You've joined us today.
We are living up in a down world,
at least trying to because the world's pretty heavy,
isn't it, baby?
Yes, and the weather doesn't help anyone.
It's rainy outside.
Rainy and wet and damp and...
I guess that's typical of spring.
It is, but it's very green.
We're finally, last year it was so dry.
Our trees are blooming.
Big time, I mean, like overnight,
all of a sudden they're just beautiful, actually.
Yes, it is.
It does have a little Seattle vibe right now
because it's that misty.
It does feel that way.
Yeah, it's cool, that misty rain.
I never wanted to live in Seattle.
Me either, but we need the rain.
It's all good and you know how it is.
We hit June and sometimes the water faucet just turns off.
Most of the time it turns off.
Over the last few years we've been in drought.
So hopefully, prayerfully,
and I've heard that we're supposed to have good more.
It's supposed to be better this year.
Yes.
So, you know, it's always that La Nina, El Nino.
I can't ever keep it straight.
So there's always some reason.
Global warming.
There it is.
Climate change.
Wrong.
Buh.
Don't even go there.
Yeah, I know.
Don't get me started.
All right, so yeah, we're glad that you're with us.
We're on episode number 58
and man, just rolling right along.
We're two days off,
but we've decided it looks like for us,
Thursdays are gonna be a better day.
Do you agree with that?
I think so.
Because it all depends on the construction
that's going on around here.
We had to, we have air conditioning guys
putting a new air conditioner in our sanctuary
in our student room,
which we're right next to the student room.
And they've been up on the roof making so much noise.
We could not do it before.
We finally had to today say,
could you just give us 30 minutes?
Just give us 30 minutes.
We're gonna try to record Tuesday
and it sounded like they're playing hopscotch
on top of our roof.
My fear is that they're gonna come through our roof.
I mean, they're not on the roof of the building.
They're on the roof of our office, like literally.
Cause we created a storage room over our office,
like decked it out and everything.
So we have stairs that go up on top,
which is great unless they're up there dragging
duct work around.
It sounded like a bunch of elephants playing,
hopscotch up there.
So it's been hard to work.
I mean, yeah, I've left every day just with my head pinging
because of just so much noise.
It's progress.
It's gotta be done.
But it put a big kink in us trying to record.
There was no way we could record the podcast.
And next week they're doing all the drywall.
Now those guys, they come in and they get it done.
It's not the same team.
I know, but they're good.
Oh. Yeah.
So anyway, we'll see.
So we can't guarantee when our next podcast
is gonna come out.
Cause we're subject to all of this that's going on.
So it is what it is.
I would say the end of April will be done
with all this over here.
April.
Well, I mean, I'm just giving it extra weeks
cause I know how it is with contractors.
It does take a little time.
But the big stuff, the banging, all that stuff,
that's gonna be done like in the next few days.
So I mean, the big stuff.
We can work around some drills and sheetrock,
guys doing drywall and stuff.
That's not a big deal.
But anyway, if you do hear a bang or whatever
somebody walks in, it just is what it is.
We're in the middle of construction.
So we've got yellow tape on stuff, everything,
caution, construction zone.
It's like, so we're in the middle of that.
But again, it's progress.
It's all good.
It's just, it's kind of like when they do the interstate,
they do road work.
Everybody hates it while they're doing it.
And they're always complaining.
But when it's done, you got four lanes instead of two.
I mean, it's smooth, everything's clean and neat.
I mean, everybody's, I'm so glad they did that.
They were complaining for three years.
Or five years, however long it takes.
So anyways, kind of that for us.
So glad you joined us today.
We want you to be encouraged.
And we are, I mean, we're having a,
it's just been an amazing few weeks for us
in the things of the kingdom of God.
God's just doing amazing things,
connecting the dots for us,
connecting us with people that we just never knew,
never thought we'd be connected with.
We got invited to go to Mar-a-Lago out in Florida.
Which is Thursday, which is why we can't record next week.
On Thursday.
We'll have to do what we can
to try to get it done Tuesday or Wednesday.
So it's gonna be one of those.
We can.
I don't think so with the...
I'm gonna be, I'm the living up...
You can be positive.
I just know if there's only one guy doing the drywall,
there's a lot of drywall.
We'll see.
I'm gonna say we're gonna get it done.
We will figure it out.
