The Reason We Pray

This last semester has been one crazy adventure. I never could have imagined all that God had in store. And to think, this is only the beginning. The waves are only getting bigger. Greater things are yet to come. I have so many things on my mind. I don't even know where to begin and how to process them all. It's like I am in a dream world. Is all of this really real? But, I pinch myself, and this is real life. God is on the move. Things are happening. We might not all see it yet, but it's there. Just keep waiting, watching.

I have been reading Pete Greig's book Red Moon Rising the last few days. It is amazing. I've been meaning to read this book for a while, but I never got to it until now. I think God really has brought me into this season in my life to read this book. It's pretty powerful and doing some crazy things in my heart. As I read through this book, I realize how God is working in my heart calling me to pray, but more so calling a generation to pray. As I look at my life, I think to myself just how God is good and sovereign in my life. Today, I thank God for renewed friendship and excitement. It has been a long, arduous path, and it will continue to be. But it has been well worth it so far. I thank God for all that I have gone through as He prepares my heart for what's next. I thank God for relationships that uplift and build me up like iron sharpens iron. I wish I could explain the feelings that I am experiencing, but no words can express. I'm at a loss for word in trying to comprehend what God is doing.

It is simply indescribable trying to understand the vastness of God. I find myself being so small and insignificant compared to the greatness of His power. And yet He has chosen me. He has invited me into this crazy plan of His. And He invites us all. I am humbled at the thought that these revolutionary thoughts in my head are not mine. They belong to God. From the outside view, I am just a crazy, radical college kid going through a phase. But this is no phase, following Jesus is a lifelong commitment. I have consigned to the fact that for the rest of life I will be misunderstood and probably misrepresented. But there is more than meets the eye. There is something stirring inside that I don't know how to explain or express.

There is a shift occurring in our generation. The eyes of the lost and forgotten are being opened. Renewal is happening. Healing is taking place. In his book, Greig puts it like this: "As God mobilizes a different army, a fighting force that will wage peace on earth, it must begin with healing and hope for those soldiers crushed by the past" (152). How do I know it's happening? Because I see the transformation in my life. I look back to a year ago and am baffled at how God invited me into a process of renewal. I look to the lives of people around me who are testaments of the healing God is doing their lives. As I spoke to a friend who I haven't spoke to in five months, I heard the work of healing God is continually doing in her life. And as she spoke, I realized the healing God was doing in my own life.


As I spoke to another friend, these words jumped out to me:

i've been thinking a lot about how like writing (creative writing, blogging, email writing, writing groups) can be used to bring about healing and community and Jesus, and i've just been thinking a lot about how i have a ton of ideas but less than a smidgen of courage/confidence to bring them into reality.

This is the reason why I pray. Because there is a generation that God is raising up to bring healing and renewal in revolutionary ways that will touch the world from end to end. But the healing begins first in our hearts. Before we can go out, we must experience the freeing and healing touch of God. These words encourage me because they remind me that it is not in our own strength or strategy that we will make a difference. It is the sovereign power of God who will work in our lives and use weak vessels like us. I see myself in this statement. I oftentimes find myself afraid at what God could possibly use me for. I am humbled because He has given me the invitation to join Him in an epic battle plan to bring healing and renewal to the world. I pray for moments like today when healing and renewal take place once again - when friendships are brought back to life and restoration happens; when realization occurs and divine inspiration takes place. This is just the beginning of what is to come. I only have a limited eye's view of God's bigger picture. But there is so much more....so much more.

In closing, as I am reading through Red Moon Rising, I came upon a passage that I had read before in a book called Fireseeds of Revival. It is a poem that struck my heart about a year ago. The video I have pasted below is a pretty powerful representation of the passage. I have pasted the complete words to the poem underneath the video as well. Anyhoo, I shared this poem at my church when I first began to realize the magnitude of revival. I didn't realize this poem was written by Pete Greig when I wrote it. But I spoke this poem and saw God move in powerful ways at my church. God spoke through me at church this one Sunday. I saw my brother and my father as well as many others respond to God in an altar call. Many others cried. God was moving that day. And He is continuing to move in this generation. He is inviting us to catch the wave of what He is doing in this generation. Will you join?

And this is why I pray....

The Vision

by Pete Grieg

So this guy comes up to me and says, “What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open up my mouth and the words come out like this...

The vision?
The vision is Jesus:
obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is of an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.

And they are free from materialism—
They laugh at nine-to-five little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind.
They belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting, dirty and dying.

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimal integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, from every conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps—their Satan games.

This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day, its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great “well done” of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.

They don’t need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”
And this is the sound of the underground, the whisper of history in the making, foundations shaking, revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers, conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciple(in)ed—
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners.
Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulfuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting.
Watching.
24-7-365.

Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules,
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide,
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
Laughing at labels,
Fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late-night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive on the inside.
On the outside?
They hardly care!
They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate, but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their lives, swap seats with the man on death row, guilty as hell: a throne of an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as though it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses Jesus.
He breathes out.
They breathe in.
Their subconscious sings.
They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don’t you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdoes!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes!
They walk tall and trees applaud.
Skyscrapers bow.
Mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven and evoke the dream of Eden.

And, this vision will be.
It will come to pass.
It will come easily.
It will come soon.

How do I know?
Because, this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the spirit, the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3-D.
And, my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking, great “AMEN!” from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.

And He is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.

______

God, Thank you for today. Thank you for renewed friendships and inspirational conversations. Thank you for renewed excitement and renewed joy. Thank you that your plan is bigger than what we can possibly imagine. Thank you that you are raising up a generation eager to respond. God, I pray that you would break off all fear and disunity upon our hearts. Give us a spirit of boldness and unity to step out in faith to what you have called us to do. Raise up your nameless, faceless generation who will bring glory to you in all we say and do. Teach us what it means to bring you glory in all things. Teach us to love one another as You have loved us. Give us strength to whole-heartedly fall after you and die to our selfish desires. May we never compromise for the good or even great things. You offer the best, and we receive that with wide-open arms and hearts. We love you Jesus. Raise up a generation who will cry out for you! We long for the day in which the Spirit and the Bride will say "Come." Maranatha - Come quickly Lord Jesus! In your precious name, Amen!