The Circle Maker

1. Draw Circles: Bold Prayers Honor God

Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers.

God's desire. God is not offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers; He is offended by anything less. If your prayers don't seem impossible to you, they might be insulting to God because they don't require His divine intervention. God loves to keep promises, answer prayers, perform miracles, and fulfill dreams, and the bigger the circle we draw, the more glory He receives.

Human impotence, divine omnipotence. The greatest moments in life occur when human inability meets God's unlimited power, and this intersection happens when we draw a circle around impossible situations and invite God to intervene. You are often just one prayer away from a dream fulfilled, a promise kept, or a miracle performed, because God is ready and waiting to act on your behalf.

Prayers are prophecies. Your prayers are powerful predictors of your spiritual future, shaping who you become and the trajectory of your life. If you believe God is for you, you will pray big, audacious prayers that lead to a life transformed by divine action, rather than small, timid prayers that limit God's work.

2. Define Your Jericho: Be Specific in Your Prayers

God does not answer vague prayers.

Identify your Jericho. Just as the Israelites circled Jericho, you must identify the specific promises God wants you to claim, the miracles He wants you to believe for, and the dreams He wants you to pursue. Many people don't get what they want because they haven't clearly defined their desires or circled God's promises in prayer.

Spell it out. Jesus asked the blind men outside Jericho, "What do you want me to do for you?" not because He didn't know, but to make them articulate their desire. Similarly, God wants us to spell out our prayers with specificity. This clarity allows God to reveal more shades of His sovereignty and ensures He receives the glory when the miracle happens, rather than it being attributed to coincidence.

Well-defined faith. Well-developed faith leads to well-defined prayers, which in turn lead to a well-lived life. Start by:

• Circling promises in Scripture.
• Writing down God-glorifying life goals.
• Keeping a prayer journal to track your requests and God's answers.
  This practice helps you know what to circle and prevents you from drawing blanks instead of circles.

3. Pray Through: Persistence Unlocks Miracles

Praying through is all about consistency.

Don't give up. Many people quit praying right before a miracle happens, giving up too easily or too soon. The parable of the persistent widow teaches that praying hard means knocking until your knuckles are raw and refusing to take no for an answer, demonstrating a sanctified stubborn streak that God honors.

Consistency and intensity. Praying through involves circling a promise so many times it makes you dizzy, like Elijah sending his servant seven times to look for a cloud. It's not just quantitative (time logged) but qualitative (intensity), involving gut-wrenching groans and heartbreaking tears that touch the heart of your heavenly Father.

No-lose proposition. The only way to fail in prayer is to stop praying. Even when God's answer is delayed or seems like a "no," persistence builds your "persistence quotient" and positions you for a breakthrough. As one circle maker put it, "100 percent of the prayers I don't pray won't get answered."

4. God is Bigger: Embrace God-Sized Dreams

God is infinitely bigger than your biggest problem or biggest dream.

No limit to His power. Moses questioned how God could provide meat for a month for six hundred thousand people, but God's response was, "Is there a limit to my power?" Our biggest problem is often our small view of God, which limits our prayers and dreams. God's power knows no limits, so our prayers shouldn't either.

Beyond human calculation. God exists outside the space-time dimensions He created, meaning there is no "big" or "small," "easy" or "difficult" for Him. He is able to do 15.5 billion light-years beyond what you can ask or imagine, making even your hardest prayers easy for the Omnipotent One to answer.

Qualified by calling. You may never feel qualified for a God-sized dream, but God doesn't call the qualified; He qualifies the called. If God has called you, you are qualified, and pursuing dreams beyond your ability forces you into raw dependence on Him, which is where His greatest miracles occur.

5. Take the Risk: Faith Requires Action

If you don’t take the risk, you forfeit the miracle.

Willingness to look foolish. Drawing prayer circles often feels foolish, like Noah building an ark in the desert or the Israelites marching around Jericho. But faith is the willingness to look foolish, and the greatest chapters in history, and in your life, always begin with taking a risk, especially risking your reputation for God's glory.

Get your feet wet. God often commands us to take a step of faith before He acts, like the priests stepping into the Jordan River before it parted. Many people spend their lives waiting for God to move, while God waits for them to get their feet wet. If you make a move, you will see God move.

Pray and act. You can't just pray like Elijah; you also have to act like Elijah. This means:

• Looking toward the sea for the answer.
• Taking concrete steps of faith, even if they seem small or counterintuitive.
• Obeying crazy promptings from the Holy Spirit, like Lisa taking her woolly socks to work.
  Prayer coupled with action is how you "circle the miracle" and position yourself for God's intervention.