Well, if not, it's because we're at Mar-a-Lago at an event
that we did get invited to and we're very excited.
We're only gonna be gone one night.
It's a quick trip.
Who wants to go to Florida for one day?
Do you want me to turn it down?
No, no, I'm glad.
It's just, if it wasn't Easter,
we would just plan to stay over for several days
and enjoy the beach and the beautiful weather there.
This is a quick trip.
We fly down on Thursday.
We'll be going with the Currys.
No.
No, just Tina.
Adam is doing his No Agenda show,
so he can't go with us, but Tina will be with us.
We'll be going with the Youngs.
And Dawn and yeah, just several people.
Lara Logan, her husband Joe.
So we'll all be kind of traveling sorted together.
We're all being in the same plane and heading that way.
And it's kind of, I think we're all sitting together.
Well.
Have a table or whatever.
Yes, yes, we're at the same table.
It's gonna be a wild ride.
So we leave Thursday, the event, it's a black tie event.
So we're like, I'm in a tuxedo.
We get in at 2.30 and we have to be at the event at six.
So yeah, so we'll just have a quick turnaround
and throw on our tuxes and dresses and then get there.
And it'll be a whirlwind night.
I mean, Trump's gonna be there.
I mean, it's gonna be Vivek Ramaswamy.
If I have to said that anywhere near, right?
Vivek, right?
Or Vivek.
I've heard it umpteen different ways.
General Flynn will be there.
Yeah, Michael Flynn will be there.
It's gonna be interesting.
And it's a premiere of a couple of shows,
two shows back to back, two movies
developed by the same people.
And it's gonna be interesting, fascinating.
We'll talk more about it when we get back,
but I don't wanna drag it out,
but it's gonna be interesting.
But those are the kind of opportunities.
Things are just coming up to us that are,
we don't generate the waves,
we just catch them when they come.
And so as waves are coming by,
we're just riding them and enjoying revival.
We're in revival.
Full blown, God's showing up,
lives being changed, people being saved,
people coming alive, they're awakening.
Always say, we're not awoke, we're awake.
That's the name of a message.
I see it, I see it.
Awoke or awake.
Actually, the Sunday after Easter,
I'm gonna do a message called Awoke.
You're gonna do it?
Awoke, not awake.
No.
Awoke or awake.
Yeah, it's a question.
Awoke or awake.
Yeah, my bad.
Which you're not awoke.
Let's just clear that up right now.
Not at all.
So anyway, so that'll be after Easter,
then Easter's coming up.
That's always huge.
It's a Super Bowl for churches.
And you're gonna take a little different spin than normal.
Yeah, I'm doing a message called Hidden in Plain Sight.
And I'm gonna talk a lot about Jesus,
how after he was crucified
and then he was resurrected between that and the ascension,
he made all these appearances to people
and they didn't recognize him.
There were people who walked with him for three years.
And they didn't recognize him.
He was hidden in plain sight.
But I'm also a little more fraught out of that
into the platform of there's a lot of stuff going on
in our world that's hidden in plain sight.
That's nefarious, dark, cultural attacks,
political warfare, psyops, psychological warfare.
There's a lot of things happening
and the enemy is also hidden in plain sight.
And I'm gonna do my best to expose him on Easter
in front of a lot of new people who'll be there.
We're expecting, we're praying for a thousand people
for Sunday, that Sunday.
We've been running between six and 650.
So we believe that's a reasonable BHAG prayer goal.
And if you're wondering what a BHAG is.
I think you need to change it to BHAP.
BHAP, we can do that.
But I said BHAG, because that's a known thing,
not by everybody, but some people know.
I never heard of it until you brought it up.
And people come up to me and go,
oh yeah, I remember talking about BHAGs.
It means big, hairy, audacious goal.
So a BHAG is a big, hairy.
But if we're gonna use it in the context of prayer,
it needs to be BHAP.
BHAP, big, hairy, audacious prayer.
Cause that's what we're talking about, not just a goal.
Now I'm gonna change the cover art for this episode.
I just did it.
Well then change it.
I can change it.
I think it needs to be changed.
BHAP.
That doesn't.
BHAG sounds-
That's like be happy.
Well, but someone told us HAG had a bad connotation.
Some school, some cultural, it's a derogatory term or something.
Okay, BHAP.
