A shift in prayer direction

From Australia a call has come for believers worldwide to fast and pray for America from April 30th through May 6th.

Because of that, I want to recycle several blog entries I wrote last year. At that time, God prompted me to shift my focus as I prayed for the nation. In short, I believe God showed me these four things for which to pray:

• Pray for people to know what to do.
• Pray for people to receive wisdom along with their knowledge.
• Pray for those people to receive the boldness to step out in what they know to do.
• Pray for those people to be filled with boldness to carry out their tasks to completion.

Written last year (second in series):  

When I wrote my book First of All, Pray: Prescription for a Nation in Crisis, I had been engaged in praying for the United States for over twenty years, often about elections, the president, and national security. During those two decades, I experienced some vivid dreams in which I interacted with each of three presidents—our current one and the last two. The dreams were all instructive as far as praying for each particular man and from those dreams, I got glimpses into each man’s thinking, motives, and behaviors at the time. Along with that, I gained some understanding of the spiritual obstacles surrounding the office which affected the ability of each Chief Executive to make sound decisions.

In February of 2008, I had been praying every week with a friend over the phone for the presidential election in November of that year. We had been praying together on this topic since the beginning of that year, and on the second Saturday of February, the Lord gave clear direction concerning how to pray for one of the candidates. I shared it with my prayer partner, and she agreed. However, the Lord neglected that evening to indicate to me which candidate to whom He was referring; at that point in time, three viable candidates were still running—one Republican and two Democrats. Of the three, one of them I was not fond of; one of them I didn’t trust at all; and the third I really knew nothing about, so I had no feelings one way or the other about that person.

All that next week, I prayed over the instruction God had given me. Then, when unbecoming information came out about one candidate in the middle of the week (the one of whom I was not fond), I asked the Lord, “Is this the candidate You were talking about?” Crickets. Nothing…except a sense of the Lord rolling His eyes at me. I deduced from this that the candidate of whom I was not fond was not the one the Lord had indicated.

Before I prayed with my prayer partner the next week, I realized that the Lord was referring to the candidate about whom I had no opinion. My friend confirmed that she sensed the same thing, so with that, we prayed according to instructions about the little-known candidate throughout the rest of 2008 until the election and even up to the inauguration. (Suffice it to say that ever since the second week of February, 2008, I had prayed according to Mark 4:22 and Luke 12:2.) That candidate became president; but although the outcome did not turn out as we had hoped, the directive still stood and continued to influence my prayer for the President as he took on the duties of office.

Early in April last year the Lord dropped a “shift” into my heart concerning the way I was to pray for America. He showed me that quite  a bit of the original prayer direction He had given had taken place. More would unfold as well, but now was the time to shift focus when I prayed for the nation.

Now my assignment was to simply pray for people to know what to do with the insight and revelation He was giving. The Lord wants to prepare men and women for appropriate action, and He intends for all of that action to be covered by  prayer—preferably before the actions take place so His will can be more perfectly accomplished.

Simple enough, right? Well, we are in the age of which Daniel prophesied—the age in which knowledge has increased and is continuing to expand exponentially (see Daniel 12:4). Therefore, although the charge to pray for humans to know what to do is easy enough, the Lord desires that His people not only pray big general prayers along this line, but He also wants us to be able to key in on specific groups and individuals by the Holy Spirit, according to the need, according to the moment, according to His will, and according to His prompting. And there are so many key individuals and groups in so many areas and walks of life, and the time is so critical that I believe the Lord wants all hands on deck, each one ready to pray whenever the Spirit of God drops His leading into their heart.

And I believe with all my heart that this shift in focus from God is not merely a have-to directive; it’s also a get-to directive. You and I get to participate with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in these outlandishly amazing times.

More tomorrow,

Dorothy

…for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13