Dangerous Prayer

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THE POWER OF A DANGEROUS PRAYER

God is looking for people to use, and if you can get usable, He will wear you out. The most dangerous prayer is this: “Use me.”
RICK WARREN

Have you ever prayed a dangerous prayer? It may sound a little scary, but dangerous prayers are actually rooted in the Bible and have been uttered from the mouths of God’s people down through the ages. They start when we turn our efforts over to the Lord and are ready to lay down our agenda for His will.

I’ve observed that when the Lord wants something done, He puts a dangerous prayer in the heart of one of His people. It might be “Use me!” or “Send me!” or “Whatever it takes!” Or it could be a simple but powerful “Yes, Lord!” or any number of prayers you’ll read about in this book.

Dangerous prayers are not so much “Bless me” or “Fix my situation” prayers, although nothing is wrong with those. But we’re talking about prayers the Spirit prompts you to pray that have the potential to expand God’s kingdom, influence others for good, and even bring glory to God.

Like the dangerous prayer Roma Downey, actress and producer, has prayed for many years: “Lord, use me.”

Her friend Rick Warren once challenged Roma and her husband that the most dangerous prayer you can pray is “Lord, use me,” because He just might answer you! Then you have to be willing and ready to do the work you are called to because you don’t know what will happen after you pray those words. She has been praying “Use me” since she starred on the popular television series Touched by an Angel.¹

Eventually those prayers led Roma Downey, in partnership with her husband, reality-show producer Mark Burnett, to create The Bible series that became the most-watched TV movie of 2013. Their twelve-part series, A.D. The Bible Continues premiered on NBC on Easter 2015. The series chronicled some of the most crucial, tumultuous decades in history, beginning with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and moving through the events of the book of Acts.

Being able to produce films doesn’t necessarily bring a carefree life. In fact, it means Roma and Mark have to be away from home for long stretches of time in faraway locations. It means investing their own money in the films they create without being certain of the outcome. (Downey and Burnett didn’t know whether people would be interested in watching a TV series that dramatized the Bible.) Nevertheless, they are committed to letting God use them, and that means working with their talent and influence to create movies that tell the world the good news about Jesus.

I’ve been fascinated by some of the dangerous prayers prayed by people in the Bible—like Jacob, when he asked God to protect him because he was scared stiff of his estranged brother, Esau, and his four hundred men who were on their way to meet him, perhaps for revenge.

On the banks of the River Jabbok on his way to Canaan, after Jacob’s prayer, a man came out of the dark and began to fight with him, a fierce struggle that lasted all night. Finally the angel asked Jacob to let him go before dawn broke, and Jacob prayed a dangerous prayer: “I will not let you go until you bless me.” The angel couldn’t overpower Jacob, so he touched his hip and dislocated it. As he did, “the hand that touched his sinew touched his soul and changed the supplanter into a saint.”²

Then the angel said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28 NKJV).

As the book of Isaiah begins, we read a short but powerful, dangerous prayer. When the Lord asked, “Who will go?” Isaiah answered, “Lord, send me.” That prayer has been echoed by countless missionaries as God showed them the fields were ripe for harvest but the laborers few and called them to partner with Him to unreached nations and people groups around the world. You see, if we pray and God answers these dangerous prayers, it may stretch us, test us, and take us where we hadn’t planned to go. But the outcome may be glorious.

Dangerous prayers require surrender, a giving of all we are to God’s purpose. When Abraham, Noah, and Moses said yes to God, lives were saved and nations impacted. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s prayers were out of a heart of relinquishment—as in, We’re going to obey You, God, regardless if we perish in the fiery furnace or lions’ den or not. Nehemiah prayed as he pursued what God had put on his heart to do for Jerusalem.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, telling her that she, a virgin, was going to conceive when the Holy Spirit came upon her and that she would give birth to God’s Son, the Savior and Messiah Jesus, she was willing to say yes, even though it was going to be costly.

“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.

How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!

For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.”

LUKE 1:46–49 NLT

Many of the psalms are prayers David prayed in the midst of great danger. He could have trusted in great armies and kings, but he didn’t. He prayed, “O LORD, I give my life to you. I trust in you, my God! Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat…. Show me the right path, O LORD; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you” (Psalm 25:1–2, 4–5 NLT).

Often we just want to be comfortable and so we give God a list of requests that will make our life, career, or family much better and more successful. But dangerous prayers aren’t self-focused prayers. They aren’t prayers in which we say, “Lord, bless me. Bless my children. Bless my spouse. Bless my church. Bless my job,” although prayers for blessing can be beneficial because we serve a good and gracious God. Dangerous prayers aren’t necessarily petitions for our situation to be fixed or our lives made easier. But the good news is they can lead to God doing a good or perhaps even a great work through us.

