Respectful audacity.
That particular phrase is not one that springs to mind when pondering prayer. Perhaps it should be something we consider.
In Exodus 33, we can read an account of Moses’ boldness. Moses had previously ascended the mountain to receive God’s laws. Back at the base, the people grew impatient and crafted for themselves a golden idol. Moses returned and disciplined the people severely. He moved his tent outside of camp and spent time there communing with God.
Starting in verse 12, Moses begins to beg for God to teach him. He says, “Please, if I’ve been good enough, show me Your path. I just want to know You as You know me.” God assures Moses of His continued presence, but Moses persists, begging God to stay with them. God agrees to remain with His people, despite their recent sins. Moses persists: “Please, show me Your glory.”
Now, please recall: this is the man who just destroyed stone tablets carved by the hand of God. He had a speech impediment. He was the leader of a pack of stubborn, disobedient, unteachable children who had recently carved and worshipped an idol. Moses had already begged God not to destroy the Israelites (32:11-14). He had already received God’s assurances of presence and guidance, but it’s never enough for some people, is it?
“Please, show me your glory.”
I’m sure Moses was humble and and respectful, but somehow I cannot mentally envision the same timidity that accompanied Oliver Twist’s, “Please sir, I want some more.” We know how Moses’ plea worked out for him; he died the only person ever to see God on this side of death. The people of Israel, of course, wanted no part of it. Just 13 chapters earlier they viewed with Moses the thunderous majesty of God as He descended to Mount Sinai and said, “We’ll wait here. You go on and let us know what He said. Tell Him we said ‘Hi.'”
Centuries later, Elisha played nursemaid to the kings of his day, dragging them before the Lord and slapping them across the back of their heads, demanding that they understand. Near the end of his life, the aging prophet counseled Johoash, king of Israel (2 kings 13:10-19). The Arameans were coming and King Jehoash ran crying to the prophet. As Elisha demonstrated God’s impending salvation, he commanded the king to strike the ground with some arrows. Whether by laziness, uncertainty, or folly, the king only struck the ground three times. “Fool!” Elisha answered. “Had you dared to ask for it all, God would have given it to you!”
Spurgeon, in a sermon on Hebrews 4, implored his listeners to boldly approach the throne of grace, joyful at their right to enter the throne room of God, and ask what they would; however, they should do so without forgetting that they were approaching a throne!
From Jesus’ lesson about persistence in prayer to Abraham’s negotiation for Sodom to Gideon’s request for repeated proofs of God’s commands to Nathan’s assurance that David could have asked God for more….
Respectful audacity.
Standing back and insisting on only requesting the basics isn’t exactly respect. The Israelites kept their distance from God out of sheer terror that blinded them to His grace and love. I only request the basics because I feel like I’m bothering Him, forgetting that I couldn’t possibly request too much. Others keep Him at arm’s length because they doubt His power, or the closeness of His presence, or His interest in their issues. We could go on and on, I suppose.
I’m facing some situations right now that require some dedicated prayer. I’m trying to figure out what to do, and I’ve been asking Him, “Umm,…just tell me what to do. I’ll be fine with that. Just…guidance.” That’s not me showing simple faith. That’s my impression of some desert nomads staring at a mountain saying, “Umm….gee….whatever you say is fine. We’ll go with that.”
Both respect and audacity indicate something about our view of things. Respect shows that we grasp the gap in our relative positions. Audacity illustrates understanding of our relationship.
Friends, let us be audacious and ask of God great and holy things, that His power and presence can be seen in our lives and in this world.
CS Lewis (I think it was him) had an essay years ago about prayer, and distinguished type A prayers and type B prayers. Type A is what you would call audacity. “Anything in my name.” Ask for big things. Type B prayers were “your will be done.” Respectful. Yielding to God’s sovereign authority.
I have stood at the bedside of a woman dying of cancer who had no hope and asked God for healing. She died (a form of healing I guess). I asked for something big, and accepted God’s will.
Jesus prayed with respectful audacity. “Let this cup pass…” Could anything be more huge than asking the Father to change the eternal plan of redemption? “Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done…” Type A and Type B.
Jeremy, this is a great post.
