This is the third instalment of our weekly Red Rock Faith Talks from the staff at RRBC. Every Monday in May and June, the blog will feature a post from a current Red Rock staff member sharing what’s on their heart, and what God is challenging them with. This week, spring staffer, Cullen Klassen, writes about living and praying with audacious faith.
Recently I started reading a book by Steven Furtick called, Sun Stand Still. After only three chapters or so, the book is already inspiring me into a life of audacious faith.
According to the author, the word Audacity means, “boldness or daring, especially with confident disregard for personal comfort (or) conventional thought.” This is one way where I feel like I could characterize the faith of many of my favourite biblical heroes. These heroes always seem to see God move in absolutely incredible ways. Joshua was one of these heroes, and he encountered a situation that required a considerable amount of faith.
The story starts in Joshua chapter 10 when Israel makes an allegiance with Gibeon. King Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem feels threatened by this, and as a result he calls together several other kings to attack Gibeon. The men of Gibeon quickly send a distress call to Joshua and the Israelites come over as quickly as possible to help. Somewhere in this time, the Lord gives a message to Joshua regarding his enemies saying, “Do not be afraid of them, for I have given you victory over them. Not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you.”
The battle commences when Israel takes the enemy by surprise, killing great numbers and chasing them away. The Lord also gets involved and begins to destroy an even greater number of the enemy with a terrible hailstorm from heaven. Now, at this point if I was an Israelite, I would probably feel like that kind of a victory would be good enough for me – but Joshua didn’t think so. I think the reason for this is that Joshua took God’s word pretty seriously when he said, “Not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you.” Not all the enemy at this point had been defeated and the day would have been coming to a close, so Joshua prayed a radical prayer – he asked God to make the sun stand still.
This kind of prayer is huge. It’s crazy. Some might even say it’s stupid. However it’s the kind of prayer that I believe changes the world and reflects God’s power. It causes us to open up the biggest double doors in our life and allow God to pour in with a demonstration of His glory. And that’s just what happened in Joshua’s case. The sun stood still and did not set for about a whole day- long enough for the enemy to be completely defeated and for God’s promise to be fulfilled.
What if we could fill our lives with prayers like Joshua’s? I believe our prayers are directly in line with how we view God in our day-to-day lives, which also influences how we live. When I pray for big things, it provides me with a larger vision of the things that God wants to do in my life. By praying for things that are out of my reach I acknowledge that I need God, and allow him to demonstrate His glory. I begin to start to experience the abundant life that Jesus talks about in John 10:10.
I believe that no Christian is called into a life of mediocrity. No matter a Christian’s age, profession, current situation, or history, each one has a powerful testimony because it all involves a very powerful saviour. And this power continues to live in us as we allow God to write our story, all the while trying to keep our hand off the pen. When God writes, the story isn’t average. Instead, it’s filled with incredible moves of God such as the sun standing still, and we get to be apart of all the action.
It begins with audacious requests and audacious faith. In John 14:12,13 it says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.”
May we strive to pray and live with the kind of faith that can allow us to see God make the impossible, possible – like making the sun stand still.