What is the outcome of Roma and Mark’s dangerous prayer, “Use me”? They get to work with joy because they know people today are hungry for hope, hungry for something to believe in. Millions of people who have never heard or seriously considered the claims of Christ and the truth of the Bible have been exposed to a life-changing series on screens across the nation and around the world.

Recently I heard the Right Reverend Philip Jones of All Saints Anglican Church in Dallas say, “We’re supposed to be somewhat dangerous and pray dangerous prayers, letting the Spirit come alive in us.” This kind of praying may usher change or upheaval into our lives as we leave the safety of our familiar easy chair—or whatever our comfort zone is—and embark on what God shows us to do. It may mean reaching out to a grumpy neighbor, serving sandwiches on the streets downtown, writing a song, or taking a mission trip.

What’s for sure is that God wants to bring His love, His kingdom, His rescue and power to other people on this earth. And He wants to use you.

In the pages ahead I share with you some dangerous prayers I’ve prayed that have changed my vocation, my focus, and most of all my heart—prayers that took me around the world and that have quite literally changed my life.

You’ll not only read about the dangerous prayers of several historical people but also biblical people and individuals who are living today.

You’ll read of a teenager whose dangerous prayer was transformative. You’ll also get to know a spunky seventy-six-year-old woman who wanted to use her and her husband’s life savings to make a home for homeless people in Portland, Maine. All because God told her to, and she said yes.

You’ll discover the true story of a Muslim woman who, because of praying a dangerous prayer, found Jesus Christ when she didn’t even know she was looking for Him. And a story of a man in Oregon who prayed a dangerous prayer for his city and found himself leading a ministry that has done quiet yet amazing things among the poor and homeless.

I’ve found that some of our dangerous prayers lead to great works and others to small yet significant missions. These simple, short prayers can change our lives and the lives of others. Whether the outcome is large or small is not the point.

When God answers our dangerous prayers, He also intends to work within us. As Bill Hybels once said, “You cannot grow as a Christian until you learn to ask for brokenness. Regardless of your level of spiritual maturity, there will always be areas of your life God needs to work in.”

The last chapter, “Stepping Out,” poses some questions and thoughts to consider as you think about dangerous prayer and ponder saying yes to God. These can lead you to explore the ways His Spirit is nudging you and also help you determine what He’s created you for or what may be your next chapter or assignment from Him.

Also included are some insights I’ve discovered in my years of following Jesus. You might find it helpful to read this book with a friend, coworker, or spouse and then discuss the questions and your responses. You can do that in person at a coffee shop or via e-mail or another social media platform.

Join me as you read the stories ahead in this book. I hope and pray you’ll be enriched, inspired, challenged, and perhaps even encouraged to pray your own dangerous prayers.

Chapter One

HOW PRAYER LED ME TO PRISON

Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons, and widens all straits by which God’s people have been held.
E. M. BOUNDS

I looked up at a dark, gunmetal sky as I walked through gray concrete double doors surrounded overhead by layers of razor wire at the entrance to Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, Oklahoma’s maximum-security women’s prison. The opening of that giant door let me into only the “pen,” where I pressed a button and identified my name and purpose. The control officer inside opened the next thick concrete door.

Within a few moments of walking down the path that led to the giant main building, I was in Central Control for the security check. Immediately I was told to take off my jacket, shoes, watch, and belt and load them with my materials bag and notebook onto the conveyor.

Rather than friendly TSA airport agents to guide me through security, two correctional officers in full gear towered over me, equipped with large weapons and big frowns. They barked orders and I followed them. After I’d signed in and my belongings were x-rayed and cleared, I was pointed to the body scanner. I walked through it without setting off the alarm, put my jacket back on, and hoisted the bag over my shoulder, thinking I’d made it through and was ready to go.

I stood alone for a few minutes and finally asked the receptionist to please point me to the C-3 unit building where I was supposed to start a class in fifteen minutes.

“Not so fast,” one of the officers said. “Where do you think you’re going? You’ve got to be searched.” I hoped it was not his job.

“Wait over there,” the other guard added. “You’re not supposed to be that close to the door.”

Ten minutes later a female officer walked in through another door to pat me down and scan my body to make sure I wasn’t carrying any contraband. She wasn’t in any bigger hurry than the two male correctional officers were.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to my right pocket. “Let me see it.”

“Okay, but next time put it in a clear ziplock bag so it can be scanned with your other stuff.”

Finally I was told I’d have to wait for the director of the Faith and Character Program, who would escort me to the unit where I’d be teaching a parenting class for mothers.

Good grief, I thought, if it takes thirty minutes every time to get through security before I even start, plus the two hours they’ve allotted for the class, I’m in for a long day.

As I stood waiting in Central Control, a memory flooded in of an afternoon years before when I had done a phone interview with an Oregon woman for a book I was writing entitled When Mothers Pray. Valerie was the leader of a Moms in Prayer group in her community, and I’d been told she had a really good story to share.

