Sun Stand Still

 I am a fan of bold praying. I believe in a big God who can and is willing to do big things in response to big bold praying. I see that displayed in both scripture and history. I have also experienced it in my own life and ministry. 

Joshua prayed a big bold prayer in [Joshua 10:12-13] that God answered in big fashion. Let me set the backdrop. Israel was in the middle of possessing the promised land. They saw God deliver Jericho and Ai into their hands. Word got out among the surrounding nations. Several kings united to come against Israel at one time. God helped Israel defeat these nations with the sword and in another dramatic fashion. He cast down large hail stones on the enemy troops. Scripture reports that more died from the hail stones than the sword. 

 This is when Joshua prayed a bold prayer. "Sun stand still." I honestly do not know which impresses me most. The fact that Joshua even entertained such a thought is bewildering to me. That had never happened before. How did it even enter his mind to ask for such a far fetched thing like that? It was totally irrational. Maybe God birthed the thought in Joshua's imagination. Who prays for the sun to stand still so the battle can be won? To even utter such a prayer seems outlandish. Not outlandish is God planted the seed of the thought in Joshua. God does that. Plants seeds in our imagination of things to believe Him for. 

The other impressive thing is that Joshua had faith to believe that God would answer. Think about this. Joshua actually asked and believed that God would alter the natural course of the earth's orbit around the sun. He asked God for something supernatural. He didn't just ask for it, he also believed for it. 

God answered. the Bible informs us in [Joshua 10:13] that the sun did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. Are you kidding me. Joshua offers up this shot in the dark prayer for God to do something that had never been done before. He asks in childlike faith. GOD ANSWERS! We learn in verse 14 there had never been a day before like that day or since that day. 

What is your big bold sun stand still prayer? I have my list. I will only share one of them. A couple of months ago Brenda started asking God for the ability to give a certain person $2,000. I joined her in that prayer. In subsequent weeks the list of those we felt impressed to give money to increased. At present we are boldly praying for the opportunity to give away $10,000 to seven different people. We have never been in a financial position to do that. That is a sun stand still prayer for us. 

A few weeks ago that prayer changed for me. It was born out of my time with the Lord. I prayed through a prayer promise one morning and then I changed the prayer from asking God for $10,000 to give away to asking God for the ability to give away...$1,000,000 before we die. Talk about a sun stand still prayer. I told Brenda to start keeping account of how much we give away from this day forward. We started with an anonymous $150 gift to a person in need. 

I am not motivated by money. Money has never been the determining factor where we have served God. We go where He leads and trust Him to meet our needs. He has done that faithfully for decades. I find myself praying a bold sun stand still prayer these days. I started asking God to build wealth for Brenda and I to be given away. I am not asking God for riches to pad our pockets to live luxuriously. I want the greater opportunity to give to Kingdom causes in a way beyond our natural ability. We want more money to give away more money rather than to finance our selfish wants. 

I know I know. Some of you will read this and think I am crazy. I agree. Crazy like Joshua. Crazy enough to entertain the thought and to muster up mustard seed faith to believe nothing is impossible with God. [Matt 17:20] A mustard seed is very tiny. Surely God can build that kind of faith in me to believe Him for the opportunity to financially support Kingdom of God causes that we have never been able to do in the past. That is my sun stand still prayer. What is yours?