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Friday Night in KC
Another loss.
Some teams are just better… but when they aren’t, what happened?
They used to think that kids from Asian countries were somehow smarter than everyone else.
Study - first graders - puzzle - American 9.47 minutes - Japanese 13.93 minutes - persistence more important than intelligence
There are no shortcuts.
Why did so many stop?
Praying Hard is Praying Through
What if all the promises of God are true?
Why do I stop?
Like the child who asks… dad, dad, dad, dad...
Praying Hard is Praying Through
“Wearing him out”
Praying like things depend on God… and working like it depends on you.
Praying until God answers, no matter what it takes… and living as though God is at work.
We began this series looking at the power of desperation.. .and
there is no more desperate act than praying hard.
Getting to the point where you NEED to throw caution out the window and draw a circle in the sand.
There comes a moment when you need to defy protocol, drop to your knees, and pray for the impossible.
There comes a moment when you need to muster every ounce of faith you have and call down rain from heaven.
For the persistent widow, this was that moment.
Desperate Measures
While we don’t know what injustice took place, we do know that the persistent widow wouldn’t take no for an answer.
That’s what made her a circle maker.
Maybe her son was falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.
Maybe the man who molested her daughter was still on the streets.
Whatever it was, the judge knew she would never give up.
The judge knew she would circle his house until the day she died if she didn’t get justice.
The judge knew there was no quit in the persistent widow.
Does God know this about you?
Does God know you as one desperate to pray through the night?
How many times are you willing to circle the promise?
How long are you willing you knock on the door of opportunity?
God wants to honor your persistence… because it reveals your faithfulness.
What do I mean?
The widow could have waited for court, but she went to his house.
She didn’t care about protocol, she wanted justice.
Let me tell you, God doesn’t care about protocol either.
If he did, Jesus would have picked “the Right” disciples instead of a bunch of fishermen.
He would ruffle feathers because he ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, because he touched the sick-even on the sabbath.... and here Jesus lifts up the woman who was like a dog with a new bone… she wouldn’t stop.
She had what many call holy desperation… doing what ever it takes to get close to God and get God involved in your life.
A Small Cloud in the Distance
Several centuries before Honi TCM, there was another drought in Israel.
For three years... Then the Lord promised Elijah He would send rain, but like every promise, Elijah still had to circle it via persistent prayer.
The Lord wanted to make sure the people knew He had heard their cry so He had Elijah create a challenge for King Ahab’s prophets of Baal.... It’s a great story in 2 Kings 18.
Then after God had Elijah climb to the top of Carmel, where he fell on his face, and prayed for rain.
We don’t know how long he was up there praying… but six times he told his servant to look toward the sea, and there was no sign of rain.
And that is when most of us give up.
We stop praying because we can’t see any tangible difference with our natural eyes.
We allow our circumstances to get between God and us instead of living as though God is already between us and our circumstances.
We don’t know if it had been 6 hours, 6 days, or 6 months… it had already been 3 years but Now something was different.
Elijah held the ground.
He stood on the promise God had given him.
I think Elijah would have prayed ten thousand times if that is what it took, but between the sixth and seventh day, there was a subtle shift in atmospheric pressure.
After the seventh circle, Elijah’s servant strained his eyes and saw a small cloud the size of a man’s hand rising from the sea.
Elijah prayed through and God came through.
The sky turned black; heavy winds blew across the barren landscape; and raindrops fell for the first time in three years.
And it wasn’t a light drizzle.
It was a terrific rainstorm.
It’s so easy to give up on dreams, give up on miracles, give up on promises.
We lose heart, lose patience, lose faith.
And like a slow leak, it often happens without us even knowing it until our prayer life gets a flat.
I recently realized that I had stopped circling one of the promises that God had given us.
Michelle’s mom and dad had bought a small farm in Centreville a few years before he died.
He wanted his daughter to share with Michelle their love for horses.
But after he died, we began to get excited about how God might use the farm - to repurpose it to build his kingdom… but over time the farm became more of a burden than a blessing.
We loved going out there and spending time, but it became something we had to do.
I stopped praying that God would use it for something.
Prayer stops working when we stop praying.
It happened even to Elijah.
The very next chapter tells a story of him hiding in a cave for fear of his life… instead of praying through and stepping out in faith, he hid until God grew tired and called woke him up and called him out.
Is there some dream that God is resurrecting in your life?
Is there some promise you put down months or years ago that you now need to reclaim?
Is there some miracle you had given up on that you need to start believing for again?
This might be the most important thing you hear me say all day today… The reason that many of us give up too soon is because we feel like we have failed if God doesn’t answer our prayer.
That isn’t failure.
The only way you can fail is if you stop praying.
Prayer stops working when God’s people stop praying.
Praying through requires that we have holy desperation.... AND knowing what to pray for.
When we first got married, we had our son, things were rough for us.
I was failing as a husband and a father… and one night God broke through.
I remember praying God teach me to be a husband… I don’t know how to do this… I believed Matthew 19:6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.””
I believed that God had made us one and we can’t separate what God had joined together.... What right did I have to undo what God had done?
I was humbled… I repented, asked my wife’s forgiveness.
Holding to the promise of...
My marriage belongs to God and I defend enemies… even from within me.
When we are desperate, what is God’s promise for you in the moment?
Is it that God would provide or that you have the strength to persevere?
Which promise will you circle?
Which will shape your next steps?
Holy Confidence
It’s important that we get clarity on what God has promised.
Even after three years of drought, even after a severe bout with depression, Elijah believed that God could send rain even now.
I can’t help but wonder if Honi the Circle Maker was inspired by the story of Elijah praying for rain seven times.
I wonder if Israel’s original rainmaker was Honi’s childhood hero.
And I wonder if Honi’s persistence in prayer was hyperlinked to this miracle?
If God did it for Elijah, He can do it for me.
By the same token, I can’t help
but wonder if Elijah’s persistence in prayer was hyperlinked to the miracle of raining quail?
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