Praying for Your Elephant

Boldly Approaching Jesus with Radical and Audacious Prayer

Adam Stadtmiller

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780781412384
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Get ready to re-ignite, re-imagine, and repurpose your prayer life while experiencing great intimacy with God. This is an invitation to identify your elephants—to name, through specific and strategic prayers, the 100 most important and audacious petitions you can imagine. These are the elephants that—if answered by God—would be game changers in your life and perhaps the world.

SECTION III

UNDERSTANDING ELEPHANTS

Hey Adam,

As you know, I lost my job last year. In October, I decided to apply for unemployment for the first time in my life. After three months and still no movement with the unemployment board, I was frustrated. I had been living off of savings but I didn’t know how much longer I could do that without a financial strain.

After you spoke a couple of weeks ago on “breakthroughs,” I emailed a group of women in our group and asked them to pray very specifically for a breakthrough and for the release of the funds to me by the end of January.

About a week later, my roommate Jenn was talking with someone she knows who mentioned contacting my assemblyman. I decided maybe this was the way God was answering my prayer so the next morning I contacted my assemblyman’s office and they got back to me the same day.

On Saturday the 27th of January, they called me! After asking me a few questions, they finalized my paperwork (or whatever they needed to do; they never explained why there had been a delay) and said I would get my debit card that week. I had been praying that this would get resolved by the end of January because I was starting to wonder how I was going to pay rent, etc. The card came in the mail on Saturday, February 1, with back pay for the four months prior.

To me this was a real answer to prayer! In it I was never worried, thankfully, but felt confident that God would provide, but this was a clear indication to me that God used these ladies to move a mountain in His kingdom. Thanks for encouraging us to pray more and to pray for one another. I truly believe I would still be waiting for these funds if we had not prayed!

Thanks for leading the migration!

Jen

CHAPTER 6

OOMPA-LOOMPAS

Daddy, I want an Oompa-Loompa! I want you to get me an Oompa-Loompa right away!

—Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

I WANT AN OOMPA-LOOMPA RIGHT AWAY!

Remember Veruca Salt? In the famous children’s novel by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Veruca was the petulant daughter of a placating father who made it his mission in life to grant her every wish. Her big solo number in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory sums up her view on life. She vows to scream if she doesn’t get the whole world, and she doesn’t care how she gets it. She wants it all now!

Eventually, Veruca’s desire to have whatever she wants at any cost leads to her demise as she descends deep into the bowels of Willy’s factory and is eventually deposited in the rubbish bin. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen in your life is to get what you want, to get whatever your heart desires.

The tendency to oversalt our prayers with too much of our own desires is something most of us struggle with. Prayer is not an altar built unto self. At the same time there are plenty of verses in the Holy Scriptures that point to the fact that God delights in bringing our personal desires to fruition. Psalm 20:4 speaks about God bringing you the desires of your heart while causing your plans to succeed. Psalm 37 declares, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). So what’s the answer? How are we to find the middle ground between selfishness and bold asking?

Here again, the art of wise balance is essential. Think of a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Yes, we need to steer clear of those extreme brands of Christianity that have built entire doctrines on the principle of naming something in the moniker of Jesus and then claiming it as our own in faith. At the same time, we must be equally careful not to allow guilt to shepherd our prayers into dry and confined pastures. Extravagant asking in Jesus’s name is part of a well-balanced prayer life.

Here’s the difference between the two. Many gospel messages that promise prosperity are an if/then proposition. They say if you do this or that in a certain manner or employ a precise formula of God manipulation, God will then in turn be obligated to fulfill His end of the bargain or promise and bless you beyond your wildest dreams.

We see this in the various brands of Christian faith that rather than emphasize the cross of Christ use healing or generosity as their primary platforms. The thought is that God is so desperate to bless you, to heal you, that if you can give that extra penny more or believe a little more purely in the name of faith, God will be given the green light to open the floodgates of heaven. This if/then spirituality seems closer to witchcraft than biblical Christianity to me. Prayer is not the casting of spells. Witchcraft is based in control. Prayer is rooted in submission.

While it is true that God is not a liar and will do what He says He will do, we must not be arrogant enough to believe that the way He fulfills His promises will match the way we think He will respond to them. Nor should we be foolish enough to believe that the claims Jesus makes about answering prayer are devoid of construct. The bold claim to answer whatever we ask for in Jesus’s name is snugly nestled between right relationship with God, proper motive, and His divine will.

