Dangerous Prayers

Prayer is not something I would consider myself to be very good at. My personal prayer habits would definitely be found wanting if my spiritual health were to be audited today, and even though I’m not afraid to speak up and pray out loud in a group setting, I’m usually offering up the shortest one. But I’ve always admired and desired to be one of those people who can pray like they’re just having a conversation with God, or to “talk to God the way you talk to your best friend” as I’ve heard some put it. 

Now, I am not nearly intelligent enough or theologically educated enough to tell you exactly how prayer works. I do not think about it like making a wish on a shooting star and then crossing our fingers that our wish comes true.

But certainly, and I’m still guilty of this, our prayers can turn into wishes about these really little details (which there’s nothing wrong with, we should stay communicating with God as much as we can!) like getting to work on time, or blessing our meals, or if you’re like me, maybe even something as silly as the outcome to a college football game. I’m not coming after you about that. However, we serve this infinite God, our creator and creator of the universe, who has revealed to us through scripture how he is capable of calming storms, creating woman from a rib, turning a river to blood, turning water into wine, and resurrecting from the dead. Do our prayer lives reflect what we know to be true about the infinite power of God, or are we simply asking that infinite power to bless our burgers and fries? 

Right before I got my first ministry job, I found this daily devotional in the YouVersion Bible App called “Dangerous Prayers.” And as the Lord began to work in me over the next few months and gears began to turn that would ultimately land me here, it was what I’d learned in that devotional that guided my prayer life. And so I’d like to share some of those dangerous prayers, where we see them in scripture, and why you might (or might not) want to pray them. 

Search Me and Test Me

Psalm 139, verses 23-24.

“Search me, God, and know my heart;

Test me and know my concerns.

See if there is any offensive way in me;

lead me in the way everlasting.”

Why is this one dangerous? 

Our own hearts can be huge blind spots for us because we might tend to think we already know everything about them. And we might assume that because God also already knows everything about our heart, the “cleaning out” process is automatic. In some ways, yes, that’s exactly how sanctification and the holy spirit works! But consider for a moment how human nature and the fallen nature of our hearts work. 

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”

The reason this prayer can be dangerous is because it has the power to expose you to yourself and likely those around you as well. There may be a sin or a vice or a bad habit that you are either completely unaware of or are somehow justifying to yourself in a way you don’t even recognize to be sinful or unhealthy. 

We all know that incredibly awkward and humiliating feeling when you’re just going about your normal day and normal routine and someone calls out what you think is a totally innocuous pattern of behavior that everyone else has noticed about you except you. Now imagine that feeling but the one who’s calling you out is the holy spirit.

This prayer can be convicting. It’s like constantly asking God for a vibe check. There may be something in your life that you are holding on to so tight that the Lord wants to make you aware of, so you can loosen your grip or let go entirely. 

The second part of this prayer that can be dangerous is “test me”. Because if you have the courage to pray “search me” and mean it, you’re going to also need the courage to be ready for whatever comes along with “test me”. 

When I was first feeling truly called to Boston, it came by way of this really intense desire that welled up inside me whenever I read about it or spoke with others about it. I was genuinely tearing up and getting misty-eyed just talking about how much it meant to me before I even knew how I’d get here. I truly believe it was the Lord who placed that desire on my heart in the first place, but as the desire grew and the doors opened I began to wonder if this was God’s will being done or my will being done. I would pray this prayer often as a sort of “check” or signal to God that I was willing to take my hands off the steering wheel and let Him drive. 

It was one week after my first visit to Boston and one day after making things official with my girlfriend (now fiancee) who lived here that the organization I thought I’d be working for called me to say they no longer felt like Boston was the right place to send me. Perhaps this was the test: now that I had so much of my heart invested in Boston, would I be willing to hang it up if the Lord was to call me somewhere else? I spent a month in prayer and seeking counsel from others. It was my college pastor who asked me to consider if the Lord was testing me the way he had Abraham. Would I be willing to sacrifice this thing that had come to mean so much to me? 

That is why “search me and test me” can be such a dangerous prayer. Because it may not even be sin or vice or comfort or a bad habit the Lord tests us over. It could be something we love like Abraham loved Isaac. 

Send Me

Isaiah 6: 

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies;

his glory fills the whole earth.

The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke.

Then I said:

Woe is me for I am ruined

because I am a man of unclean lips

and live among a people of unclean lips,

and because my eyes have seen the King,

the Lord of Armies.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said:

Now that this has touched your lips,

your iniquity is removed

and your sin is atoned for.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking:

Who will I send?

Who will go for us?

I said:

Here I am. Send me.

Notice that the Lord asks the question and Isaiah’s response is immediate and without question. He doesn’t ask the Lord what He needs him to do or where he’s going or how long it might take or what the salary is. “Here I am, send me.” Full stop. 

Why is this a dangerous prayer?

To pray this prayer, and mean it, would mean a posture of complete and total abandon to whatever plans you have in your own life. The first time I prayed this prayer I had just gotten my job in ministry and I was exactly one year away from finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Sportscasting. Since I was 16 there was nothing I wanted to do more than be in the media: I wanted to be a journalist or a TV news anchor, but I especially wanted to be a play-by-play announcer on the radio for baseball. My assumption when I got my ministry assistant job was that I would camp out there until I finished my degree, and then I would go into television. 