BHAP.
Big, hairy, audacious prayer.
Prayer.
There you go.
Boy, we're doing that.
Speaking of BHAPs,
let's talk a little bit about what our topic is today.
Cause we feel very strong that we wanna encourage you
in your prayer life.
A lot of people struggle with having a prayer life.
Why do you think that is?
I mean-
They, a lot of times we get,
we have a prayer need.
We bring it before God.
He doesn't answer it the way we want it.
So we give up on prayer.
I'll never forget.
And you told this story in church on Sunday,
but I'm gonna tell my perspective.
We had a woman in our church,
very highly intense woman who had so much faith
to believe for anything.
I mean, I had never met anybody with more faith
than this woman named Kathy.
And she began to have some symptoms,
health issues in her body.
And someone, she was a principal of a school
and someone in the school encouraged her
to go to the doctor,
and she just kept praying and praying and praying.
Cause she's a woman of faith.
She finally ended up going to the doctor
and they found out that she was riddled with cancer
all over her body.
It had just, I'm not sure where it started,
but it ended up in her whole body.
And she, I don't know that she could have taken treatment
at the time because it was too far gone.
I think she was-
I think that was my understanding.
In the late stages of stage four.
Yeah.
And, but she would come into church.
We watched her just become emaciated.
I mean, she was not the woman we knew
who was vibrant, beautiful, just,
but her faith never waned.
That was the most beautiful thing I ever seen.
She, as a woman, we watched her body disintegrate,
but her faith just rise.
And which I hear that happens a lot
with people who are about to pass,
but her faith was that God was gonna make her well.
And her faith was strong even before this happened.
She was always a warrior.
Always a warrior.
Strong in God.
Yes.
And so she would come into church.
She finally got to the point where she was in a wheelchair
and she would come in
and we would immediately want to pray for her
and we would pray.
But then the tables turned
towards the last probably six months of her life
where every week she would come in
and she'd say, I don't need prayer.
I want you to pray.
I want to pray for you.
And so she would pray for our staff pastors all the time.
I mean, just consistently
because she said, no, I'm good.
God's got this.
God's gonna heal me.
And that was really remarkable to me
that she could have so much faith for other people.
And she believed that God was gonna heal her.
So she didn't want prayer anymore.
She wanted to pray for us.
Well, I think I know why God wanted her to pray for us.
If you really think about what happened
because a few months later she passed
and that was one of the hardest funerals
you've ever had to do.
I remember, I don't think I could go.
I think I got sick.
Is that the one that I got sick?
I think you're right.
You weren't there.
I don't recall.
There was a couple of funerals that I could not attend.
But I remember us just talking about it as a couple
about God not healing her the way we wanted.
And it literally, it caused us to regress in our faith.
Yeah, let's tell it like it is.
It wrecked us.
It shipwrecked our faith for a season.
You told the church it was a few weeks,
but it was a lot longer.
I think-
I wouldn't in the weeds with the details on timing.
I just remember it devastated us.
Because we were so disappointed in God.
We got to the point where we didn't even wanna pray
for healing because-
Or for anything in terms of anything that's bigger
than what's around us in the natural or that we could do.
Anything beyond what's natural.
We were afraid to pray for anything supernatural,
anything big.
So, BHAP was out of the question.
Big, hairy, audacious prayers weren't even in the equation.
And we didn't have the faith to believe.
And I think looking back now, hindsight is 20-20,
looking back now, that's probably why
God had her pray for us.
Probably right.
Because that was gonna happen to us.
But thank God we came out of that.
And what happened is we realized she did get healed.
She is whole.
She's better than she was.
Because God healed her just not in the way we wanted.
We wanted her to be here for her family.
We actually saw her family spin out.
They literally walked away-
Yeah, it was terrible.
From the Lord.
I'm praying they came back.
I don't, we don't know.
We've left since then.
But I think the thing that I've learned
throughout that experience is that,
and you say this a lot,
we pray like it depends on us,
but we believe like it depends on God.
Because it does.
And I think that's why we could start praying
for people again and start believing for people.
Because even though we're praying, we want them alive.
We want them alive on this earth.
We have to leave it in God's hands.
And I do hate it when people say,
well, God just needed them more than we did.
God needed another angel in heaven.
That's not-
It's not even-
It's not even scriptural.
