MT: Hello everyone. I’m Melissa Taylor from Proverbs 31 Ministries and it seems like we
just started yesterday and here we are in our final week of “Dangerous Prayers”…
LT: I don’t want it to end. MT: I don’t either.
LT: Well, good thing your dangerous prayers don’t have to end.
MT: They don’t. I always say just because the book is closed, that’s only the beginning.
That’s truly the beginning of the journey and Pastor Craig and Lysa, we started this
journey with you and so and we wanted to end it with you today, and so thank you for joining
us. LY: Yeah, thank you Melissa. Thank you, Pastor
Craig. We have gleaned so much wisdom from you and I think you’ve helped break us out
of our tired, typical patterns of what we thought prayer was and opened our eyes to
all that it can be, so thank you for that. CG: Thank you. I’m so excited.
LT: I want to dive right into a quote that I marked from the end of the book that kind
of stepped on my toes, but in a good way. So, you’re bossing me around but I’m not
going to be bitter about it. MT: Well the title of the chapter is disturbing,
right? LT: I know, right? Right from the title of
the chapter I can understand why this is called a dangerous prayer. “Lord, disturb me.”
And I was like, well I don’t think I want to pray that, but then this is how the chapter
opens. It’s on page 155, “What we pray about is important, but not only is it important
but it is also revealing.” And I found myself pulling my toes back at that point going “Ouch,
that steps on my toes”. And then you go on to say, “The content of our prayers tells
us more about us and our relationship with God than most people might imagine. What we
pray for reflects what we believe about God. If most of our prayers are for ourselves or
for what matters to us, then the content of our prayers communicates that we believe deep
down that God exists primarily for us. Okay, preach to me.
CG: Well, an interesting thought would be to maybe take like a prayer inventory. So
what you could do is you could think about over the last seven days, let’s say a week
or so, let’s just pretend like everything you asked God to do, He did and said Yes!
So whatever you’re praying for He did. Then you could ask yourself, what would be different
in the world today? LT: Wow! What would be different in the world,
not just in my world. CG: No, in the world today. And so for some
of us there are times, and I hate to admit this, but there are times that if God said
yes to everything I prayed for in a week, there would be nothing different because I
didn’t pray, which is sad to admit but unfortunately true. And for other people, they might say
well, I would have gotten a raise and my best friend’s cancer would have been healed and
my kid would be behaving, or something, and there would be some things different, but
it would kind of be in a very small, self-centered world and not beyond that. My wife Amy is
one of the best prayer warriors I know, and I am often convicted by what she’s praying
for that I’m not. And she’s praying for a lot bigger things than just in our little
orbit. I think that’s a good exercise because the quote, I think really, hopefully, would
really resonate with people - is what we pray about reflects what we believe about God - and
it’s all MY prayer list, MY own desires, then a lot of times we do believe God exists
really to give me what I want. And that’s a really distorted view, kind of an inverted
view of what prayer would be like. Instead of just saying, “You’re here to serve
my wishes,” instead what we want to do is go to God with more of a truly communicative
heart, that we’re in a relationship and it’s not just me telling You ”Here’s
what I want,” that it’s many times saying, God, what do you want from me? What do you
want to show me? What would you want to direct me to do? And when we do pray, let’s take
it beyond the “us for, no more” prayer and move it toward praying about things that
would impact a lot of people beyond our little circles.
LT: And so how did you decide what to pray about beyond your circle, because sometimes
that can feel like it’s putting all this pressure on me, it’s like, oh,gracious I’ve
got to pray for the orphans, and I’ve got to pray for causes that are beyond what I
even really understand, and then there’s government and there’s people. It just seems
like I could be praying 24/7, so what is your prompt or how do you know what you are going
to pray about today beyond yourself? CG: Let me give you a relatively long answer
to that, but I’ll keep it as short as I can. One thing I would do is, I would just
really recommend that you keep, if you can, some type of a prayer journal, so you’re
typing on your phone, so you know who you’re praying for, what you’re praying for, and
then what’s going to happen is, if you have that, you’ll revisit it over time and realize,
oh wow – that was answered in a way that I didn’t expect. So it keeps your prayers
front and center – that’s one thing I’d say. Second thing I’d say is, when you don’t
know what to pray for, one thing that I’ll often do is say , “God, what do you want
me to pray for?” As simple this, what I’ll do – this is really, really simple – is
I’ll say, “I want to pray for some people today, bring to my mind who to pray for”.
