Perhaps Not Safe, but Always Good

By Lou Shirey

In the classic children’s book by C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the characters meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who tell them about the great lion in the land of Narnia named Aslan (who represents Jesus Christ). One of the young heroes, Susan, asks Mr. and Mrs. Beaver if Aslan is “quite safe.”

“‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver. ‘Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’”

Our inclination is to seek out the safe things, to pray in ways that bring comfort and encouragement. We believe prayer is designed to let God know what we need—and in turn allow Him to create a safe place for us to dwell.

Yet, when it came to Kingdom advancement, Jesus didn’t pray safe prayers. He prayed dangerous prayers. He prayed in ways that went against the grain of popular thought about prayer.

Yes, Jesus is good. But His prayer life demonstrates that He is our fearless King.

The Secret of Dangerous Praying

The prayers of Jesus contain dangerous statements. Religious leaders of His day cited some of His prayers as proof that He needed to be killed. But Jesus also prayed in a way that revealed His willingness to yield to God’s plan for His death.

Jesus knew the secret of dangerous praying. Dangerous prayers are the safest ones. They bring us to a place of completely surrendering to God, trusting Him in everything.

The Bible records words from only a handful of the prayers of Jesus. They are written so that we might learn from the Greatest Intercessor. Scripture tells us of other times Jesus prayed in solitude, sometimes even praying through the night. We read in Mark 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” We are also told in Luke 6:12: “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.” We don’t know the content of those prayers. They remain between Jesus and His Father.

But we can imagine how Jesus’ habit of prayer aroused a desire in the disciples to learn more. The disciples heard Jesus teach about life in the Kingdom. They witnessed His miracles. But they didn’t hear His prayers during those nights He spent alone. At least one disciple wanted to know how to pray like He did. “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’” (Luke 11:1).

Jesus then gave them a simple, yet powerful and dangerous, prayer: “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation’” (vv. 2–4).

Now, centuries later, this prayer of Jesus has been repeated millions of times—replicated in the same way that Jesus originally taught it to His disciples. Yet we still fail to see the danger in this prayer. Jews did not dare to say the name of God aloud. They would never have casually referred to God in such a personal way as “Father.”

Hank Hanegraff, in his book The Prayer Life of Jesus, observes that “the first words of the prayer of Jesus must have been nothing short of scandalous.”

But that is precisely how Jesus taught His disciples to pray. It was this familiar way of referring to God as His Father that offended the religious leaders, prompting them to plot against Him.

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:16–18).

Today we pray this way more easily and freely because Jesus has redeemed us to God—and we can pray to God as our “Father.” Perhaps the danger for us lies in losing the awe of that privilege. The God of the universe is our Father. This very prayer that brought Jesus into great danger now signifies our access to our heavenly Father. The most dangerous prayer has become our safest prayer.

The Danger of Remaining Here

The Gospel of John records the longest prayer of Jesus in chapter 17. When He started out by praying, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you” (v. 1), Jesus knew His time on earth was short. He continued His lengthy prayer by focusing on His followers: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. . . . My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (vv. 11, 15).

Are there dangerous places in this prayer?

First, leaving His followers in the world is dangerous. Knowing what was to come, it would have been easy and safe for Jesus to pray for the Father to remove His disciples from this world. But He didn’t. He released His followers—and those to come—into the protection of God.

Second, Jesus did this knowing we are capable of disappointing Him. He entrusted the gospel message to us, fully aware we can make a mess of things.

When I was a youngster, my father would say to me often, “Lou, be careful what you do. You carry my name, and what you do reflects on me and on our name.” Jesus knew that we would carry His name and reflect Him in all we do. To pray that we would remain here in His name is a dangerous prayer!

When the church functions at its best, there is no place like it. Within the fellowship of the church we find forgiveness, healing, life, joy, acceptance, unity, love, and grace. But the church can fail to represent Jesus well. At its worst the church is a place of power, manipulation, judging spirits, condemnation, unforgiveness, revenge, and abuse.

Jesus knew that we are capable of smearing His name, but He entrusted His message to us anyway. To me, this amazing prayer reflects Jesus’ trust that God will bring about good through us.

The Dangerous Will of God

When Jesus finished praying that prayer for all believers, He went to an olive grove across the way from Jerusalem (John 18:1). We know this grove as the Garden of Gethsemane. It is here that in the last few hours before His death, Jesus prayed for God’s will to be done in His life.

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. . . . Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come” (Mark 14:35–37, 39–41).

This seems to be the ultimate dangerous prayer of Jesus. Three times He prayed the same thing: “Not what I will, but what you will.” He knew His horrible death loomed ahead. Was there any way out?  I have read this passage many times throughout my life—but this time I recognized that He prayed “Not what I will, but what you will” three times. It is somehow comforting to me that Jesus needed to pray the same dangerous prayer over and over again. I can be pretty harsh on myself when it comes to prayer and obedience. I can have very high expectations of how quickly I will respond to God.