That's theologically whacked.
Yes, it's not biblical at all.
It's a sentiment.
We say things sometimes to try to make us feel better.
But I don't want to feel better.
I want to be accurate with truth.
So in biblical truth, and it's not that-
His ways, the Bible says his ways-
I was literally thinking that line.
Really are higher than ours.
Yeah.
And so we can't determine everything
about what God thinks or says.
All we know is what we have in the word,
but his word says his ways are higher.
Think about it, Annette.
That's absolutely true.
I was thinking the exact same line.
So great minds think alike, all right?
And you're beautiful today, by the way.
Oh, thank you.
So I was actually thinking though,
in terms of, Ka, I distracted myself
with your beauty right there.
Oh, stop.
Just totally threw me off.
Oh, stop.
Gosh, I can't even remember what I was going to say.
Literally, I got distracted.
You're gorgeous.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
No, don't do that.
You're so funny.
But his ways are-
I'm trying to help you with your thought process.
Yeah, maybe I'll recover it, maybe not.
Oh my gosh, you're so funny.
But I think I am so glad
that we were able to come to that realization
that we could pray again,
we could believe, we could believe in faith.
So many people do.
I've heard this before in the past.
You didn't have enough faith.
That's why-
Oh, that's a horrible thing.
You didn't get healed, or the person you prayed for.
That's just dumb.
Again, unbiblical.
Jesus does talk about ye of little faith,
but it's in a whole different context.
That doesn't mean we have to have,
I mean, he says we only need faith of a mustard seed.
The fact that we even pray to God is faith.
Exactly.
Because you're believing that there's a God to pray for.
Somebody's listening, right?
Exactly.
So to me, that's off too.
But one of your points that I love that you made
is God did not design prayer to put a burden on us.
He designed prayer to take the burden off of us.
And a lot of times we pray out of this, oh God.
You know-
Burden, we're laboring.
We're laboring.
Struggling in prayer.
Or-
Wrestling with God.
I keep having to pray for the same thing.
Well, if we give it to God, then it's not a burden,
because it's his burden.
So what we do is we remind God.
This is kind of the way I pray.
I remind God of my prayers.
I thank you, Lord, that you know what I've been praying for.
I'm praying right now for certain family members
and our family that have walked away from God,
that need God.
And so every day, it's not a burden to pray for them.
It's a privilege, because he takes the burden from me
so that I'm not overextending myself
in long bouts of prayer over it, because he's got it.
And I know he does, and I know he's gonna come through.
That's so good.
I was thinking of a scripture I read this morning.
I was reading in Psalm 139.
That was just really, really washing over.
It says, you search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
And he says, even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, oh Lord, you know it altogether.
Wow.
See, he knows our prayer.
Before I even say it.
He knows our needs before we even ask.
What a powerful statement.
Before it's even on my tongue, before I even say it,
he already knows that.
You know it altogether.
But it doesn't mean we...
That just hit me hard this morning.
It doesn't, and some people take that,
well then I don't need to pray if he already knows.
No, we pray for ourself.
We pray...
Of course.
Because it's part of our relationship with God.
It's a conversation.
Prayer is a conversation, not a monologue.
It would be like me saying, I'm never gonna tell you
I love you because you know it.
So why would I tell you?
And then I would start to not know it.
Exactly. I would start to wonder,
okay, wow, she's not even said anything.
Because a relationship is not a monologue.
And so to me, you have to have a dialogue
between the person that you have the relationship
within yourself.
So think of it this way.
Prayer should not be a weight that you're carrying around.
Remember he says, come to me all who are weary
and heavy laden, I'll give you rest for my yoke is easy.
And my burden is light.
But we turn it into this ball and chain.
I'm somehow carrying the weight of the world.
So I'm praying for the nation.
I'm praying that our nation, that God will right the ship.
I'm praying that no longer will wrong be right
and right be wrong and up be down and down be up.
Because everything's upside down right now.
Absolutely.
But I don't labor in it as though I'm carrying it
or that it depends on me.
This is where trust comes in.
I feel like when I'm praying a prayer like that,
instead of carrying a burden,
I'm just simply aligning with the revealed will of God.
Because don't you believe that it's his will for our nation
to walk in accordance with the biblical foundations
with which our founding fathers founded the nation?