Bold asking prayer is not an incantation that forces God’s hand just because you use His name in the invoking of that request. The movement of God on our prayers is always a mixture of grace and God’s will, not a concoction of two bat wings and the eye of newt. The prosperity gospel misuses the verse that says, “God is not man, one given to lies, and not a son of man changing his mind. Does he speak and not do what he says? Does he promise and not come through?” (Num. 23:19 MSG).

We need to pursue things like generosity, believing faith for healing, and asking prayer in our lives because Jesus pursued them in His life. We chase after these things not because of what we can get but because they are things Jesus Himself has commanded us to do for very specific reasons. (See John 15:7, 16.)

When we give, we do so not demanding or expecting anything from God in return. Christians should not be like credit card companies that lavishly give but expect steep repayment rates. Jesus gave His whole life away and received a cross in return. The reward He received did not come in this life. (See Phil. 2:5–11.) As a matter of fact, the reward He received was something He once possessed. He gave away that which He would reinherit. When we give or pray, we want to do so without the expectation of a return on our investment but rather with hope in Jesus. (See Rom. 12:12.)

Here again we stand on the razor blade of deep, believing faith and loose expectations.

Recently I received an email from a man going through a divorce with his wife. He entered the courtroom with deep and prayerful faith that God would have the judge rule in his favor. He left the courtroom dejected and angry at God, who in his words “had not covered or protected him through it.” While I empathize with my friend and want to be there standing in the gap with him, he entered the courtroom believing that God would do a certain thing in a certain way because he had prayed. When that did not happen, God was on the hook for his disappointment. Sometimes God answers our prayers with a cross rather than the response we so desire. This is a hard truth, but truth nonetheless.

This is a reality that is rarely preached from pulpits of prosperity, because it’s hard to market the cross unless you’re selling gold- and diamond-encrusted ones to hang around people’s necks. Faith is believing in the “He can” of God, not the “He will” of God. If you don’t lodge this firmly in your personal theology, you may be putting your walk of faith in great jeopardy. The Devil preys on those who feel God has let them down when they believed with all their hearts. Perceived unanswered prayer has caused many to shipwreck their faith on the rocks of disappointment.

THE AUDACITY OF JESUS

Still, the audacity of Jesus in the fifteenth chapter of John, commanding us not once but twice to ask anything in His name, needs to be taken seriously. Jesus said,

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.…

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:7–8, 16–17 NASB)

Christ’s redundancy in these verses was for a distinct purpose. The Son of God need not repeat Himself. Perhaps He was concerned we would miss the point: relationship, not answers, is what’s important. We established this concept in chapter 1. Jesus knows that asking prayer puts us smack-dab in the middle of familial relationship with God. Jesus is giving us the thing we need in the guise of what we might want. Jesus knows our need is far superior to what we might want.

MORE THAN CHOCOLATE

Think back to Willy Wonka. Wonka offered mouthwatering chocolate bars wrapped in shiny golden tickets. Why Wonka did this was not for the reasons those who sought these golden-wrapped bars imagined. No one understood Wonka’s endgame. The lucky five who found the golden tickets had only hoped for a chance to go behind the walls of the factory, meet Wonka, eat his secret treats, and receive a lifetime supply of chocolate. What more could anyone want? We are so easily satisfied.

What none of those fortunate few could have imagined was that Wonka wanted to give away more than just chocolate; he wanted to give away his entire legacy. He was searching for someone to mentor, someone to have deep relationship with, someone to share the deepest of secrets with, someone to take over the entire operation.

While Jesus wants to partner with you in bringing to life your heart’s desires, He also wants to give you more than just chocolate. He wants to give you eternity in the person of Himself. Jesus encourages asking prayer because in the rough-and-tumble of God’s responses, we come to know our Father. We come to know Jesus.

As I wrote in the first chapter, prayer is about relationship, not answers. Answers happen on the way to relationship. Answers build relationship. The more you ask for, the more you will know Him. This is why Jesus so deeply desires to partner with us in creative, game-changing prayer. When Jesus says “Ask anything,” what He is really saying is “Come to know Me through the adventure of asking prayer.”

And we must take Jesus at His word. We must be willing to ask. We must be willing to shun disappointment in the hope that God might move. God is longing to respond to your prayers. He delights in them. God created prayer for the sake of relationships. The answers are just icing on the cake.

VOLUMINOUS ASKING

The art of voluminous asking is something we can learn from Veruca Salt. Veruca asked for every single thing she wanted. There are few places, if any, in God’s Word that forbid abundant asking prayer when done in right relationship. Yes, there are some scriptures that point to asking with wrong motivations (see James 4:2–3), but none that govern the amount you can ask for when done in right relationship.

Where Veruca failed was not in the asking, but in her attitude. Veruca cared about precious lit...