However, it wasn’t the story I thought she’d tell me: how much her children and her friends’ kids were blessed by their weekly prayer meeting at her home or all the answered prayers they’d seen. Instead, she told me about her experiences going every week into Salem Penitentiary, a women’s prison near the city where she lived, to lead a prayer group for the mothers.

My heart was suddenly stirred as Valerie described what happened the first night the mothers joined her to pray for their children. She walked them through praise, confession, and thanksgiving and then asked them what they were most concerned about for their kids that they wanted to pray about. Then Valerie prayed a scripture for each of their children, and they prayed it aloud with her, putting their child’s name in the verse and lifting up the needs of each of their children.

One by one tears began to flow down the faces of the moms as they realized that here was someone, a mother like them, who cared enough to pray for their kids, and that they could actually do something for their children—something that could make a difference in their lives—even while they were separated by prison bars and razor wire.

Just like other moms, these women worried about their children. Some expressed how they were concerned about their kids’ living situations while they were locked up. Others said they agonized about not being able to hug them, tuck them into bed, or provide the clothes and material things their children needed. Some of the children were struggling in school and there was no one to help them. Many of the mothers never got to see their children because they lived too far away. One young woman told the group she was about to deliver her first baby and knew that after a few days in the hospital, she’d have to give her infant up and return to prison alone.

“You may not be able to take your children on your lap and provide the things they need,” Valerie told the mothers. “But even here in prison you have the ability to pray for your child—and that’s the most important thing you can do.” For the first time in many years, these women had hope that they could positively influence their children’s lives.

A few minutes after we got off the phone, I was on my knees asking God to open the doors for me to go into a prison to teach and inspire mothers to pray for their children. I longed to instill that kind of hope in moms who were separated from their children.

As I continued to pray about this idea and ask around, I was told that Prison Fellowship, a national ministry to incarcerated people, might be interested in partnering with me or letting me come under their umbrella. But when I called and talked to representatives in the national office, they said unless I already had an established ministry, they wouldn’t be able to work with me.

Over the next few years, although I asked other people, including a woman who taught Bible studies at the county jail and another who knew someone at her church who ministered in prison, and followed up on these leads, not a single door opened.

Not to be dissuaded, I called a downtown church that held worship services at prisons in Oklahoma, but when the pastor heard what I had in mind, he said prayer groups for mothers wasn’t what they were focusing on. Their purpose was evangelism.

“Lord, I’d really like to go share with moms in prison about how powerful prayer is and teach them to strategically and hopefully pray for their children,” I’d pray periodically.

Yet it wasn’t in the next months or year that this prayer was answered. In fact, as the years went by, I put that request on the shelf. I figured if God wanted me to go, He was well able to show the way.

One early morning in 2008, I was reading the newspaper and was struck by an article that reported that my state—Oklahoma—had more incarcerated women per capita than any other state in the nation.³ And 85 percent of the women leave behind children.⁴

The statistics in the article, based on research by a leading sociology research professor at the University of Oklahoma, described with specific data the devastation in the lives of the children whose mothers were incarcerated, often for years at a time for nonviolent charges. From stigma and shame to worry and anxiety about their moms, many children suffered from the trauma of being at the scene when their moms were arrested. Being separated from their moms led to depression, sadness, and acting out at school because of the emotional turmoil they experienced, the research said.

These children had done no wrong and committed no crime. But they were suffering immeasurably.

I had to do something for them. I longed to make a difference in their lives. I knew each one of these children was valuable and without any intervention or help, many would end up on the pathway to prison like their parents. Since I was a former educator and had spoken at many parent conferences, I knew that one of the main ways to start helping the children was to teach their moms how to be better parents and how to rebuild their relationship with their kids even from behind bars.

Could I recruit others to go with me? Join up with some group already serving inside the prison?

I sensed God didn’t want me to wait for that but that He wanted me to go teach moms in prison. There were a few major obstacles, however: I’d never set foot in a prison or jail before, I didn’t have a curriculum yet, and all my previous attempts to pursue an outreach to women in prison had led to closed doors.

But once again I prayed that dangerous prayer: “Lord, I want to go teach and help moms in prison.”

Later that very day I ran into Cynthia, a friend I hadn’t seen for a number of years. We had both read the article in the Oklahoman newspaper and began talking about the plight of the children of imprisoned mothers.

“Cynthia, for a long time I’ve wanted to go into prison and teach moms how to pray for their children, how to reconnect with and encourage them even from behind bars,” I told her. “Do you know how I’d go about it?”

“Well, I started teaching a Bible study at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center a few months ago for a group that’s been going there for eighteen years. I got badged, and I think you can, too,” she said.