Founded it on the word of God,
founded on conservative biblical morals, principles, values?
Of course, I mean, God's mentioned four times
just in the declaration of independence
was a very short document, all about his providence,
all about his as our creator and these unalienable rights
that we have, all of that is there,
which means when we pray for our nation to be made right,
or we pray for a person to be made right,
or we pray for the salvation of somebody,
we can trust that that is his will.
We're in alignment with him.
And that brings confidence,
but it also takes the burden off.
So how do you handle people who say,
but I'm an intercessor?
Yay, we love intercessors.
So how can I not have a burden for what I'm praying for?
Well, it depends on what you mean by burden.
There you go, that's what I want you to bring up.
If you're looking at the definition of burden,
that it is a weight.
It's like a pack mule carrying,
they weigh this animal down or a camel,
they weigh them down and they're bearing the burden.
But I think in biblical intercession,
we're not bearing the burden,
we're simply offloading the burden to God.
To God.
We stand in between the issue and God,
that's to intercede means to be in the middle, enter.
Enter in the middle.
And so we're in between, so we take that, but we offload it.
We don't carry it, we don't keep it.
We simply present it to God and then we let it go.
And I think that's one of the things I've seen
where people can't let it go.
That's a more character issue than a personal issue
and a mental issue than it is, that's the mind war,
than it is an actual issue because that's not
what we see in scripture.
He says, bring it to me and then let it go.
And then it even says this,
that the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us
before the throne of God.
And with groanings too deep for, I mean,
he's saying, he's got this.
He's interceding, he's our intercessor.
And so what happens is, we feel responsible for things.
We're fix it people, all of us are, we wanna fix stuff.
So we think we need to bring our burden to God,
then tell God how to fix it.
Because not only do we pray, I brought this up on Sunday,
not only we pray to God and say,
Lord, we present this to you, then we say,
and here's how you should fix it.
Here's my criteria for the answering of this prayer.
Because we know best.
And then what happens when it doesn't happen
the way I aligned it out to God.
Then we're disappointed in God.
As though he failed us.
Or he didn't answer, or he doesn't hear our prayers,
which is false.
So we've gotta get to the point as believers
where we can trust him and we can pray to him.
We can pray on behalf of other people,
on behalf of ourself, and then let it go and say,
God, okay, this is yours.
Now it doesn't mean we don't keep praying,
because it says pray and keep praying.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, can I read the scripture?
Pray unceasingly, yes.
This is out of Matthew chapter seven, seven and eight,
verse seven and eight, out of the amplified version.
Keep on asking and it will be given you.
Notice, keep on.
Keep on seeking and you will find.
Keep on knocking and the door will be open to you.
For everyone who keeps on asking receives,
and he who keeps on seeking finds.
And to him who keeps on knocking, the door will be opened.
But that's also in context to receiving the Holy Spirit,
right?
There, actually, there's different versions
of this in the gospel.
One is that your heavenly father
knows how to give you good things.
The other one is the heavenly father
knows how to give you the Holy Spirit when you ask.
So there's several different implications to that,
but the principle is the same for everything.
We're to ask and keep on asking, not keep on knocking.
Seek, keep on seeking.
But it doesn't mean we're seeking
as though we don't believe God's gonna do it.
This is how Jesus taught us to pray.
He says, when you pray, say, and this is what you do.
And so to me, it's like, let's lean into that,
but it doesn't mean that I carry the weight
and the gravity of it.
We're not, we're not beasts of burden.
There's nowhere, no one ever said in their life,
hey, grab that sheep over there.
We're about to go up a mountain and I need that sheep
to carry all of our equipment.
You know, sheep are not pack meals.
Sheep are actually quite fragile.
And I know that by experience
and being around sheep personally, not just church people.
I mean, real sheep, literal sheep.
They're fragile animals.
People that aren't in church that are hearing this
don't understand what you just said.
So the Bible refers to believers, followers of God,
followers of Jesus as sheep, a flock of sheep
over and over and over.
And I'm an under shepherd.
Jesus is the great shepherd, but I'm a shepherd
because I'm called a pastor.
That's my role.
And so I shepherd a flock here in Fredericksburg, Texas.
And so, but never once ever will you hear anyone
ever in history say, okay, we're gonna make this trek
up through the mountain.
So get the sheep together
because they're gonna bear the weight of it.
