Mark Batterson - Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

Draw
the
Circle

The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

Mark Batterson

New York Times Bestselling Author of The Circle Maker

T he forty-day prayer challenge is going to change your life. In fact, the next forty days have the potential to dramatically alter the rest of your life. God is going to begin a good work in you, and He is going to carry it to completion. Miracles that happen in your life decades from now will trace their origin back to this season of prayer. Breakthroughs that happen during these forty days will become generational blessings that live on long after you die.

If you press into Gods presence like never before, you will experience God like never before. Youll look back on these forty days as the best forty days of your life. They wont be the easiest forty days; in fact, they may be the hardest. Dont be surprised if you experience spiritual opposition along the way. But if you pray through, God will break through in new ways. Its as inevitable as the tide coming in.

There is nothing magical about forty days, but there is something biblical about it. Thats the number of days Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting and praying. It marked a critical chapter in His life the transition from His earthly fathers business to His heavenly Fathers business. Jesus was tested like never before, but this experience set the stage for His greatest victories over the enemy. The war against sin and Satan may have been won on Calvarys cross, but a key battle happened in the wilderness three years earlier. When Jesus returned to Galilee, He wasnt the same person. You wont be either. Youll emerge from this forty-day prayer challenge, just like Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you want God to do something new in you, you cannot keep doing the same old thing. You have to do something different. And if you do, God will create new capacities within you. There will be new gifts and new revelations. But youve got to pray the price. Youll get out of this what you put into it.

Draw the Circle is a sequel of sorts. Since the release of The Circle Maker, Ive heard hundreds of prayer testimonies that have set my faith on fire. Almost every day I hear a new story that makes me want to applaud God. This book is my way of stewarding those testimonies by sharing them. Ive also learned more about prayer since The Circle Maker was released than the knowledge I had beforehand. Ill share those new discoveries in the pages that follow.

So let me pick up where The Circle Maker left off.

Rodney Gypsy Smith was born on the outskirts of London in 1860. He never received a formal education, yet he lectured at Harvard. Despite his humble origins, he was invited by two sitting United States presidents to the White House. Gypsy crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean forty-five times, preaching the gospel to millions of people, and he never preached without someone surrendering their life to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Gypsy was powerfully used of God. Everywhere he went, it seemed like revival was right on his heels. But it wasnt his preaching that brought revival. It never is. Preaching may move the hearts of men, but praying moves the heart of God. And thats where revival comes from.

Gypsy revealed his secret to a delegation of revival seekers who sought an audience with him. They wanted to know how they could make a difference with their lives the way he had with his. His answer was simple yet profound as timely and timeless now as it was a hundred years ago. He gave them this advice:

Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.

I have a confession to make. Even though I wrote a book on prayer, and my personal prayer life was thriving, I failed to lead our church in corporate prayer for fifteen years. That changed this year, and everything changed with it.

We completed our first forty-day prayer challenge at National Community Church, and on a corporate level, it completely changed our church culture. It ranks as the most significant season of spiritual growth in our fifteen-year history. And on a personal level, Im not who I was when we started.

As we prepared for the forty-day challenge, I believed that God wanted our church to circle 2 Chronicles 7:14 by hitting our knees every day at 7:14 a.m. I explained to our church that the time in and of itself wasnt significant but offered a daily reminder of the promise we were circling in prayer.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

On the first day of the prayer challenge, I dropped to my knees right after I got out of bed. This daily habit didnt stop on day 40. In fact, Ill do it the rest of my life. Please read this carefully: the goal of the forty-day prayer challenge isnt to get what you want by day 40. In fact, the goal isnt to get what you want at all. The goal is to figure out what God wants, what God wills. Then you start circling it in prayer and dont stop until God answers.

Too often we pray ASAP prayers as soon as possible. We need to start praying ALAT prayers as long as it takes. The goal of the prayer challenge is to establish a prayer habit so youre still praying on day 41, day 57, day 101, day 365.

Who should I do the prayer challenge with?

You may want to consider a church-wide challenge or turn your small group into a prayer circle. You can do this challenge with your family or with your friends. But whatever you do, dont do it alone.

What should I circle?

Dont feel bad if you dont know what to circle on day 1. One of the biggest misconceptions about prayer is that it means outlining our agenda to God as a divine to-do list. The true purpose of prayer is to get into Gods presence so He can outline His agenda for us. Heres my advice: pray about what to pray about. God will reveal a promise, a problem, or a person. Then circle whatever God has prompted you to pray for with the same kind of consistency with which the earth circles the sun.

Too often we pray for something once and then completely forget about it. So when God answers, we fail to give Him the glory because we forgot what we asked for. Thats one reason why you need to journal during these forty days. Document your prayers and Gods answers. If you dont have a journal, pick up a copy of The Circle Maker Prayer Journal. Itll help you not just pray, but pray through.

During our forty-day prayer challenge, different people circled different things. We saw prodigals come back to God after years of running away. Marriages were restored. Job opportunities opened up. Provision for financial needs came out of nowhere. Divine appointments happened on a daily basis. And there were even a few miraculous healings.

When should I take the challenge?

You can do this at any time, but the important thing is to establish a start date or end date. A forty-day prayer challenge is a great way to begin a new year or to end a year. At NCC, we approach Lent as a way of beginning the spiritual journey to Easter. This past year, I coined the word