Hi DAVID,
yes, it was C.S. Lewis
One of the most moving bits of advice on prayer in his ‘Letters To Malcolm’ was this:
““We must lay before Him what is in us,
not what ought to be in us.”
how very ‘audacious’ it is to do that and to trust God with all of our broken pieces and our pain . . . and how respectful of us if we can realize that sometimes God answers us in His silence, a silence which is unlike our human silence, so we may remain at peace.
People – read this article! Because I said so!
At least you don’t have to moderate comments…
Jeremy,
I will echo what Dave said, this is a great post; and I would hope that every person who wanders through to read and engage in energetic discussion elsewhere on the blog would also stop by and ponder this post for a while. That is what I will pray for right now. It is probably just a tad audacious in its own way given the current flow of conversation on one of the other recent posts.
Maybe I should change the title to “Respectful Audacity and Calvinism”
no offense, but ‘yikes’
LOL. That might get a little more traffic, but how will they feel when they realize they have been had and it isn’t a place for another round of the great debate.
I’ve actually (briefly) considered how to legitimately relate some of my devotional posts to something that might gain the site a few more readers. I haven’t found a kosher way to do it.
“Respectful Audacity, Calvinism, Wine, and You”
You’d have to get more ads to pay for the additional costs.
Jeremy Parks,
I did read your post. (I read them all here on Voices. For that maybe I am crazy.)
Seriously, in reading your post I wondered something I would like to ask you, but feel more than free to ignore the question if you like.
Do you ever write your prayers in letter form to God? If so, do you ever go back and reread those prayer letters?
I don’t write my prayers often, though there has been a recently upswing in that. I hold on to them for a while, but I usually write them at times when something has seized me, and all I have is a napkin or an envelope. Typically, that means I’ll lose it eventually, so I can’t re-read them for long.
Does that answer the question?
I suspect CB is asking in the hope you’ll consider journaling your prayers for a while–a few years–then look back at them and see how they have changed you?
Greg Harvey,
I did not know if Jeremy Parks did or did not write his prayers in a journal, but you are basically right as to why I asked. Thanks for the supportive input.
Jeremy Parks, I did not mean to offend you or put you on edge with the question. Sorry if I did.
ON EDGE? WHY, NO! WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT? Nope. Nobody on edge here.
I figured it was something like that. I’m not good at faithful journaling. I’ve tried the whole prayer journal, quiet time journal, Bible study journal, etc.
And don’t sweat the question. It was a good one.
Jeremy Parks,
I would not speak of this except your post made me think about it so I asked you the question.
Some years ago, having read some of the Puritans, I decided to begin to write prayer letters to God. As I look back at those of the past and compare them with those of today, I do see a difference in how I approach God and with what I approach Him. I am sure that is not the only way to pray and I am not suggesting such.
There are times when I find it very necessary to pray with “respectful audacity” while driving on Birmingham streets and federal interstates. Maybe I need to write prayer letters because I am weak and get distracted too easily. I was just wondering if anyone else did that on a regular basis.
29:59–was a double entendre for me. It was the name of a prayer journaling training class and about how long I did it.
Even more embarrassing: I TAUGHT PrayerLife after having enjoyed personally knowing one of the co-authors, “Aunt” Catherine Walker who was on the field in Indonesia when my parents were serving there. And I confess my prayer life remains at best haphazard.
So I am intrigued by CB’s question (he has asked at least one other time that I recall) precisely because I’m not bodacious enough to commit to trying it. A little too sure of my own inconsistency in the face of expectations of consistency, I guess.
I now must go Before God and ask Him what I should be more audacious about! Geez Jeremy, you are giving me a lot of extra work here!!! Your writing is like a kick to the back of my knees, it makes me kneel before our Lord more often and with much more intensity!
Debra: that’s beyond audacious. That’s BODACIOUS!!
(going for this meaning: In CB radio jargon, a general-purpose word of praise)
Or this definition. I like it even better:
The word is a portmanteau of bold and audacious that means: Remarkable, courageous, audacious, spirited
“Respectful audacity”–I like that. It’s a great way to express how we come before the throne of God in prayer. Boldly–yet remembering it’s a throne—love it. May have to borrow that phrase sometime.
