The result of a dangerous prayer.

There is a sermon series out by Craig Groeschel called," Dangerous Prayers."

I have been listening to it and God has given me a desire to share some things on this subject.

I have prayed these dangerous prayers since I was about 12 years old. I have a journal full of my young handwriting asking God to Create in me a pure heart and to renew a right spirit within me. I have poured out my heart to God and year after year asked Him to break my heart and to help me see sin and his people the way that He does. I have asked him to keep me soft in a hard world and to help me be brave enough to be different from everyone else in this world. 

I was a foolish and young child. 

I did not know what I was praying....because God heard my prayers and He has answered them...and it has been the most uncomfortable and difficult thing that I have ever walked through.

When we pray these prayers, are we willing to walk them out?

When I prayed for God to break my heart....was I willing to follow Him in complete surrender after He did?

Craig said something powerful in one of those sermons," What if God's greatest blessings come from God's greatest breakings."....and my heart knows just what he meant.

When I was a child, I prayed this prayer because I loved my King and I longed to be as close to His heart as I could get and His Word told me that He was close to the broken hearted....so out of that innocence....I prayed for God to break my heart. To take me out of my comfort zone and not allow me to live with blinders on to the pain of this world. But I didn't have a clue as to what that was going to cost me.

God began this breaking in me even as a child....my parents were foster parents and I saw child after child come and go from our home and my heart would attach to them as siblings, just to see them leave time after time. BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw some of my family struggle with divorce and addictions and it broke my young heart....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw mental illness in some of my best friends and dearest family members and would cry all night sometimes, asking God to heal them....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I went on mission trips with my youth group and saw families struggling to have food, clothes, and basic necessities of life and still to this day pray for some of these families that touched my heart so deeply....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw people walk away from their faith....some of my friends and some people from church who I loved dearly... and I cried and cried....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

so my heart broke....

and I thanked God for it...

because even though it hurt so bad, He also gave me deep compassion for each of these situations and He drew me closer to His heart and He deepened my faith little bit by little bit.

Then I met my husband and I just knew that together He and I would be walking life together and God would use us to make a difference....never thinking for a minute that God would break my heart through my marriage. But He did.

My husband struggled with his own brokenness and that brokenness ultimately lead to the brokenness of our family. 

We fostered for years and my heart broke with the stories that came through the hearts of the children and again as often times they went right back into the abusive situation. 

When mental illness began to wreck our world and my daughters world...I WRESTLED AND ARGUED WITH GOD RELENTLESSLY! I begged Him for healing and prayed dangerous and bold prayers for her healing....but it didn't come the way I desired for it to come....instead...my heart broke again.

And then our whole family became focused on rehabs and addiction education as my husband struggled with these things...and I BELIEVED THAT GOD WAS GOING TO HEAL MY HUSBAND AND MY MARRIAGE. I believed it with every core of my body. I was still deeply in love with my husband and even though I was struggling to understand the why of what he was doing, I never doubted the power of God's healing in his life....then he left. 

I call it the Shattering.

It was WAY deeper than a broken heart. It was a shattering of my spirit and my faith....and to be honest I didn't know if I would make it....but as I lay there on that floor day after day, crying until I couldn't breathe....and WRESTLING WITH WHY GOD DIDN'T ANSWER MY PRAYER....AND WHAT I DID WRONG TO MAKE MY HUSBAND LEAVE....AND WHY I WAS SUCH A LOSER THAT I WASN'T WORTH FIGHTING FOR OR LOVING ANYMORE....I wrestled with why my prayers didn't matter to God....and it left me shattered.

So what do you do when you are shattered....all I could do was cry out to God and read His Word. I knew deep in me, that if I didn't cling to Him with everything that I had left....I would not make it through this. The grief was to deep and the sadness so thick that I would pray and ask God to take me home each night or give me the strength for each day....because I just couldn't do it. 

And slowly....so so slowly....God began to show me that HE HAD BEEN PREPARING ME FOR THIS ALL ALONG. 

I didn't like that. I struggled with that. I wasn't ok with it....but I have learned through all those years ago, that my God was faithful!  That my God was real. That my God would never lie to me....and so if His Word said it, then it was true. The Word of God had become a rock in my life by this point. 

But you know what else came with the shattering?

Compassion. Empathy. Boundaries. Genuine love.

Praying dangerous prayers is costly.

It will require more out of you than you can give....but that is where the power of the Holy Spirit comes in. His strength fills your heart with joy and love. 

I have become closely acquainted with grief, sadness, and deep sorrow. 

But I have also become closely acquainted with joy, new beginnings, and a song that God sings over my daughters and I. It is a beautiful song and it brings us joy even in the midst of such pain. His joy is a soothing balm to my heart and I am finding more and more joy in the simple beauty of God's faithfulness to us. It blows me away that He is so gracious and loves us so much!

So my friends....BE BRAVE! PRAY THOSE DANGEROUS PRAYERS!....But know that God hears those prayers because He loves listening to us. Those prayers come with a cost....weigh it out. Talk to God about it...and then I encourage you to bow your head, humble your heart, bend your knee....and pray BIG AND BOLD DANGEROUS PRAYERS.

I have a choice every day to live my life comfortable and "safe".....or to throw myself into the arms of Jesus and trust His Word. It is crazy. It doesn't make sense. But it is how I choose to live. You have that choice too....and I cannot challenge you enough to pray dangerous prayers.

Right now our world needs beautiful hearts ready to stand unafraid in the presence of evil and pray big and bold prayers because WE KNOW WHO WE SERVE!
GREAT IS THE LORD AND WORTHY TO BE PRAISED!...even in the broken. Even in the hard. Even in the unfair. And I pray for my own life....that I will NEVER shy away from dangerous prayers!