6. Trust God's Timing: Unanswered Prayers are Often Better Answers

What we perceive as unanswered prayers are often the greatest answers.

Divine detours. Sometimes God gets in the way of our plans, not to deny us, but to reroute us to a better path. What seems like a "no" or a "not yet" from God can be His way of leading you to His best, as when He prevented the author from securing office space, only to lead him to a property next to the future coffeehouse.

God's better plan. Our heavenly Father is too wise and loving to give us everything we ask for, especially if it would short-circuit His greater purposes or prevent us from learning crucial lessons. What appears to be an "anti-miracle" can be the catalyst for bigger and better blessings, revealing God's perfect timing and superior plan.

Trust in the ellipsis. When prayers go unanswered, it can feel like a period, but it's often just a comma—a providential pause. During these periods of "ellipsis," your persistence quotient grows, and choosing to trust God even when you don't understand His reasons is the ultimate test of faith.

7. Think Long: Your Prayers Have Eternal Impact

Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground.

Praying is planting. Our prayers are like seeds planted in the ground; they disappear for a season but eventually bear fruit that blesses future generations. This "carob-tree perspective" means thinking beyond immediate results and considering the eternal impact of your prayers, knowing they outlive you.

Beyond quick fixes. In a quick-fix culture, we desire instant answers, but spiritual realities often unfold at the "speed of a seed planted in the ground." Thinking long means embracing patience, foresight, and a seventy-year timeline, like Honi, understanding that God's answers may reenter the atmosphere of our lives at His designated time.

Long and boring, but transformative. The process of persistent prayer can feel "long and boring," involving countless hours of consistent effort, like the lawyers at International Justice Mission fighting human trafficking. However, this dedication is the price of miracles, transforming lives and leading to spiritual adventures far from boring.

8. Seek God's Favor: He Delights in Blessing You

No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

God's active support. God is not passively for you; He is actively watching over His word to perform it, eager to keep His promises. He delights in blessing you far more than you desire to be blessed, and His capacity to give is infinitely greater than your capacity to receive.

The favor of God. This is what God does for you that you cannot do for yourself, intervening on your behalf in ways that exceed expectations. It's a humble reminder of His sovereignty and can manifest as:

• Supernatural provision (e.g., $3 million gift out of nowhere).
• Unexpected opportunities (e.g., front-page newspaper article).
• Changing hearts of those who oppose you (e.g., zoning commission approval).
  God's favor is a unique dimension of His blessing that enables you to stand before opposition and see them supernaturally step aside.

God's personality. God loves to surprise us, showing up in unexpected ways at unexpected times. He enjoys playing "chicken," waiting until the last moment to answer prayers to see if we will "chicken out or pray through." This playful personality adds drama and unexpected twists to our lives, making them epic dramas.

9. Prime Your Spirit: Prepare for Divine Surprises

Prayer is priming.

Sanctify your expectations. Prayer is a powerful way to "prime" your mind and spirit, creating a spiritual frame of mind that helps you recognize and seize God-ordained opportunities. Just as athletes use visualization, prayer helps you form a mental image of your destiny, acting as a map to your future.

Watchful and prayerful. The apostle Paul links prayer with watchfulness, implying that prayer opens our spiritual eyes to see sooner and further. By starting your day in God's Word and prayer, you tune into His voice and prime yourself for His promptings, making you more attuned to the "blips" on your spiritual radar.

Daily rhythm. Establishing a daily rhythm of prayer, like Daniel praying three times a day with his window open toward Jerusalem, is crucial for intimacy with God. This consistent practice helps you:

• Stay focused on your dreams.
• Lay your requests before God.
• Wait expectantly for His answers.
  This daily priming prepares you for the unpredictable and uncontrollable ways God loves to move.

10. Leave a Legacy: Your Prayers Outlive You

Even when we die, our prayers don’t.

Eternal impact. Our prayers are not subject to the laws of time and space; they accumulate through eternity and take on an eternal life of their own. Just as Honi's prayers were answered in his grandson's generation, your prayers will continue to bear fruit long after you are gone, becoming an inheritance for future generations.

Bottled prayers. God collects our prayers like precious tears in a bottle, sealing them until their designated time for revelation. There is no expiration date on God's promises, and He will uncork an answer somewhere, sometime, somehow, often in ways we could never have imagined.

One prayer, one person. Never underestimate the power of one prayer circle or one person's commitment to pray. History belongs to the intercessors, and all it takes is one person, like Honi, to draw a circle and drop to their knees to change the course of history and illuminate a generation.