Our devotion this week, Dangerous Prayers, comes from the YouVersion Bible App. It was provided by Life.Church. For more information, please visit: https://www.life.church/
Is He Safe? No, But He’s Good.
Driving a motorcycle with no helmet or headlight on a two-lane highway through the mountains in a snowstorm at night. That’s dangerous. Asking a woman her age. That’s dangerous. But praying? How is praying dangerous? Isn’t praying what sweet grandmas do in the safety of their living rooms? What could we possibly mean by Dangerous Prayers?
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis’ fantasy fiction about talking animals and kids traveling to other worlds, a little girl named Susan asks Mr. Beaver an important question about Aslan the lion. Aslan, if you didn’t know, is the God-like character in the stories. The conversation about Aslan goes like this.
Susan: Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.
Mr. Beaver: Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.
We serve a King who isn’t safe, but He’s good. When we pray, our prayers shouldn’t be safe; they should be good, big, and dangerous like God. We tend to come to God with our dirty laundry, or our laundry list of what He can do for us. What if we came asking what we could do for Him? That’d be dangerous.
True prayer holds in it this tendency to push us beyond our comfort zones. What’s a comfort zone? It’s the me-circle where everything endlessly revolves around our own needs and wants. It’s our kingdom where we are the king or queen. Prayer pulls us out of these me-circles because prayer is about His Kingdom coming and His will being done. Prayer is how we realize, like Mr. Beaver, that He’s the King.
Pray: Heavenly Father, You made time, and space, and me. Forgive me for praying and living like I know better than You. Help me to pray dangerous prayers. Father, let the desires of Your heart become the desires of mine. Let Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.
Read Psalm 37:3-6
3 Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
Read Matthew 6:5-13.
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standingin the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’
Search Me And Know My Heart
You’re still reading, you thrill seeker. You must want out of your me-circle. You must want the scary-good life on the edge, in full submission to the Maker and Master of everything. You want to have a heart that chases after God’s own heart. You and King David both.
King David prayed a famously dangerous prayer in Psalm 139 (NIV) when he said, Search me, God, and know my heart … Why is this a dangerous prayer? Is it because God might find some bad stuff in King David’s heart and then get him in trouble? No, God knows everything, always. He’s not going to find anything new in King David’s heart. A “search me” prayer is dangerous not because of what God might find, but because of what He might reveal to us.
Think of selling a house with a realtor. You clean your house perfectly before your realtor arrives, hoping they’ll think your house is a quick sell. Instead, they tell you to get rid of the green velvet couch, clean up the nasty corner of carpet where the dog sleeps, and please take down that baby cherub wallpaper! Asking God to search us is like that. He comes in and opens our eyes to all the trash we couldn’t see. Just like with the realtor, we get to decide whether to keep the junk or to clean house.
Merely having junk doesn’t condemn us. King David committed murder and adultery, and God still called him a man after His own heart. So, let’s get over the fear of being found out. God already knows everything in our hearts. Let’s ask God to show us what He knows. Let’s haul out the junk so we can get the most bang for our buck in our pursuit of God’s heart.
Pray: Holy Spirit, please show me the junk in my life that offends You. Cause it to offend me like it does You. Let it smell like old trash to me. And Father, help me to trade this garbage for the full life You promised me.
Read Psalm 139.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Read Philippians 3:7-9.
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowingChrist Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
