Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

by Mark Batterson

The forty-day prayer challenge is going to change your life. In fact, the next forty days have the potential to dramatically alter the rest of your life.

If you press into God’s presence like never before, you will experience God like never before.

If you want God to do something new in you, you cannot keep doing the same old thing. You have to do something different.

Preaching may move the hearts of men, but praying moves the heart of God.

“If my people,1 who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

the goal of the forty-day prayer challenge isn’t to get what you want by day 40. In fact, the goal isn’t to get what you want at all. The goal is to figure out what God wants, what God wills.

The goal of the prayer challenge is to establish a prayer habit so you’re still praying on day 41, day 57, day 101, day 365.

The true purpose of prayer is to get into God’s presence so He can outline His agenda for us.

I recommend that you give God the first few minutes of the day. When I pray at the beginning of the day, it’s like my whole day becomes a prayer. When I dial into God’s frequency in the morning, I hear His still, small voice the rest of the day.

He prayed to God regularly. ACTS 10:2

And when you pray to God regularly, irregular things happen on a regular basis. You never know when or where or how God will invade the routine of your life, but you can live in holy anticipation, knowing that God is orchestrating supernatural synchronicities.

Like a grandmaster who strategically positions chess pieces on a chessboard, God is always preparing us and positioning us for divine appointments. And prayer is the way we discern the next move. The plans of God are only revealed in the presence of God. We don’t get our marching orders until we get on our knees! But if we hit our knees, God will take us places we never imagined going by paths we didn’t even know existed.

Can you think of a better description of what it’s like to live a Spirit-led life than “wild goose chase”? When you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, you never know who you’ll meet, where you’ll go, or what you’ll do. But one thing is certain: it’ll be anything but boring!

If you establish a prayer routine, your life will be anything but routine. You will go to places, do things, and meet people you have no business going to, doing, or meeting. You don’t need to seek opportunity. All you have to do is seek God. And if you seek God, opportunity will seek you.

Who you know is more important than what you know. This is certainly true for the children of God. Who you know — the heavenly Father — is far more important than what you know.

Let God do the promoting and networking.

Don’t try to manufacture your own miracles. Don’t try to answer your own prayers. Don’t try to do God’s job for Him. Stay humble. Stay patient. Stay focused. Keep circling.

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. PROVERBS 16:9

God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him; God is also great because nothing is too small. The Sovereign One cares about every minute detail of our lives.

God is setting up divine appointments all the time. Only God can make the appointment, but only you can keep the appointment. It’s your job to recognize and respond to the God-ordained opportunities that come your way.

Our job is to hear His voice. His job is to establish our steps. And if we do our job, God will do His!

“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.” JOSHUA 3:5

All of us want to do amazing things for God, but that isn’t our job; it is God’s job. Our job is simply to consecrate ourselves by yielding our will to His will. And if we do our job, God will do His job. If we consecrate ourselves to God, amazing things will happen. It’s absolutely inevitable. Consecration always ends in amazing!

We need to work like it depends on us, but we also need to pray like it depends on God. That’s what consecration is all about. It’s letting God do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And that’s how God gets all the glory.

The word consecrate means “to set apart.” It means “to be designated for a special purpose.” It means “to be completely dedicated to God.”

Consecration means we no longer call the shots. We give God veto power. His word is the final word, whether it’s Holy Scripture or the Holy Spirit.

Consecration is death to self.

I know there is a fear that if we give more of ourselves to God, there will be less of us left, but it’s the exact opposite. It’s not until we die to self that we truly come alive.

Consecration is a process of surrender that never ends.

And prayer is the catalyst. It begins with a sinner’s prayer. We confess our sins to the Savior and surrender our lives to His lordship. And along the way, our spiritual journeys are marked by decisive moments when we consecrate ourselves to God in our own garden of Gethsemane.

“This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” JOHN 9:3

Sometimes the purpose of prayer is to get us out of circumstances, but more often than not, the purpose of prayer is to get us through them.

We need to ask God to give us the grace to sustain, the strength to stand firm, and the willpower to keep on keeping on.

We’re so fixated on getting out of them that we don’t get anything out of them.

And I’m convinced that the day will come when we thank God for the prayers He did not answer as much as the ones He did because He had a better answer. And the best answer is very rarely what is most convenient or comfortable for us. The best answer is always what brings God the most glory!

Can our prayers change our circumstances? Absolutely! But when our circumstances don’t change, it’s often an indication that God is trying to change us. The primary purpose of prayer is not to change circumstances; the primary purpose of prayer is to change us! But either way, the chief objective remains the same: to glorify God in any and every situation.

Sometimes God delivers us from our problems; sometimes God delivers us through our problems.

“Write down the revelation.” HABAKKUK 2:2

Journaling is the best antidote, maybe the only antidote, to spiritual amnesia.

My prayer journal doubles as my prayer genealogy. I can trace many of the blessings, breakthroughs, and miracles back to their genesis prayers.

I’ve been amazed at how many people’s prayer lives have been revolutionized by the simple act of journaling. I’m convinced it is the key to consistency and specificity in prayer.

The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.

“… yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.” LUKE 11:8

When we act in faith, we aren’t risking our reputation; we are risking God’s reputation because He’s the one who made the promise in the first place. But if we aren’t willing to risk our reputation, we’ll never establish God’s reputation.

It’s the impossible prayers that honor God because they reveal our faith and allow God to reveal His glory.

The moral of this parable is to prevail in prayer, but it also reveals the character of Him who answers prayer. The request is not granted simply because of repeated requests. Prayer is answered to preserve God’s good name.

The beauty of obedience is this: it relieves us of responsibility. It takes all the pressure off of us and places it squarely on God’s sovereign shoulders.

When we pray, we relieve ourselves of responsibility. We let go and let God. We take our hands off and put our concerns into the hands of Almighty God. And trust me, He can handle whatever we put in His hands.

Sometimes we’re afraid of praying for miracles because we’re afraid that God won’t answer, but the answer isn’t up to us. We never know if the answer will be yes, no, or not yet. But the answer isn’t up to us. It’s not our job to answer; it’s our job to ask. And Jesus exhorts us to ask. “Ask and it will be given9 to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. And, I might add, keep circling!