Jesus demonstrated that dangerous prayers often must be repeated. We know what we desire to do, but it takes time and strategic prayer to move to that place of safety in God’s will.

As a follower of Jesus have you prayed a dangerous prayer? If the most dangerous prayers are actually the safest prayers, then why would any of us hold back?

My wife and I prayed such a prayer in 1998. After almost 30 years serving as a U.S. Army chaplain, I retired when I was accepted to the Beeson Pastors Program at Asbury Theological Seminary. The spiritual lives of two pastors in our program deeply impacted us. So we began praying for God to increase our faith in the same way He did for those pastors. I later learned that Rebecca prayed, “Increase my faith, Lord. And do whatever it takes.”

That is a dangerous prayer! If I had known in advance how God would answer our prayers, I am certain I would have been terrified.

After the year-long Beeson program, God spoke clearly through Scripture: “When the cloud moves, you move.” So we began a process of moving from place to place, assisting churches and pastors. With our household goods in storage, for five years and in 19 places we followed the “cloud of God” as He directed our lives.

This dangerous prayer led to an exhilarating time in our lives, learning about His faithfulness to us. We learned to hear His voice more clearly and to trust Him to direct us in every move we made. Those years helped form us and created a deeper dependence upon God.

Learning to Pray Dangerously

Dr. Jerry Kirk has been a powerful witness for Christ through decades of ministry and leadership. For years, in a 40-day covenant prayer relationship with thousands of people, he has prayed a simple prayer for himself and for others. He desires this prayer covenant between prayer partners will become a catalyst for an awakening to Jesus Christ as Lord. He lists nine simple prayers that are all dangerous prayers. Here are a few from the list:

• Wash me clean from every sin.
• Help me love others the way You love me.
• Jesus, be Lord of my life today in new ways, and change me any way You want!
• Fill me with Your Holy Spirit.
• Use me today for Your glory, and to invite others to follow Jesus Christ as Lord.

When God answers these prayers in our lives, it is transformational. God is calling us to pray that we will be washed clean, changed in any way He desires, and willing to live out His will instead of our own. The dangerous prayers of Jesus—and our own dangerous prayers—lead us to the place of God’s perfect will.

And so we echo the words of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia. The dangerous prayers may not always seem safe, but they are always good.

LOU SHIREY is the director of prayer ministry and clergy development for the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.

The Benefit of Dangerous Prayers

By Rebecca Shirey

I wish I always prayed with the hands-off abandon of this prayer that changed my life: “Increase my faith, Lord. And do whatever it takes.” I agree completely with the psalmist who said of God, “You are good, and what you do is good” (Psalm 119:68). Yet I sometimes live in a tug-of-war between what I perceive as good—and the good God might choose for me.

Jesus modeled the concept of praying with complete trust in God’s choice. When the time drew near for Him to go to the cross, He prayed, “Father, glorify your name” (John 12:28). During His night of prayer in Gethsemane, Jesus yielded completely to God’s plan to bring salvation to mankind. He declared, “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). He chose God’s good over His comfort. He chose God’s glory over His relief.

O. Hallesby wrote in his book, Prayer: “To pray is to let Jesus glorify His name in the midst of our needs.” What happens when it is God’s glory we crave? When we want only what He wills and when He wills it? When God enters into our prayers, He will bring glory to His name in profound ways—ways in which we benefit.

• We tap into His unlimited resources. Praying human solutions will limit us to human resources. When we rest in God’s chosen outcome, the resources of the universe await His command. We can trust Him to bring about an outcome only He can achieve. He will receive glory as a result.
• We enjoy His greater good. We can only see our circumstances from a limited perspective. What seems good to us in the moment might bring disastrous results in the long term. When we rely on His solution, He is constantly at work preparing people, arranging circumstances, and calling on resources to bring about our highest good. He sees how our circumstances fit into the big picture of His purposes and He works toward our best possible solution.
• We enter a deeper place of intimacy. Emptying ourselves of any desire to get our own way brings enrichment, satisfying us beyond imagination. When He receives glory, He will gift us with Himself in greater ways. When we trust God with our circumstances, we encounter a prevailing peace only He can bring. And we experience a greater awe in the ways He will move in the future.

Do these benefits exempt us from suffering and disappointment? No. But we can depend on Him to invade our trouble with His mercy and goodness. We can count on Him to either deliver us from trouble or give us grace to persevere through it. As God helps us in our troubles, we glory in Him. When His glory becomes our chief desire, His choices become our greatest outcome.

REBECCA SHIREY works in prayer ministry with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. She travels internationally as a speaker at conferences and retreats.