They can't.
They can't, no.
And by design, I mean,
the sheep is not a weight-bearing animal.
That's a great illustration.
Think about us.
We're not called to bear the weight.
That's why we're, he says that,
let me put it this way to you.
It says, be anxious for nothing.
This is in Philippians chapter four, verses six and seven.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything.
Someone say everything.
Now you're being a preacher.
I have to, because I want to reiterate that word,
everything, not some things.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything,
by prayer and supplication.
Supplication is a fancy word for a petition.
You put it before God.
With gratitude, with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God.
He just says, bring it to me.
And the peace of God, this is verse seven,
which passes all understanding will guard your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus.
Here's another way to say that.
If you will pray about everything,
you'll be anxious for no thing.
I love that.
And who doesn't want to offload anxiety?
Come on, we live in a world of stress.
It's unbelievable how many people are on anxiety,
anti-anxiety medication.
Devastating.
It's really affecting, I mean,
most teens these days are on anti-anxiety medication.
And we just have such a lack for understanding
who God is and what He wants to do in our lives.
And how He feels about us.
Listen to this out of Psalm 145.
The Lord is near to all who call on Him,
to all who call on Him in truth.
Verse 19, He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him.
That means reverence, who reverence, who see Him in awe.
He hears their cry and saves them.
That's how God feels about us.
But we're afraid to approach Him
because He's like the great Oz in the Wizard of Oz.
Fearful, flames, fire, booming voice.
And at the end of the day,
when Toto pulled the curtain back,
Oz was nothing more than a man opera.
I mean, he was just, he wasn't that.
That's not God.
God loves us and God cares.
And He wants us to bring our prayers to Him,
bring our requests.
Not in fear.
It's that peace that surpasses all understanding.
It's a promise.
He wants to, for us to accept His gift,
His gift of salvation, His gift of peace, of hope, of joy.
Yeah, beautiful.
So one last point before we go,
because we're only on the plane,
but people don't spend time in prayer.
And here's why.
It's because they don't believe it really works.
Well, and that's the way we had become.
Yeah, we fell into that.
We fell into the trap.
For a while, first season,
because we were angry.
And that's again, another reason why people
don't spend time in prayer.
They're angry with God.
They're disappointed.
Right, disappointed.
That's a great word.
I would even, anger may be true,
but I would think disappointment
and disillusionment are more accurate.
We just disappointed because we prayed
and nothing happened.
Or we thought nothing happened.
I love the story you told about Daniel.
Tell that story because that was powerful.
All right.
Powerful.
That's based on this point.
Your prayers move and shift things
in the heavenly and spiritual realms on earth
as it is in heaven to reflect back
to the Lord's model prayer.
And where Jesus said, your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
So Daniel was a prophet and his nation at that time,
his people, God's people were in captivity.
They were under oppression.
You think it's bad here?
This is just nothing compared to what they were going through.
Many of them were enslaved.
They were taxed 80 to 90% of their goods.
I mean, it was-
Oh, they were socialist country.
Exactly, worse.
More like Mao, Trans Maoism.
But anyway, it was terrible.
And he's crying out to God for a vision
and God gives him a vision.
And he was praying.
He'd been praying and fasting for 21 days,
three weeks and nothing.
So he's crying out on behalf of God's people.
Crickets, he thinks God's not even listening.
Exactly, where is God now?
When we need you the most, you're not there.
And a messenger, the Bible calls it a messenger.
Well, the same word used for angels,
same word used for messenger.
That's what it means.
An angel is a messenger from God.
So an angel of the Lord came.
So this guy shows up and Daniel goes into a wild description
of what he looks like in the verses,
but he shows up and what happens is he says,
Daniel, your prayers were heard the first time you prayed.
Wow.
The first time.
Three weeks ago.
Not three weeks.
21 days ago, your prayers were heard.
He says this, let me just read it to you
out of the book of Daniel.
Then he continued, the messenger, he said to Daniel,
do not be afraid Daniel, since the first day
that you set your mind to gain understanding
and to humble yourself before your God,
your words were heard.
Man, we need to lock that in.
That really just rang like a symbol in my ears.
You mean like a bomb just went off?
Like a bomb went off.
Thunder in your soul.
Because we can read scripture.
We've read through the Bible many times.
