The effects of dangerous prayer

When your pastor stands up in front of the congregation and asks in earnest prayer who in the room (and watching online) is brave enough to dangerously pray with him that God crush you and show you where you have conformed to this world, take the words “brave” and “dangerously” seriously.

The past week has been a very tough, eye-opening, painful, renewing, cleansing and prayerful one in our house. Without going into any details, let me say that we have been crushed in several spiritual ways but that our marriage is not in jeopardy and there are no health issues. I just need to publicly proclaim a few things.

• Being transparent in our lives is crucial. We are all real people, we are all sinners and we have all made mistakes. The blessing in all of that is that we can all relate to the tough times, the broken times and can encourage others and use those times as testimony to build others up.
• Hindsight is 20/20 and there is no such thing as a “pink flag.” Women, especially have been given intuition, a special radar from God that is so important to be tuned into. That comes from being in the Word and having a healthy prayer life. When either one of those things isn’t strong, the intuition is easy to ignore, dismiss or just plain not be able to hear.
• We have an enemy. That enemy is real, ugly, deceitful and seeks to destroy us. We can measure how important something is to the life of a Christian by the amount of time and energy the enemy attempts to pervert it. We have the authority, through Christ Jesus, to smack that down, and when the feeling rises up to do that, and you are equipped with the knowledge to do it – WOW! What an incredible feeling. “For we do not fight against flesh and bone, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12
• Through times of brokenness, we emerge victorious not through our own doing, but with the knowledge and assurance that any battle has already been won by Christ, and in Him, we have victory as well. With that victory, we rise with a renewed vigor and fire for the Father’s timing and will in our lives, which is PERFECT. We know this because His word says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11

These are things I take comfort in. precious gifts I thank God for along with the amazing church family we have been blessed with who pray fervently for us and who don’t hesitate to speak wisdom into our lives. How grateful we are that they can do that with no judgment or criticism, but with the heart of the Father, everything done in and with love.