It's Ok...Pray Crazy

It was a perfect summer evening and I was standing outside talking to friends of ours while our kids played in the backyard. There was a bird sitting on our fence and while we were standing there it suddenly just fell off the fence and into our yard. Dead birds gross me right out, so I went inside and asked my husband to move it for me. He smiled at me and said…”You should pray for it!” Full of faith and conviction I replied…”YOU should go pray for it!”

We always try to teach our kids about the power of God and how we can have confidence in Him to perform miracles. We want them to know that they can trust Him to do the impossible and that there is nothing that is too crazy for Him. Seeing this as a teachable moment, Brandon jumped up and went outside to pray for the bird. Skeptical as I was, I followed…not wanting to miss the show. Brandon picked up the bird and carried it to the middle of our yard. Its head was flopping back and forth and its wings were hanging useless. He called the boys (3 & 5 at the time) over and reminded them that God has power to heal, power to raise the dead, that there is nothing too difficult for Him.

They started to pray. Nothing happened. 

I was standing with our friends trying to figure out how we’d explain this to the boys…and maybe to our friends, who most likely already thought we were crazy. A couple minutes in and this bird had not moved. Things weren’t looking good for the little guy, but the boys were still praying fervently so Brandon kept encouraging them. All of the sudden this crazy bird shot up from the little circle they had formed around him and flew off like a shot. I can still feel my jaw dropping open when I think about it. We all screamed and yelled and praised the Lord like all good Pentecostals do in their backyard. But just before we had time to break out into a Jericho march, the bird veered to the right, slammed directly into our neighbors window, and dropped dead all over. The boys ran over to check on it and wanted to pray it back to life again, but daddy told them one resurrection was enough for that night and if the bird didn’t make the most of the second chance he’d been given, that was his problem.

Regardless of the bird’s unfortunate demise right after being raised back up, this was a great exercise in faith for our little boys that night. They prayed for something crazy. They believed that God could and would do something that was unlikely at best. And they saw Him move.

It’s ok to pray for something crazy. 

In fact, we’re supposed to pray for the crazy things.

I recently read a phenomenal book that challenged and changed the way I think about prayer. Often times my prayer life can probably be described as boring. I find myself running the same lists each day. Thank Jesus for His goodness, check. Pray for our marriage, check. Pray for our kids, check. And as important as all of those things are, they are easy things to pray. They don’t require much courage.

This book challenged me to consider how the world would be different today if God answered every prayer I had prayed that morning. Would there be a noticeable difference? Or would things go relatively unchanged, except that my lunch would be extraordinarily blessed and I would safely make it from point A to point B?

But what if I drifted from my normal list…and He answered?

What if I prayed that He would allow me to pray for healing for the sick and when He did, they were healed? What if they got up out of hospital beds and wheelchairs?

What if I asked Him to give me a prophetic word to share with someone and when He did, it was spot on with what they needed to hear?

And what if I prayed that He would send me? Use me? And what if He answered?

How will the world be different tonight if He answers the prayers I pray this morning?

We need to be brave enough to pray for crazy things and just brace ourselves for Him to answer. Because He will. He’ll answer the crazy prayers and we’ll see our faith grow in ways that we never expected. And then He’ll do it again.

By itself that bird may not have done much to change the world, but because of him faith was born inside our children that day.

Crazy faith.

*The book referenced in this blog is "Dangerous Prayers" by Craig Groschel.

You can find a copy here!*