Could you pray for me?

I was standing on the lawn talking with people after our Sunday services. A young lady I’d never met stood off to the side with one of those, “I have to tell you something” looks every pastor knows.

When the crowd cleared, I walked over to her. “Thank you for being so patient. My name is Ed, how can I help you?”

Tears streamed down her face. “Could you pray for me, please

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh…

I would love to.

Words poured from her heart. Story after story punctuated by sidebar explanations I could not connect. “And then my mother told me that she heard…” “Well, I really didn’t say that, but my husband thought I did….” “I just don’t know if I can go on with all of these people saying….” “And then I lost my job….” “So you can see why I….”

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A friend asked me recently if I still wanted him to ask God to “Please let Ed live and serve.”

My response? “Absolutely! Why wouldn’t I want you to continue praying for me?”

He seemed surprised. “But we’ve been praying this for eleven years! Isn’t it time to stop asking or at least time to change the prayer a little? Don’t you think,” he wondered, “that God’s tired of hearing the same thing over and over again?”

His comment unmasks a common misconception about prayer: That we should communicate with God in adult ways—trying to figure out what He wants to hear and then making sure that we get it right and don’t bore Him.

When the Lord Jesus taught on prayer, He encouraged His disciples to relate to the Heavenly Father with childlike faith, words, and behavior. His central teaching on prayer, Luke 11:1-13, reads like a kindergarten lesson plan rather than a seminary course.

Model Prayer

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Breakthrough Prayers

A few years ago we dedicated ourselves to moving our vision forward by prayer—learning how to pray daring, world-changing prayers that ask the Lord to do what we know we could never do.

We call them Breakthrough Prayers–persistent prayers focused by fasting.

We have learned to pray these bold, breakthrough prayers as we have rejoiced in His specific and gracious answers. May it never be said that we have not because we ask not. Only God knows the ministries we could launch, the missionaries we could send, the souls we could reach, and the blessings we could receive…if only we would ask.

Here’s the link to the sermon, study notes, and discussion notes from last Sunday:

Plan or Pray?

Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).

A few years ago we dedicated ourselves to moving our vision forward by prayer—learning how to pray daring, world-changing prayers that ask the Lord to do what we know we could never do.

We call them Breakthrough Prayers. Those Christians and churches experiencing God’s grace in extraordinary ways know the power of prayer. Every prayer ever uttered by a child of God is an exercise of grace. If He did not love us in grace our prayers would fail. But there are those who want more. For these, there is the option of breakthrough prayer.

Breakthrough Prayer?

Many have asked me, “What makes a breakthrough prayer different from other prayers?

• Breakthrough Prayers are our collective community prayers—we pray these together.
• Breakthrough Prayers are specific—we ask God to take us beyond a precise ministry threshold our leaders feel God wants us to reach in His time and in His way.
• Breakthrough prayers are persistent—we keep on asking, every day, all the time, throughout the year.
• Breakthrough prayers involve fasting—those who are able fast and pray together during the year asking God for His answer.

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Celia and David meet little Zachary!

One of the most desperate prayers of my life came from my hospital bed at USC’s University Hospital nine years ago. My doctors had just diagnosed me with this deadly disease, my organs were failing, and my skin refused to stay on my body.

Those were difficult days for our entire family, but especially for my baby girl, Celia. Only a sophomore in high school, I knew my death would be harder on her than Judy, our two adult children or the grandchildren. The idea of her facing the challenges of adolescence without me broke my heart.

As we asked people to pray, “Please let Ed live and serve,” my private addition was always, “at least until Celia graduates from high school. Please, in Jesus’ name, let me see her walk the aisle to receive her high school diploma.”
As God always does, He provided above and beyond – not only did he say “yes” to my prayer to see my baby girl receive her high school diploma, I was there years later for the other “aisle” walks of her life: her graduation from Biola University, her wedding day and I was there when she received her Masters from Pepperdine University.

God, in His gracious love, presented my family and I another gift last Thursday, April 16th at 1:10 AM . . . I stood outside my baby girl’s hospital room listening as my son-in-law coached her through the delivery of our 7th grandbaby, Zachary James Newkirk! (Don’t you just love that name?!)

As a Pastor, I am privileged to see first-hand in our church family how God’s timing and His gifts serve to glorify Him . . . this past week, I was the recipient of an incredible gift and reminded so vividly of His gracious timing in our lives.

To all who have begged God to let me live and serve over the last nine years, thank you. I continue to believe that your prayers are my only hope. And, to my Lord Jesus, thank You my sweet and gracious Savior for your mercy…and for the privilege of holding this little gift to our family.

I can’t know what’s breaking your heart today, but I do know that Someone cares and you can trust His timing. From births to graduations and someday to our eternal graduation, for all the time in between, He will take care of all that concerns us.

“The Lord will accomplish that which concerns me” (Psalm 138:8).

Could You Pray for Me?

Telling or Asking?

Just Ask!

Still Want to Live and Serve?

A friend asked me recently if I still wanted him to ask God to “Please let Ed live and serve.”

My response? “Absolutely! Why wouldn’t I want you to continue praying for me?”

He seemed surprised. “But we’ve been praying this for eight years! Isn’t it time to stop asking or at least time to change the prayer a little? Don’t you think,” he wondered, “that God’s tired of hearing the same thing over and over again?”

His comment unmasks a common misconception about prayer: That we should communicate with God in adult ways—trying to figure out what He wants to hear and then making sure that we get it right and don’t bore Him.

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Innocent Trust

Our first worship service was just about to begin when I noticed someone running toward my usual “preacher front-row seat.”

My sweet seven-year old granddaughter, Mary with her long brown curls and bright blue eyes ran into my arms in all of her Sunday morning best, hugged my neck and said, “Good morning, Papa!”

It wasn’t “grown-up” behavior. It was wonderfully childlike.

An adult would never do what she did. Grown-ups don’t think and act that way. Grown-up thoughts would have considered the crowd, wondered what they thought, calculated that this might be an embarrassment to them and a distraction to others and decide not to run to someone they love, hug their neck, and tell them good morning. No matter how much a grown-up might love that person, they would never express it with such innocent exuberance.

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No You Don’t!

“I just want to know what God wants me to do,” the man said to me.

His eyes filled with rage at my answer: “No you don’t!”

“What do you mean?” he protested. “I do too; I want to know God’s will!”

As we sat across the table in my office, I reminded him that he had asked me to help him determine God’s will in his finances three times before, over a period of about six years. Each time I brought him to the same conclusion from God’s Word: “God’s will is clear—give to His work. You cannot look past His clear teaching that connects all of His financial promises to your faith in Him. You must trust Him enough to give before you can expect His guidance and blessing concerning your money situation.”

But here we were, going around the same block, considering his same questions, and reviewing God’s same answer.

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A young husband and father with a passion for Christ hung his head as he admitted to me that he just couldn’t lead his family. He wanted to stay at Church of the Open Door. Our unique grace-based culture encouraged the type of truth telling that redeems, releasing Christians to their strengths. He loved it; it was what he was always longed for, and his walk with Christ was thriving.

I Can’t

But it was messy, and his wife wasn’t one for messiness. She had grown up in a button-down, dress-up-for-Jesus church where you put on your very best we-have-it-together-so-don’t-worry-about-us mask every Sunday. When the probing and penetrating grace of God began to expose their stuff, she bolted.

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