But there's sometimes when something just comes up
off the page that you've read it a million times,
but you didn't really let it see.
There's a word for that.
It's called revelation.
And boy, when you said that, it was like, wow.
He says, from the first time you set your mind
to gain understanding, to humble yourself before your God,
your words were heard.
I love that.
That just resonates with me.
And I have come in response to them.
So he shows up, this messenger,
but he tells him something interesting, the next verse.
But the prince of the Persian kingdom
resisted me 21 days.
The prince of the Persian kingdom is a demonic force
over a region.
Biblically, it's called a principality.
A principality is over cities.
They're over regions.
Demons, angels, there's hierarchies of authority.
If they believe there's a God, but not there's a devil,
they're totally misled.
They're not just missing 50%.
They've already lost the war.
If you don't believe that's real,
that demons are real, that there's a real Satan,
who I've named, nicknamed Nefarious,
if you don't believe that, you've already lost.
You're already in defensive mode.
You're already being whooped.
So it says the prince of the Persian kingdom,
this is this principality, this massive demon,
resisted me 21 days.
I mean, mind-bending.
Then Michael, uh-oh, you know who Michael is?
Michael is one of the angels
that attends to the presence of God.
He's perpetually within God's presence.
I mean, like close, inner circle.
He says, then Michael, one of the chief princes.
Okay, so we're talking about the highest ranking angel.
I love this.
He's not a king, he's a prince, remember?
Jesus is the king of kings.
Right, Jesus is the only king.
Then Michael, one of the chief princes,
came to help me because I was detained there
with the king of Persia.
So this principality was warring to keep the answer
and the solution and the answer to the prayer
to get to Daniel for 21 days.
Now later, the story goes on, it's just crazy cool.
And what happens is, is they defeat him
and the answer comes.
I mean, so he gets what he prayed for,
but that's a real clue that when we pray,
we actually start wars.
When you pray, you start a war in the heavenly realms.
Now I don't know if that means if you're praying
for your refrigerator to get fixed,
there's suddenly a war in the heavenly realm.
I have a feeling it's more 30,000 foot prayers
where you're praying for revival for the nation,
where you're praying that justice would be done
in the political realm for election integrity,
that all the darkness in the world would be dispelled
by salt and light, which we're called to be.
I think when we pray those prayers,
we are praying those prayers right now
and they are b-happ prayers, big, hairy, audacious prayers.
And we wanna encourage you to not be afraid to pray.
I remember this hit me in the wake of dealing
with Kathy's passing and me doing that funeral
and us feeling so defeated.
I feel like the Lord brought a couple of things to me.
One of them was this.
He said to me, and when I say he said, I'm just saying,
I'm extrapolating my interpretation of an impression.
So I didn't hear a voice.
I didn't hear, he didn't write this out with a pen.
I'm just saying this is my takeaway.
So I want to be clear about that.
When I say God said, this is what I think he said
and how I interpret it to me.
So I'd wanna be clear about that and honest about it.
But I felt like he was saying to me, Jimmy,
what's the worst thing that could happen if you pray?
And I'm just gonna insert this, a behap prayer,
a big, hairy, audacious prayer.
What's the worst thing that can happen?
And I remember thinking, I don't know.
And the word came to me, nothing.
That's the worst thing that can happen.
In other words, if you pray for someone to be healed
and they don't appear to get healed,
what's the worst thing?
In the way you want, yes.
You don't lose, you've lost nothing.
But on the flip side of the coin, what if he does?
But if you're so shy to pray because you've been hurt
and disappointed, disillusioned that you never pray,
you're not even giving it a chance.
You're not even giving it a chance to not work.
And so I've learned the hard way,
and we've had to navigate this to actually do it.
Step up, pray the behap, big, hairy, audacious prayer.
And we pray like it depends on us,
but we trust like it depends on God.
So yeah, there it is.
That's good.
There it is.
Anything to wrap up that?
No, I think that's good.
Hopefully this will help people.
I do too.
I think this message, it really,
just hearing it over and over,
because I heard it three times on Sunday.
Now we're talking about it.
And I felt like this is what we were supposed
to talk about today.
And you got a revelation today.
Here we are pastors and we've dealt with disappointment,
disillusionment.
And I can't even imagine people in this world
that have so many needs and they don't pray to God.
They don't feel heard.