And I’ll breathe in and a name will come to mind and I’ll kind of breathe out and
say the name. It might be Lysa. And I’ll breathe in again and it might be, OK, Art.
And then what happens is that every breath, there’s never a time that a name doesn’t
come to mind. And I wouldn’t be praying for you a five-minute prayer, but I am taking
you before God in prayer. And then if we bumped into each other a week
later I might say, “Oh, by the way, God brought you to mind last week and I prayed
for you.” And it wasn’t a big prayer but it was a prayer, and so I really feel like
that God is bringing people to my heart. Then on the world issues, what I would say is this
– I would say wherever you have kind of like a burden, because there are certain things
about the world that upset you more, in a good way, and there are certain things that
upset me more – that I kind of have a personal divine angst about something – I would say
don’t walk away from that. Press into that pain and consistently expose yourself to the
things that disturb you. I know some of you can relate to this. You go on a mission trip
and you’re like, “my life will never be the same, I’ve wept at what I’ve seen”
and then you come back and seven days later, “my fingernail broke and my shoes were scuffed
up” and you forget all, almost all about it. So whatever it is that disturbs you, press
into that and that can become like a prayer passion for you. I hope you have something
like that. I hope there is something beyond your little world that does wreck you, in
the best sort of way. You could pray non-stop about global problems, and I don’t think
that is necessarily what God wants for the majority of us, because you do have ongoing
relationships to care about, and things to do, but I do think that having your heart
break for something that breaks the heart of God where you regularly intercede on behalf
of somebody else, it takes us out of a self-centered Christianity and puts us into “we serve
a global God who cares about all the people of the world” and that’s good for our
souls. LT: Now I remember when, this was about 17,
18, 19, 20 years ago, I don’t know – something like that.
CG: You’re adding years as you go. LT: I know. Because I keep getting older.
I’m like, can I just park? Hit one age, please and stay that way? So, two decades
ago, approximately, I remember vividly the day that we went to go hear the Liberian boys
a cappella choir and it was supposed to just be a cultural event – I was homeschooling
my kids at the time – and I thought to myself “this is what the really good home school
moms do so I’ve got to have at least one of those activities”. So we went and I really
knew the Lord was stirring my heart to pursue finding out more information about these boys
and I remember so distinctly being so shocked as we went through this process at how unaware
I had been for so long about the orphan problem of the world because it felt like the orphan
problem is so big and I am so small, so there is no way that I could be part of the solution
for that. And yet, when that big, out there problem became two boys that were standing
in front of me, it was no longer considered a world problem. It was now an opportunity
for me to become a difference maker. And so I think maybe that’s the way that it is,
just like you were saying, what do you have a passion about and maybe some people will
say, well I don’t know that I really have a passion for any kind of world issue or any
kind of big issue, or whatever, and I would just say pay attention because chances are
God’s going to bring things, He’ll bring – usually it’s people – He’ll bring
someone right in front of you and that will be your invitation. I don’t think God is
sitting around saying, “Wow, I hope that Lysa, or I hope that Craig, or I hope that
Melissa thinks of that world problem today”. I think it’s more like, “ I’m going
to bring that world problem front and center in their life and give them an opportunity
to say yes to Me.” And whether that is pray about it and then that’s the support that
you give, or whether you pray about it and it leads you somewhere, just like for me and
Art and our family it led us to adoption, but I don’t think that we would have ever
pursued that until the Lord brought it front and center in our life, and so I think that’s
the way that God often works, you know? He will make us more aware of this issue or that
issue or this person or that person. The other thing I will say, Craig, I so appreciated
whenever you would pray for me or for Art. You know, we were going through some really
hard times the past four years and you would often send a text or an email to say Amy and
I are praying for you today. I cannot tell you the miraculous work that God did to remind
me that He sees me, that He hears me. When I would get a text, like how in the world
did. . it’s almost like how in the world did Craig and Amy know to pray for me today?
