The Prayer That Produces A Leader

The Byproduct of One Who Prays a Thirty-Thousand-Foot Prayer

Unable to Return the Way You Left – Part 4

In each person I studied who embarked upon a thirty-thousand-foot prayer, I’ve found they all have one end-result in common. They became leaders. Think of as many people from the past and those in the present who took on the work and journey of seeing a thirty-thousand-foot prayer through to the end, then evaluate their end-result. 

What did such a prayer make of them? What you will conclude is that person became a leader and so will you. However, before one ever gets to that point, they first had to learn to pray like one breathes to stay alive.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is not possible to be an uncommon Christina leader without prayer in the same way one can’t be alive without taking their next breath. It amazes me when I hear a person refer to themselves as a Christian yet they never or seldom pray.

Nehemiah whom we’ve studied intensely is an example of this. He went from the king’s cup-bearer to becoming the governor of Judah. What will your thirty-thousand-foot prayer make of you? If you’re a banker, a teacher, a programmer, a writer, etc., what will you become after your thirty-thousand-foot prayer journey? The point is this. Once you get beyond a thirty-thousand-foot prayer, your life will be nothing like the life you left behind at the start of your journey.

Prayer is the most powerful leadership tool we can use.
The problem we face when considering prayer can be seen in two questions:

1. Why should I pray?
   One should pray to talk to God, who gives one elevated thinking. Every leader in order to be a leader must have thinking that exceeds average thinking. Otherwise, everyone could and would be the leader. Talking to God gives you an advantage no one else can. That advantage is getting His perspective. His thoughts are higher than mine and His ways, methods, and processes are better. That’s how leaders think, with higher thoughts, ideas, plans, and processes.

    

2. What should I pray?
   The answer is we should pray about everything. Whatever can be spoken to any human, you should know, can be spoken to God.
   In most normal cases, we approach prayer with the wrong mindset. Prayer is like going to a meeting with a mentor that took you years to meet and finally having the opportunity to meet with them over and over again. It’s exciting because now you have an opportunity to ask anything and get his/her perspective directly on any subject. You would go into the meeting with pre-planned questions and leave the conversation without all the questions answered. Not all your questions will be answered, but for the ones that are, you’re the better and can begin implementing. This in turn leads to even more questions that you can answer at your next meeting. For the unanswered questions, you are excited to get another opportunity with this mentor because you know he/she is available and has the answer you need. God is better than any resource or mentor and has every answer if you’ll just ask. For we have not because we fail to ask appropriately.^[1] Talk to Him.

Make prayer your conversation with God.
The only person who can’t hear from God is the one who doesn’t know what to listen for. – Pamela Clark

Prayer is a conversation with God, but I think of it as exercising your ability to hear Him. If you don’t know what you’re listening for then you simply walk about with no answers. That happens in any relationship. If you pull up to a drive-thru and place your order and don’t know to wait in line for your order, you’ll miss receiving the meal you came for. In the same way, when you make a request of God and don’t hear what He says in response how will you know what to do to get the very thing you’ve asked of Him. If you think you can show up at God’s drive through window without paying the price for your order, then you might want to rethink getting into the drive-thru. It’s highly likely that if Nehemiah had never prayed and responded to the king, He’d never have had the opportunity to participate in the answer to his thirty-thousand-foot prayer.

Let’s talk about Moses for just a moment. Each time Moses engaged in conversation with God, he was given instructions and steps to walk, actions to take. The most important information Moses received when he prayed was that Pharaoh wasn’t going to listen no matter what happened on each respective visit Moses made and that more steps would have to be made. In other words, God gave Moses a sneak preview of the outcome and what would happen next before these events took place. He had conversations with God on what he (Moses) needed to do next. When was the last time you said, Lord what will You have me do next? It’s following through on these actions that makes one a leader. The enslaved people of Israel were followers waiting on a leader. Moses was a leader who took action on the words that came from God.^[2] 

Your best leadership tool is prayer. It’s one way to see the future before the future comes. God has the answer, the steps you need to take that will lead you to an outcome that will make you a great leader.

Question: are you interested in becoming a leader?

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Reference #1: James‬ ‭4:2-3‬ ‭NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed January 25, 2021, https://www.bible.com/116/jas.4.2-3.nlt
Reference #2: ‭‭Exodus‬ ‭7:1-5‬ ‭NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed January 25, 2021, https://www.bible.com/116/exo.7.1-5.nlt

All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.