When I first felt the Lord move me to dedicate my life to ministry full-time and not just for a temporary season, I told Him in my prayer that I was willing to give up all my plans. I was willing to drop out of school (for the 2nd time), move far away, or never see my career job at all. The only thing I remember asking to hold on to was that I could one day have a family. But other than that, the prayer was something along the lines of “Lord I’ll do anything anywhere. Use me however you see fit.”

To pray this prayer is to fully yield your plan in favor of God’s without asking or worrying about if it will be easy, if you’ll enjoy it, where it will lead you, if it will be comfortable, if there will be any benefits, or if you’ll make good money. I can tell you now as someone actively living in the "consequences" of praying this prayer: it can be scary. But the Lord has made sure I have never gone without. 

Break Me

This last prayer is definitely the scariest and most dangerous to me. The first dangerous prayer I shared with you tonight is one I still pray often. The second one is one that I prayed without reservation as I felt the Lord was actively calling me to something. 

This one is one that I’ve only prayed a handful of times, usually in seasons of extreme conviction: “Lord, break me.” Or even, “Lord, break my heart.”

I probably don’t have to explain why this one could be dangerous and I imagine I’d be moved to tears if I took a peek inside each of your minds as you envision what an answer to this particular prayer might mean in your own life. We are so used to praying for strength, for protection, for safety and security, and this feels like the exact opposite. It is. 

But consider for a moment the times in your life that you’ve felt closest to God. Consider your own testimony: what was going on in your life during the time that you truly came to know God? What I find for a lot of people is that our testimony begins during a low point in life. At our worst struggle with sin, or at our most depressed, or in the aftermath of devastating loss. 

This is where our Lord finds us. “He is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” 

So it’s great and it’s reassuring that the Lord is there for us when those things, by circumstance or by bad luck, befall us. But why would we volunteer ourselves to be brokenhearted and crushed in spirit? If I told you there was a surefire method to bring yourself closer to God, to be more dependent on Him, and to know Him more intimately, doesn’t your soul clamor to find out what it is? 

Are those all the things we miss out on by clinging to safety and comfort? 

Let’s look at Matthew 16: 24-25. 

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.

Jesus is very straightforward with us that a life of following Him will inherently involve self-denial and self-sacrifice.  His example for us is all the way up to and including death - “even death on a cross.” Jesus embraced being broken and He did it for our sake. He invites us to follow Him by imitating His example: dying to ourselves in service of others. If we shirk away from the necessity of Good Friday, we miss out on the joy of Sunday morning. 

The biblical precedent for this prayer runs even deeper. Before the brokenness of Good Friday was the Last Supper. 

For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Jesus' command to “do this in remembrance of me” is very clearly referring to literally breaking bread together and this is what we call holy communion. It wasn’t until I was doing my research to write this that I found out some biblical scholars contend that Jesus was also making a literal command. 

Break. Pour out. Do this in remembrance of me.

In the biblical narrative, this story immediately follows the story of Jesus visiting the house of Simon the Pharisee. In that story, a woman to whom Jesus had shown kindness buys a very expensive bottle of perfume. To the shock and horror of pretty much everyone there but Jesus, what does she do with the bottle? 

She breaks it. And she pours it out. For Christ.

So if we are going to pray “Lord, break me” we should do it with the understanding that this is a part of the way in which we follow His example. We are broken in that we suffer some sort of death to self or death of the will or death of ego; and then we can be poured out. We do this in remembrance of the example He set for us on the cross. 

And certainly, life is such that this is going to happen to us whether we choose it or not. Life will break us, break our hearts, crush our spirits. It’s unavoidable, as much as we’d all rather totally avoid it. But inviting it in? That feels dangerous. And very scary. 

Faced with the reality of impending death while praying in the garden, even Jesus asked "Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."

And I think that sums up the spirit of each of these three dangerous prayers. “I want your will to be done, not mine.” Show me, test me, send me, break me. At their core, each of these prayers is asking the Lord to move in us in a way that is going to change us, upend our plans for ourselves, destroy our comfort zones, and lead us places we may have never envisioned ourselves. His will, not ours. But it’s in giving ourselves away and living for others, rather than for ourselves, that we find the most fulfillment. It’s where we look the most like Him. 

Jesus is not known for playing it safe. He lived a dangerous life and led a dangerous ministry. He gave us the ultimate example of self-sacrificial love and He told us that He would give us the power to follow His example. 

For some, and I’m guilty of this, a lot of prayers can revolve around comfort, peace, security, and a problem-free, stress-free, pain-free life. But that’s not the life Jesus called us to and in fact, the power of our God is actually capable of so much more than blessing our breakfast and giving us sweet dreams. 

Consider everything you’ve prayed for over the last week and ask yourself “If God answered every prayer I have right now, how would the world look different? How would the Church on Earth look different?”

Don’t be afraid to abandon the safe, comfortable, and predictable.

Pray dangerous prayers.