Day 9-The Circle Maker Prayer Challenge

We are continuing our 21 day prayer journey based on Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker. Check out the first post in this series to get a daily email in your inbox from National Community Church. I pray that God will continue to bless us all as we Dream Big, Pray Hard, and Think Long and begin to draw prayer circles in our lives.

It’s day nine of the 21-Day Prayer Challenge.

Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Revelation 12:10-11

Testimonies are one way we overcome the enemy.  If we don’t share the way God is at work in our lives, then we’re tempted to think God isn’t working at all. But when we begin to share testimonies of grace, testimonies of healing, testimonies of answered prayer, we are reminded that God is still on the throne!   

One of the joys of writing The Circle Maker has been receiving testimonies of answered prayer. Each one is like a shot of adrenaline to my faith. They stretch me. They convict me. They challenge me to pray bigger and pray bolder.

My friend Josh Gagnon, pastor of Next Level Church, read about my 4.7 mile prayer walk around Capitol Hill and he was inspired to do a 2000 mile prayer drive around six New England states. It took five days!  It was his way of marking God’s territory. It was his way of dreaming big and praying hard.  And I believe God will honors those prayers!

I heard a testimony last week about Dr. Bob Bagley, missionary to Africa.  His tribal church was literally meeting under a tree and one day the local witchdoctor cursed the tree and all the leaves withered.  They lost their shade.  They also lost their status!  That curse overshadowed them.  So Dr. Bagley decided to call a public prayer meeting.  He laid hands on the tree and prayed that God would resurrect it.   I love his prayer: “It’s not my name that’s at stake.”  He knew that he couldn’t establish God’s reputation without risking his own!  The rest of the story?  Not only did God resurrect the tree, it became the only tree of its type that yielded fruit twice a year! Come on, somebody!

One more testimony.

There was a terrible drought in Mississippi about fifty years ago.  A rural church with lots of farmers in the congregation decided to do something about it by holding an emergency prayer meeting at the church. One of the farmers came to the prayer meeting dressed in waders! Some people thought he was crazy, but this farmer actually believed that God was going to answer their prayer so he dressed for the miracle. He said he didn’t want to walk home wet. Well he didn’t, but everyone else did!

Those testimonies remind me that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world.  They remind me that God is able to do immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine.  They remind me that God wins,Satan loses, and I’m more than a conqueror through Christ.

To share your prayer testimony, visit www.thecirclemaker.com.

*Taken from National Community Church. Day Nine.