On the prayer journal question–I almost always write out my prayers. I’ve done that since I was in junior high, I think. There’s something about having a pen in hand that helps me focus my thoughts and stay connected in prayer.
The late Dr. Ralph Herring, former pastor of FBC, Winston Salem, NC, and, later, Director of Seminary Extension Department of Southern Baptist Seminaries, wrote a book on prayer, The Cycle of Prayer. It is a wonderful book. He speaks of bringing big desires and requests to God in prayer, comparing them to freight cars. He even preached a sermon once on the subject, “A Freight Car Named Desire.” He said in his book on prayer, “Only a sovereign God can inspire prayer and only a sovereign God can answer it. A man’s concept of God, therefore, determines the depth of his prayer life. Real prayer begins and ends with God enthroned.”
It will be 39 years ago this fall, since I began praying for a Third Great Awakening, inspired by the fact that I had been allowed to preach to the Pastors’ Prayer Meeting of the Sandy Creek Baptist Assn. in the Fall of ’73 (My Subject was, “A Great Awakening”). Later I would deliver the 5th and 10th Anniversary sermons to that Meeting on the subject, “A Third Great Awakening. In any case, when I began that prayer effort, slowly, sporadic at first, it began to enlarge, to grow greater, more specific and more intense. Now hardly a day passes without asking God for such a visitation. What helped was to gain the knowledge of the Awakenings, to study them in depth and in detail. The study of Jonathan Edwards’ Humble Attempt, which was a tract devoted to uniting believers from all denominations to pray for the spread of the Gospel through out other nations. One group that met to pray on a regular basis was in England and included people like William Carey and Andrew Fuller. Carey’s prayer effort began around 1785. Seven years later he would be on his way to India, leaving Andrew Fuller to hold the ropes, a metaphor from Acts where the disciples held the ropes to lower Paul over some city wall in order that he might escape persecution. Studying the promises of Scripture recorded by Edwards in his work helped to give me substance for my pleas in prayer. Like David and Jacob and others in the Bible who said, “Do me good as you have said,” I have pleaded those promises for the Lord to fulfill them for the glory of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The promises and prophecies enlarged my desires and requests and hopes and expectations. The stone in Dan.2 becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth. The flood of knowledge and glory in Isa.11:9 and Hab.2:14 fill the whole earth as the waters cover the sea. I Chron.16:15 speaks of the word, the covenant, which God commanded to a thousand generations. Rev.7:9 speaks of the number of the redeemed in Heaven as a number no one can number (could God be saying in a humorous way, “Don’t worry, children, I will bring so many to glory that I will not be abe to count them.” Lest, someone thinks I am speaking in any wise disrespectful of the Heavenly Father, let me say, Jesus used hyperboles and absurdities, humor, in order to make a point. Just consider His comparison of the obstruction in the eye to the main house beam preventing sight of things as they are in contrast to the tiny little speck in another person’s eye. And then there is Ps.72:19 and Spurgeon’s Evening devotion on that text where he prays for the whole earth and every soul upon, pleading for their salvation. Often across the years I prayed for individual cities in foreign countries. It is amazing now to hear about churches rising up in those cities. One of my problems was my eschatology, but I will leave that for another time. One of the side effects seems to have been the increase in the number of Sovereign Grace believers which should not have been surprising (but was to me). The theology that produced the First and the Second Great Awakenings and the launching of the Great Century of Missions was Sovereign Grace; it is also the theology that produced Republican and representative government, religious liberty, freedom of speech and press, along with the moral transformation of societies. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones prayed for most of his life for revival to come to England and other places. In the end he said, and I heard this quoted on some program just the other day, he would be satisfied to have been one who promoted it for whenever God saw fit to give it. I am of the same persuasion. If I don’t live to see it, at least I prayed for it and promoted when and where I could. Just think of it: The Gospel triumphant over the whole earth and even reaching to a million, million worlds (thanks to John Owen’s comment about the sufficiency of the Atonement of Christ in his work on Particular Redemption. The transforming work of paradoxical truths is wonderful to behold.