And I think we just hopefully dispelled that
with the scripture to show them that God does hear.
I love that God just, right here on the podcast,
God highlighted that for you.
I'm gonna just say them again out loud.
This is the book of Daniel and it is chapter 10.
And it's in verse 12.
Your words were heard.
And I have come in response to them.
The problem is, is when it doesn't get answered
the way we thought it would,
we think it didn't get answered.
And we blame God.
And we blame God, but God is answering it.
Things are set into motion.
A war is happening.
And sometimes we don't connect the dot
between what we prayed and the way the answer came.
Because we say your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven,
but we really don't want that.
We want our will to be done.
But I digress.
That's another sermon for another day.
That's a whole nother sermon.
That's a whole nother one.
Hey, we love you guys.
Thank you for listening.
We hope you're encouraged.
Listen, go bold, go big or go home.
That was my boss, Dave Ramsey saying.
Go big or go home and start praying some BHAP prayers.
Okay, I've changed it.
No longer BHAC.
No, BHAP.
It's BHAP, which is Big, Hairy, Audacious Prayers.
We need to raise our sights, elevate our faith,
trust God, pray like it depends on us.
Believe God.
Believe and trust like it depends on Him because it does.
And offload the weight of it,
but not be afraid to pray big, bold, audacious, hairy prayers.
Amen?
Hey, a couple people to thank.
First of all, I always want to thank David Wicker.
I mean, he signed up and he does regular subscriptions.
We have others too that we so appreciate you.
Value for value, blessing us.
I want you to, if you get a chance,
go to livingupinadownworld.com.
That's our website.
I put our daily devotionals on there every day.
All of our past episodes and most current episode
of Living Up in a Down World is right there
on the front page.
You'll see our Twitter feed, which is now an X feed on there.
You can sign up, subscribe to the newsletter there,
and you'll get a newsletter every time
right before we do a podcast.
If you're not getting one right now, let us know
and I'll make sure you're on that list.
But you can do that right there on the website,
livingupinadownworld.com.
One of the things I was reminded of, Annette,
was this message that we just talked about
with all the points and in context.
You can hear me preach that message.
You can watch me do that by going to bridgefbg.com,
bridgefbg.com, and go about halfway down that page.
As you scroll down, you'll see it.
All the current sermons and messages are there.
And the one from this week is entitled,
Mind Wars, Demolishing Strongholds Through Behag Prayer.
It was Behag then, now it's Behap Prayer.
And we wanna invite you to do that.
And yeah, follow us.
Get involved, get connected, reach out to us.
Let us know what you think about the show.
We're here for you, we're praying for you.
Just one other thing.
I do have another, let me look it up.
Here it is.
So My Thrill the Learned boosted us on Fountain.
He says, this message of, this is from last week,
this message of saints that sometimes sins,
not sinner, that is sometimes a saint,
is what us modern Christians need to hear.
Thank you.
We must conquer this path to failure
so we can be functional messengers of the good news.
I've been living free with,
Send Me, Thrumming Through My Heart song,
as I pass out salvation tracks
and post Bible study videos and podcasts
on No Authority Social.
That's part of No Agenda there, the great podcast.
We all have mission fields around us.
We are due a revival, as Adam pointed out,
talking about Adam Curry, our friends, Adam and Tina,
who have a great, great podcast called Curry and the Keeper.
They just released a new episode just last night,
late last night.
I got part of the way through it today.
Already?
Yeah, I did, because when I was going over to get our food,
I was listening to it.
And then Adam Curry, so appreciate my best friend, Adam.
By the way, we had a bro date last week.
Yes, you did.
That was super fun.
We went to a very cool restaurant here in Fredericksburg,
had a great time together.
Iron sharpens iron in the biggest way.
So love my bro.
He has a great podcast called No Agenda.
He writes this and he boosted us, by the way.
It was a striper boost, so I got to do a striper boost.
He said, this is one of my go-to must-listen podcasts,
no matter what day it comes out,
because we never know lately.
So thanks for hanging in there with us.
We love you guys.
Thank you for listening today.
Well, anything you want to say on the way out, baby girl?
What a blessing it is to be able to do this podcast.
Hopefully help people out there.
Yeah, that's our heart.
We love you guys.
Have an amazing week and we are out of here.
I'll see you next time.