More Bold Prayer

Scripture:
The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad;
    let the distant shores rejoice.
Psalms 97:1

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. Romans 1:7-8

Observation: At the time Psalm 97 was written, Yahweh was the Lord of Israel - a small nation on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. While they believed God was the creator and Lord of the entire earth, he was foremost in their minds the God of their nation, his chosen people. It was out of that boldness that the psalmist declared that the Lord reigns ... over ALL the earth, and that distant shores - places few Jews had even visited and none really cared that much about - should rejoice in God.

And ~1,100 years later, Paul is writing to the greatest city in the world - a place on one of those distant shores - celebrating their faith in Jesus and the fact they are loved by God.

It is very, very possible to connect these dots. The Jews celebrated God, worshipped him, and prayed that the entire world would likewise worship and celebrate God. Eventually, this happened through the advent of the Messiah and the good news that resulted and was spread throughout the world. The Messiah, therefore, while being God's plan for salvation, is also the response to bold prayer asking for the redemption of the entire world.

Application: Bold prayer is more than just being audacious enough to ask for something specific, assuming you can discern God's will. It is also praying for something SO HUGE that you cannot even conceive how it could be possible. It might be so big that you can't even understand what you yourself are asking for!

The psalmist probably didn't understand. When he prayed for worship on distant shores, "distant" might have been the Aegean Sea. When he prayed for 'the earth' to be glad ... his idea of the earth's population was likely less than modern day Mexico City. Yet he threw a bold pronouncement out there, and God did it.

Do I have the faith to pray that bold? Do I have the faith to pray for something that is so inconceivable in my mind that I don't even understand the 'ask' itself, with the faith that God will know what to do anyway? We'll see ...

Prayer: Lord, you know the prayers I have asked, and that I continue to ask. The "bold" ones I ask seem impossible to me, but I ask them anyway. Lord, I have friends that are so entrenched in unbelief that they refuse to acknowledge you as something to be considered - please, Lord, reach them ... find their hearts, enter their lives, display your love, and become irrevocably real to them. Lord, ISIS must be stopped, and I pray for the man who will reach them with a message of love in Jesus and begin turning hearts and thus destroy that hate through love and conversion. And dear Lord, I pray for the claiming of Bothell ... for the revival of the people of our small city to occur in such a way that it becomes an anomalous beacon of light in the Pacific Northwest without any possible explanation.

Amen, and amen.