“First you complete an application; I’ve got one right here, so I’ll copy and send it to you. Just fill it out and mail it to the Department of Corrections volunteer department. After they do a background check on you, you can get approved and go for a day of training. You need to be part of a group or church that’s already approved. And you’ll have to be on a waiting list; so many churches want to minister in prisons, it can take up to a year or more to get in.”

From that point, things progressed quickly even though I wasn’t already part of an organized ministry or church serving inside the prison system in our state. I sent in my volunteer application the next day, was approved within a month, and was invited to a one-day volunteer training session.

On that day of training a few months later, I sat in a big room filled with people eager to volunteer. And during a break I talked with the director of the Faith and Character Program at the maximum-security women’s prison an hour away. She was one of our trainers. She was curious because most of the other people at that training session were from churches, signing up to go to prisons to lead Bible studies or worship services.

“But you’re not with anybody. What are you wanting to do at Mabel Bassett?” she asked.

I shared my concepts for a relational parenting and prayer class to equip the mothers to give their kids the best gift any mom can, even from behind bars—the gift of their prayers, and to give them solid parenting methods, ways to encourage their children, and creative ways to reconnect with their kids and show them they loved them.

“That’s a lot you want to do! But you’re right on target. Did you know that the mothers’ deepest pain is what they’ve done to their children and that they are separated from them? Their biggest need is to do something for their kids that makes a real difference,” she responded.

As we talked a little more, she ended our conversation with, “When do you want to start?”

So I went to prison a few weeks later for the tour and orientation the program director took me through.

On the day of the first class, after going through the hassle of the security process, I found myself in the unit or “pod” where the women lived. Encircling the table area where I sat waiting were two hundred women’s prison cells, upstairs and down all around the perimeter of the building. When the guard gave the word and the concrete doors opened, the women streamed into the communal area and some took their seats around me.

As I sat there with twenty-five eager mothers, somehow I knew that I was prepared for this and supposed to be here. I didn’t feel a bit bit of fear or anxiety, only calm. And I knew I wasn’t taking Jesus into Mabel Bassett maximum-security prison—He was already there, working among the women.

God hadn’t forgotten my prayer uttered the same day I heard Valerie’s story about her prison prayer group for moms many years before. In fact, He’d inspired it and had a right time for me to walk through that razor-wire-covered entrance and the numerous concrete doors of the prison I had to go through to get to these mothers.

That didn’t mean my path would be problem-free—far from it! Some days, right in the middle of the two-hour class, the guard would blow a whistle for no reason and make all the women go back into their units. The doors would lock automatically, and I had to sit there waiting until the guard decided he was going to let them out. Other days, moms had to leave to stand in the medication line and get their antidepressants or anxiety meds.

It won’t necessarily be easy when the Lord answers your dangerous prayer. But He promises to be with us, and He always was and is.

He was with me on the day when a young mother burst into tears, missing her three-year-old girl. He was with me on the day when I had an asthma attack and helped me get special permission to bring in medication, my rescue inhaler, and a bottle of water. He was with me when I felt inadequate and didn’t think I had much to share. (I wrote the lessons for the mothers’ class week by week and sometimes thought I might run out of ideas. But I never did.)

For most of the next two years I drove the hour to the prison and an hour back to teach the parenting class on Tuesday mornings. At first I went by myself until a few months later when God provided two women who wanted to go along and help when their schedules permitted.

After teaching about 380 mothers over the next two years, I discovered a great need that wasn’t being addressed: the majority of the children rarely, if ever, get to see their mothers who were behind bars.

They don’t get to look in their moms’ eyes and see that they are loved. The kids don’t get to be with their moms on Mother’s Day like other children are. They don’t get to be together making cookies at Christmastime with their mothers or even have a visit and a hug.

Most of these kids feel forgotten and left behind. And the majority of caregivers to these kids live too far away to drive to the prison and don’t have gas money to bring them to visit their moms.

While the mothers showed me their children’s pictures, sometimes they wept as they said how long it had been since they had gotten to see them or hug them. “I haven’t seen my four children since I was in county jail three years ago,” one said.

“My mom had to move back to New Mexico and can’t bring the kids to visit because it’s too far. I haven’t seen them in four years,” said another.

Slowly, an idea took shape, and God provided faithful people to help bring it to fruition: to find a way for children to get to see their imprisoned mothers.

Fast-forward about twelve months later. Through the windows of the chapel building, I see the rows and rows of silver razor wire and thick concrete walls surrounding the building in which our volunteer team is working. Long tables are filled with books, Guess How Much I Love You, Love You Forever, Frozen, and You Are My Wish Come True, along with sports books for boys, teen chapter books for girls, board books for babies, and scores of great children’s stories for every age.

Contents

THE POWER OF A DANGEROUS PRAYER

Chapter One

HOW PRAYER LED ME TO PRISON