Day 13: A God Who’s in the Details!

If the request is wrong, God says, “No.” If the timing is wrong, God says, “Slow.” If we, ourselves, are wrong, God says, “Grow.” But if all the above is right, then God says, “Go!” (Page 86 of Too Busy Not To Pray) SCRIPTURE: When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. Then I said “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands…O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.” …The king asked, “Well, how can I help you?” With a prayer to the God of heaven, I replied, “If it please the king, and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried.” (Nehemiah1:4-5, 11; 2:4-5, NLT) In reading this Scripture, I am both amazed and discouraged by the details of Nehemiah’s prayers. Even while he’s in the presence of the king making this huge request, Nehemiah is constantly praying. Chapter 8 of Too Busy Not To Pray is entitled, “The Hurt of Unanswered Prayer”. What struck me about this chapter was the amount of detail and length of time Bill and his staff spend praying over one staff decision as described in page 87 (Too Loving to Say Yes). And even while making the decision, Bill is still asking God to lead him as to what he should do. Then just before he makes the decision, the Holy Spirit tells him, “No.” But what startled me was when the potential candidate asks Bill, “Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?” Bill was disciplined enough to trust what God had told him. I wondered: what would I have done if I were in his place? Would I have taken this as an open door? Would I have disregarded what I sensed the Holy Spirit had spoken to my spirit and simply walked through the trap door Satan had opened, thinking it was God? Not only must every step of our lives be guided by prayer, but...
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Day 9: Focus!

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” (Mark 11:22-24, NLT) I had a picture taken of me last week in the balcony of our church. The photographer wanted to try something new, so he asked me to lean against the balcony railing so that he could get the main auditorium as a good background to the picture. I thought this was a great idea, but the problem was that I am afraid of heights. Wondering how I was going to sit on the balcony railing without panicking, I came up with a great idea. Instead of focusing on the drop behind me, I would focus on the photographer and his camera. And guess what? It worked! My focusing on the right thing made the difference, not only in me and my fear of heights but also in how the picture came out. My face was full of calm and not anxiety. In Chapter 7 of Too Busy Not to Pray, Bill Hybels teaches us about “Mountain Moving Faith”. His main thought is that mountain moving faith focuses on God and not the mountain. In reading the Scripture on which he bases this Scripture, I began to see three keys need in order to possess a faith that brings God results to impossible situations. I observed that mountain moving faith: 1. Sees God, not the mountain. (Mark 11:22) 2. Speaks what it believes. (Mark 11:23) 3. Secures in the heart what it believes before seeing it happen. (Mark 11:24) If we are going to have the productive prayer lives both that God wants and we desire, then we must learn to discipline ourselves in the area of focus. (Psalm...
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Day 8: Fess Up, Again!

It was the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede, the son of Ahasuerus, who became king of the Babylonians. During the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from reading the word of the LORD, as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years. So I turned to the LORD God and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting. I also wore rough burlap and sprinkled myself with ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfill your covenant and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands. But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations. We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets, who spoke on your authority to our kings and princes and ancestors and to all the people of the land. “Lord, you are in the right; but as you see, our faces are covered with shame. This is true of all of us, including the people of Judah and Jerusalem and all Israel, scattered near and far, wherever you have driven us because of our disloyalty to you. O LORD, we and our kings, princes, and ancestors are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. But the Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him. We have not obeyed the LORD our God, for we have not followed the instructions he gave us through his servants the prophets. All Israel has disobeyed your instruction and turned away, refusing to listen to your voice.” (Daniel 9:1-11, NLT) In Chapter 6 of Too Busy Not to Pray, Bill Hybels teaches us a simple format to assist us with our prayer time with God. In this chapter, entitled “A Pattern for Prayer”, he uses the acronym A.C.T.S. in order to describe each step we should take to have “balance” in our prayer lives. Again, one of the steps he describes is called “Confession.” This is the time during our prayer where we confess our sins to God. I believe that, prior to any significant revival or move of God, there must be confession of sin. (Nehemiah 1:4-10). So let’s use this season of consecration to be honest with God....
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Day 7: Fessing Up!

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, …’” (Matthew 6:9-13, NIV) Chapter 6 of Too Busy Not to Pray is entitled: A Pattern for Prayer. In this chapter, Bill Hybels teaches us a simple format to help us begin having a prayer time with God. He uses the acronym “A.C.T.S.” to describe each step we should take in order to have “balance” in our prayer lives. And though he refers to confession as the time in prayer that we admit and confess our sins to God, I have an additional thought. Now notice: I used the word “additional” as opposed to the word “another”. I believe that we should confess our sins. However, I believe that we do not take enough time during our prayer time to confess something else. We need to confess God’s Word. The word “confess” in the Greek means “to assent”. The etymology of the word “assent” means “to agree with”. Confess is actually a compound word which means “to be together with the word.” When we pray to God, yes, we should agree with Him when He exposes the sin and failures in our lives. However, we need to also confess God’s Word back to Him. For example, we need to confess and agree with God in prayer before our day even begins that “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). We constantly ask people to “agree” with us in prayer. Maybe it’s time that we learned to agree with God in prayer. Confessing His Word brings us into that place of agreement. So fess...
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Day 6: A Special Place

But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. (Matthew 6:6, NLT In Chapter 5, Bill Hybels teaches us to “Pray Like Jesus”. During this time of consecration, we think often of “setting ourselves apart” for God. We may even think of our church as a consecrated place. However, I want you to consider the place where you regularly pray as a place that’s consecrated as well. Where the NLT uses the words “go away by yourself”, the King James Bible tells us to enter into our “closet”. This word “closet” is a Greek word that means not only a chamber for privacy, but also a chamber for storage. It is derived from another Greek word that also means “dispenser”. Many of us have been in a restaurant restroom (bathroom) where there are soap “dispensers”. We understand that the soap is available in the container but it will not be dispensed (handed over, distributed, given away) until the person desiring to have soap pushes or puts pressure on the dispenser. I believe our places of prayer are places where God has stored all that we need to be dispensed into our lives for the day. However, He is waiting for us to push, that is, have an honest desire for Him to do what we are asking Him to do. So during this consecration do not only set yourself apart for God to use, but also set the place that you pray aside for God. Take a little oil and anoint that place (if it’s cloth please don’t stain it) and declare: “God I know I’ve prayed in this place so often that it may have become common to me. However, there have been some very special moments with you here for which I am extremely grateful. Therefore, today during this consecration I rededicate this place (chair, car, spot) to You. This is the dedicated holy place where I am to meet you! And I declare this place “special” and not common. In Jesus Name,...
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