“The will of the one who sent us is that we be the one who was sent. What we do is meant to be lived out of the context of discovering and becoming the person we are.” (Robert Benson, Between the Dreaming and the Coming True)
Mount Nittany is the highest place in our city. When I look across the valley from up there, I see homes, businesses, and schools; I see bars, streets, and stadiums; and I see cars on the highway and planes in the sky. And I wonder about the peoples’ lives.
How many want something more? How many go to church, but sit quietly in their pews, have given up on reaching their neighbors, and simply work their jobs and go home to watch television? They don’t go beyond their own lives and their families.
But in faith I see something more—I see city-wide pray-ers. Even if they don’t yet see themselves that way. But that’s why I see it in faith. Faith enables us to believe while we wait for the reality to manifest.
Now imagine identifying the spiritual strongholds of a city, say loneliness or poverty. According to Ed Silvoso in That None Shall Perish, a spiritual stronghold is “a mind-set impregnated with hopelessness that causes us to accept as unchangeable, situations that we know are contrary to the Will of God.” Strongholds are spiritual in origin but have natural consequences. A stronghold of loneliness might cause binge drinking or sexual promiscuity, for example.
When individual pray-ers in a city learn their best prayer types and begin to practice them with authority, they grow in their walk with God. Not only that, they begin to talk with God about their neighbors and begin walking through open doors to minister to them. But not only that, when people join prayers for the city, they confront strongholds with great force and agreement and reestablish the city on God.
People from all over the city come together, praying in their particular voices. There are thanksgiving pray-ers and warfare pray-ers and intercessors. The Bible is prayed and so is praise and also confession, all united in agreement prayer. This is a true concert of prayer!
Before they learned their prayer types, they never saw themselves as city pray-ers. They were living their solitary lives in boredom and frustration, wanting to be part of something more but not knowing how or what. But now they take their place in bringing God’s kingdom to the city. And when the city is changed, the nation can be changed and the ends of the earth. How does this happen? By one prayer at a time, and one person at a time.
City-wide prayer is strengthened and widened when individual pray-ers find their best prayer types and join them on behalf of the city.
It may be by faith, but when I look across the city, I see the people of God, a spiritual house, a royal priesthood. I see prayers on their hearts, waiting to be prayed. I see angels at attention, waiting to be dispatched. I see miracles on hold, waiting to be performed. They’re all across the city, just waiting to be released.
They’re waiting for the ones who were sent to become the ones they are.
Find your own best prayer types through Made To Pray.
Comments