Chris Tiegreen - Violent Prayer: Engaging Your Emotions Against Evil

Chris Tiegreen has grasped the nature of bold faith and the reality of the unseen world. Violent Prayer can help you transform tentative supplications into dynamic prayers that touch the heart of God. This book is a must-read for those who long for a more powerful and effective prayer life.

S USAN N ELSON
Editor, Tapestry

Chris Tiegreen writes with wisdom, knowledge, and creativity. He points out the obstacles that can sometimes hinder our prayer lives and offers suggestions for making prayers more effective. Chris shows how we can boldly take our petitions to Godpraying with honesty and intensity. He urges Christians to pray with zeal, passion, authority, and persistence. Violent Prayer is a wonderful resource for Christians who want to make prayer a more powerful part of their lives.

C AROL P IPES
Editor, On Mission

Prayer is something many of us struggle with. At times, its pure conversation. Other times, its a battle. Violent Prayer opens your eyes to the struggle many of us feel but cant put into words. It talks about pushing through the unseen crowd of your life, and various other invisible forces, to get one-on-one with God and oppose his enemy and ours.

T IM W ALKER
Editor, YouthWalk, Walk Thru the Bible

This book reminded me why I pray, and challenged me to engage wholeheartedly in mind, will, and emotion. Prayer is, as Blaise Pascal said, an invitation to causality. Chris Tiegreen inspired me to accept that invitation and pray with greater passion.

S COT S HERMAN
Pastor, City Church of San Francisco

VIOLENT PRAYER
published by Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

2006 by Chris Tiegreen

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from:
New American Standard Bible 1960, 1977, 1995
by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Other Scripture quotations are from: The Holy Bible, New International Version ( NIV )
1973, 1984 by International Bible Society,
used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House

Multnomah is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.,
and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The colophon is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout prior written permission.

For information:
MULTNOMAH PUBLISHERS, INC.
601 N LARCH STREET SISTERS, OREGON 97759
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tiegreen, Chris.
Violent prayer / Chris Tiegreen.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56285-2
1. PrayerChristianity. 2. Spiritual warfare. I. Title.
BV210.3.T54 2006
248.32dc22

2005030872

v3.1

I owe a great debt to colleagues who allow me to run ideas and rough drafts by them before putting them in publishable form. They give me precious time and advice, and without their contribution this book would certainly be less fruitful in its efforts to help cultivate Gods kingdom. Those colleagues include the publishing staff at Walk Thru the Bible, especially Jim Gabrielsen, Paula Kirk, Robyn Holmes, Sue Nelson, Jennifer Davis, Jennifer Whitney, Tim Walker, Julie Aldrich, Laurin Makohon, and Brian Hedrick; pastors and friends at Intown Community Church; and the team at Multnomah, especially editor Thomas Womack. As always, many thanks to my beautiful wife, Hannah, for her patience, support, and insight.

C hris Tiegreen is a friend, a colleague, and a very gifted writer who has tackled a very difficult subject in Violent Prayer. Chris takes us to those places in Gods Word where His choice servants utter volatile requests to bring down Gods wrath on evil and pour out His fury on injustice.

This book is not for the weak hearted. It is not for those who dont want their categories stretched or their assumptions challenged. But for those who are tired of clich answers to hard questions, this book is for you.

In these pages, you will meet a God who not only can handle our frustration and anger at evil and suffering, but even encourages us bring it to Him and use it in our prayers. You will be inspired to fight instead of acquiesce, to do battle rather than bow to the evil darts that penetrate your spiritual armor. Instead of complying with the enemys agenda and calling it Gods permissive will, you will be encouraged to oppose it in the name of the King.

You may not agree with all of Chris conclusions, but you will be glad you looked with fresh eyes at the problems that plague your life, and your courage will be stirred up to face them. Read it! Pray it with passion! Get angry about what makes God angryand see if Violent Prayer might be whats missing in your journey through this fallen world.

Chip Ingram

M y boys were in trouble, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Well, I thought they were in trouble. I still to this day dont know if they really were or not. They were preteens, and an older guy was inappropriately pushing his way into their social circle. Whether intentionally or not, this guy had put himself in a position of influence over them, and for various reasons that I wont specify, his influence might have been disastrous.

I could have given his behavior the benefit of the doubt, but that would have been a stretch. I saw red flags everywhere I looked. And when your kids are in danger, the benefit of the doubt shrinks drastically.

But you dont go making accusations or even insinuations about someone who, in spite of suspicions, might actually be a decent fellow with honest motivesespecially when some fragile family dynamics would be shattered in the process. I was torn. It was a tricky situation, and it made me nervous.

Though I felt there was no way I could intervene appropriately, I knew I could talk to God about it. He knew exactly what was going on, even if I didnt. But something about the situation disturbed me deeply enough that I needed to do more than simply talk to God about it. I was really angry at the enemy for either (1) messing with my mind and filling me with paranoia, or (2) messing with my kids. And since the latter was a distinct possibility, I prayed angrily.

I wasnt angry directly at God necessarily, but I was downright militant in my prayers. As I prayed, I would make parenthetical comments to the devil himself, or to whichever of his minions might be involved in the situation. I would pace back and forth, gesturing furiously to whoever was listening in the spirit world, claiming the authority Jesus had given to his disciples and, through their testimony, to me. I would point my finger and shake my fist at unseen entities. I wanted them to hear everything I was asking God to do. Martin Luther is said to have thrown an inkwell at the devil one night, and I could relate to his violent temper. Anyone eavesdropping might have thought Id gone crazy, and maybe I had. Soldiers at war are often crazed by the combat. And I was at war.