Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

by Mark Batterson

“God does not answer vague prayers.”

The more faith we have, the more specific our prayers will be.

Well-defined prayers give God an opportunity to display His power in new ways. Well-developed faith results in well-defined prayers, and well-defined prayers result in well-defined answers.

Too often we rob God of the opportunity to answer our prayers because they are so vague. Don’t worry about when God answers or how God answers. That isn’t our responsibility. Our responsibility is to simply discern what God wants, and then humbly yet boldly to ask Him for it. And God will throw in a few holy surprises along the way because He may spell the answer differently than we spelled the request.

We need an answer to the question. We need to identify our Jericho — the promise we are circling. What promise are you praying around? What miracle are you marching around? What dream does your life revolve around? What is your Jericho?

Eternal priorities get overshadowed by our everyday responsibilities, and we pawn our God-given dream for the American dream. So instead of circling Jericho, we end up wandering in the wilderness.

We need different miracles during different seasons of life. We pursue different dreams during different stages of

Define your dream. Claim your promise. Spell your miracle.

If God did it for them, He might just do it for me.

When God answers a prayer, no matter how big or how small, we need to share it.

Giving testimony is the way we give God all of the glory.

If we don’t share our testimonies of how God is working in our lives, then others are tempted to think He isn’t working at all.

I wonder if the lack of awe in many churches is directly attributable to the lost art of the testimony.

those who hear it get an infusion of faith to believe God for healing in their own lives.

When we share a testimony, we are loaning our faith to others. When we listen to a testimony, we are borrowing faith from others. Either way, the church is edified and God is glorified.

A personal testimony is our secret weapon, and that’s why the enemy wants us to keep our testimony a secret. It’s not a testimony if we don’t share it with others.

we get a testimony by being tested.

And that first-person experience with God will override any of our inadequacies.

We don’t change the world by going to graduate school or getting a degree. If we want to change the world, we must spend a lot of time with Jesus.