dangerous prayers

Dangerous Prayers II: The Sequel

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I was just going to call this blog post Dangerous Prayers, but then I discovered that I wrote one with the same name back on July 24, 2012. Here it is, in case you’re suddenly interested.

https://oneragamuffin.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/dangerous-prayers/

But today during the prayer time at The Church at Avenue South, Amy Bryant (the wife of teaching pastor Aaron Bryant) shared that her mentor challenged her to pray at least one dangerous prayer every day.

The one Amy offered to us today was essentially “Lord, take all the pieces of my life and consume them all, having your way with every part of me and my life.”

It reminded me of the prayer I wrote about way back when, “Thy will be done,” which implied that my will must be undone.

Those prayers are dangerous because they’re scary. They both involve giving up control and letting God take over. It’s Jesus, take the wheel.

For me, the fear comes that God won’t really do what’s best for me. That comes from a place where fear overrules faith. That fear says that God is untrustworthy and that I really shouldn’t give up control.

It’s the same lie the serpent told Eve in the garden that started with “Did God really say . . .?”

Every time I pray those dangerous prayers, I move closer away from fear to faith. I declare to God (and more to myself) that I trust Him completely to do what’s absolutely best for me.

I believe that you can be scared out of your mind and still pray these dangerous prayers. After all, courage isn’t the absence of fear but the dogged determination to proceed in the face of all these fears, no matter how daunting.

Lord, take all the pieces of my life and consume them for your glory. Take what’s left after all that is unworthy is burned away and use it however You will, wherever You will, whenever You will for as long as you give me breath.

 

 

 

 

Another Dangerous Prayer (from Kairos Tonight)

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I am mulling over tonight’s message from Kairos on a stomach full of chips and salsa and tortilla soup from Chuy’s. That’s my favorite meal there and I recommend it if you haven’t tried it already. Shameless Tex-Mex plug.

One of the most dangerous and liberating prayers you can pray is: Lord, use me.

It’s dangerous because you never know how God will answer it. You never know where or to whom He will send you. Most likely, it will be a place out of your comfort zone to people you wouldn’t normally associate with. It may not be the safest part of town and it may mean you miss a concert or a party you’d rather be going to.

It will mean that you suddenly are on the radar screen of the enemy. Satan will throw everything he’s got at you if you pray this prayer and really and truly mean it. Probably, those who are most vehemently against what you’re doing will be fellow Christians and the ones criticizing you the most will be churchgoers. But if God is for you, as the song says, who will be able to stand against you?

“Use me” is also the most liberating prayer. Namely, because you realize that God can use you. In fact, God can take any surrendered vessel and any person who has a heart of service and obedience and work mightily through them. If God can use a few fishes and a few loaves of bread to feed a multitude, He can use your life to bless your world. I love what Martin Luther King, Jr, said:

“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

May God give us hearts full of grace and souls generated by love. May He use us to go where no one else will go to the people no one else wants to touch. May we be a blessing everywhere we go, every place we are to everyone we meet.

 

 

Dangerous Prayers

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

Tonight at Kairos, Aaron Bryant taught about one of the most dangerous prayers you can pray: Lord, take me. Lord, I surrender to You.

I know from experience some of the most dangerous prayers I’ve prayed have been when I asked for patience and when I prayed, “Thy will be done.”

The joke is that you should never pray for patience unless you want what little patience you already have to be supremely tested. If you do pray for patience, you will find out just how impatient you really are. God will bring people into your life that bring out the worst in you and put you in situations that make you wanna cuss. But in all of that, God is slowly changing you so that you are slightly more patient today than you were a week ago.

I’ve found that when you pray, “Thy will be done,” you are also praying, “My will be undone.” I learned that from one of the wisest women and authors I have ever come across, Elisabeth Elliot. To pray, “Thy will be done,” means I am willing to let go of some cherished dreams and plans and goals if they aren’t a part of God’s will. It means to have desires denied and longings go unfulfilled sometimes, but it means that for every thing I give up, I gain something 1000 times better.

Still, the hardest prayer right now for me to pray is, “Lord, I surrender.” Even now there’s a fear that God isn’t really for me and won’t do what’s best for me if I give up control. There’s the illusion that my plans really are better than God’s plans.

Ultimately, I only have to look back at my life to see those aren’t true at all. God has never been anything but good to me. God has always been for me and God has never ever done anything less than the very best for me.

I guess as long as I have my old nature still hanging around and my self-will still battling for control, surrender will never be an easy thing to do. But to borrow a quote from the Soul Surfer movie, right now I don’t want easy; I just want possible.