt like the cover was both historic and prophetic. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the chalk circle on the cover is worth a thousand prayers. May it inspire you and remind you to draw a prayer circle. That is where every great movement of God begins. May it begin with you, in you.
Notes
chapter 1: The Legend of the Circle Maker
Page 11: His name was Honi: To read more about Honi, see “The Deeds of the Sages,” in The Book of Legends: Sefer Ha-Aggadah, ed. Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky (New York: Schocken, 1992), 202 – 3. See also Abraham Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud (New York: Schocken, 1995), 277, and Henry Malter, The Treatise Ta’anit of the Babylonian Talmud (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1978), 270. Note: Honi the circle maker is sometimes referred to as Choni the circle maker, Honi Ha-Me’aggel, and Onias the rainmaker.
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