A Plan to Move On

How to Get Busy Praying

My Thirty-Thousand-Foot Prayer At Work – Part 3

Your work will require you to get organized. Did you know that the uncommon have lives of order and discipline. This means they’re organized. This is what your big prayer request lacks when you leave them at thirty-thousand feet. This prayer takes a lot of work. Prayer isn’t a microwave process; it takes some great effort. I get it you want to just drop it off to Jesus and let Him handle it, but He wants you to do the work. He wants you to organize your mission. He wants to see your request answered, but more importantly he wants to see what it will make of you.

You can have an answer “As soon as you pray.”
“As soon as I pray, you answer me; you encourage me by giving me strength.” – bible.com/116/psa.138.3.nlt

I declare people in church and in life skip right over this verse. How is this? Let me explain what we miss out on. He says “as soon as”, yet we believe we have to wait for years for an answer?

I think “common” people just like to wait. I call them “common” people because I can’t bring myself to call them believers. Believers aren’t waiting for an answer; they believe they already have one. You won’t find believers out there waiting for a miracle, they’re too busy performing miracles. When are you going to start performing miracles? When are you going to get busy doing the work?

Maybe it doesn’t happen for you because you’re not putting in the work.

Recently we were praying for a young girl who was rushed to a larger city hospital in her state. She had bleeding on the brain and a frontal head fracture. We’d been asked to pray for her. So we prayed. We added her to our morning agenda for our meeting with God. It’s during this meeting (prayer) where I decided I didn’t want to wait to hear for the results. We decided we were going to expect something soon. By 10 a.m., this is the next morning, some positive reports on the young girl started coming in.
Her speech came in.
She passed all her tests.
She didn’t have to have surgery.
She kept down a popsicle. [Talk about the small victories.]

This is the kind of stuff you look for and pray over at ground level. What we did is the work of prayer, but the credit goes to God. By a quarter after four, this little girl was preparing for discharge and a 4-8 week recovery on the skull fracture. Medically this can not be explained, but we’re not relying on what normal people rely on, we’re asking God to do what God does. It’s not normal and it’s not common. It, prayer, that is, does not give us normal results because when we pray we want uncommon results.

“As soon as I pray.”

Wouldn’t you like that to be your quote? Hey [so and so] I don’t know what you’re talking about because as soon as I pray… Wouldn’t you like to be able to say that? That’s what I say. I believe when I open my mouth and speak to God my words by themselves remind God of how His words operate. When he said let there be… something appeared. Now it’s time we did the same. God took a thirty-thousand-foot view of the world and brought it down to the ground. He said…
Let there be light,
Let there be land,
Let there be rivers,
Let there be stars and planets,
Let there be fish,
Let there be animals,
Let there be human beings.

Notice what He didn’t say. He didn’t say just let there be an earth. He was specific. He brought His thirty-thousand-foot prayer down to the ground and He then went to work on it. I must move on, we still have to talk about Nehemiah.

Get organized; this is the business of prayer.
“Next were the people from Tekoa, though their leaders refused to work with the construction supervisors.” – bible.com/bible/116/NEH.3.5.NLT

Nehemiah appointed supervisors.

Don’t miss this, as most (51% or more) do. “[The] leaders refused to work with the construction supervisors.” Where did the supervisors come from? Think through this with me. Nehemiah was a cup-bearer for the king, not an officer or an official. He had no one who reported to him. He wasn’t responsible for a team or group. He was simply a cup-bearer, yet between the time he prayed his initial thirty-thousand-foot prayer and seeing his prayer request answered, he appointed supervisors. Nehemiah put the work in.

What are you doing to become more than a simple cup-bearer? Maybe if you put in a little work, some effort, you’ll see your prayer answered. How dare you go to God and refuse to do your part and expect Him to…
– save your home
– restore your relationship
– help you obtain that degree
– help you write that book
– help you start a family
– help you open a business
– help you run for office.

How dare you expect something to happen when you’re unwilling to do anything.

Nehemiah had to quickly find some leadership skills. He had to be ready for his supervisors. Are you getting ready for your supervisors? When you decide to go to work on your prayer, you won’t run out of “on the ground” things to pray about.

When you expect God to move quickly, you’ll move quickly. If God answered your thirty-thousand-foot prayer today, would you be ready? Would your home be ready? Would your routines be ready? Would your family be ready? If you’ve not put the work in to be ready for what you’ve asked for, why would God answer your prayer? If He gave into your request, you’d make a mess of it because you are not ready.

Now for some good news as I end this week’s message. I’ve come to help you get ready. I’m writing and you’re reading this because it’s time you got ready for what you’re asking God to do. It’s time you put in the work of your thirty-thousand-foot prayer.

Question: What can you do today to get prepared to receive the answer to your thirty-thousand-foot prayer?

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