But it’s that Craig and Amy are connected to God, and I’m connected to God, so when
you do pray for people I encourage you to let them know that you have prayed for them,
just like you did for me, because I’m sure that you just thought, “I’ll send a text
really quick”, but to me it was a reminder – it became almost a lifeline when people
would tell me ‘I prayed for you today’ – and there was always something significant
going on that day that made me know I cannot believe God stirred Craig and Amy to pray
for me this day and it’s because God knew. God knew. It was a way for Him to remind me,
“Lysa, I’m here. I’m with you. I see you and I’ve got an army of people out there
praying for you,” and it made such a difference. MT: That is so good. That’s so crazy. I
mean, it’s crazy when that happens. LT: It’s wonderful!
MT: Isn’t it? Isn’t it? Not only do the prayers, but then let other people know. Tell
people you’re praying because it brings such encouragement.
LT: It does, and I know we’ve talked a lot about these prayers being dangerous, you know,
and I think sometimes to a woman we might say, I don’t really want to be dangerous.
I don’t want to pray something dangerous. MT: I want to play it safe.
LT: That’s the opposite! So I just want to always bring to mind to people that it’s
dangerous because maybe it’s outside of our comfort zone. So what feels dangerous
can actually be the most life-giving thing that you might ever encounter in your prayer
life. So, I want to challenge you to do two things. Number one, I don’t want this book
that we’ve now gone through to get put on a shelf somewhere and you forget about it.
I think this book needs to go someplace where it’s one that we revisit maybe every couple
of months, maybe every year, but it’s short, it’s easy to read, it’s full – power-packed
full – of challenging sentences and I’m a big believer it’s not whole books that
change people’s lives, it’s sentences within a book, and so I encourage you to pull
this back out and if you don’t read the whole book (read the whole book again if you
want to) but go through and read everything you highlighted and underlined and be reminded
of all that you’ve learned. And then also I want to challenge you to think of three
other people in your life today who you know who could really find amazing encouragement
in this book, or people that are curious about God and prayer, and I would say write them
a little note, send them this book and give them the gift of all that you’ve received
during this Online Bible Study. MT: And if your highlights are anything like
mine, you’re going to be reading the whole book again. My husband always says, you know,
let me check out the book. Do you highlight everything? Everything I really like and that’s
pretty much the way it was. LT: Yeah, so thank you for writing this book.
This has been an amazing journey to really press in and feel challenged about my prayer
life and I know that other people feel the same way.
MT: It was very personal for me. LT: Wonderful. All right.
CG: Thank you. MT: Thank you so much Pastor Craig. It has
been so…it’s been fun, it’s been informative, and you have just inspired us, and this study
has been wonderful! CG: Well I wanted to say it again, that what
you all do is so important and you’re impacting so many lives and I really feel like what
you have is special because you’re incredibly gifted, both as a leader – which I respect
– and then as an author and someone who takes words, and words change lives. The truth
changes lives. When you know the truth and when you live the truth…
MT and LT: Listen to him! (Laughter) CG: ... that tends to make a pretty big difference.
I’ll do it. I’ll do it officially in a minute, but I’m highlighting right now that
what you do matters so much. And what you all do matters, as being a part of a community
and I don’t like to just experience truth by myself, but when you experience it with
other people, even more so when you share it, there’s something that brings power
to it. So I can close it unless you want to say something else?
MT: You got this! Yeah, solo. Go for it! LT: You got it!
CG: You want to start? You want me to do it all?
MT: You can do it all, yeah.
CG: Okay. Hey listen, it’s so powerful. When you know the truth, the truth will set
you free. He who the Son sets free is free indeed. So, when you know the truth, and you
live the truth…help me out. ALL: It changes everything!
LT: Thank you guys. We love you. MT: Bye!
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