Having Audacious Faith When You Pray

April 7, 2020 | Tampa, Florida, United States | Tricia Penniecook for Inter-American Division News

Staying home, doing our part to manage this Coronavirus pandemic, has not been easy for anyone. With two teenagers and a 7-year-old, we’ve had to come up with ways to stay engaged as a family in our worship. We decided that instead of watching online streaming services, we would have our own worship service. Each family member is responsible for a part, and we trade parts each week. Our family’s Sabbath reflection was on prayer, within the context of Joshua’s request for the sun to stand still. Steven Furtick has written an entire book on this memorable biblical event (Sun Stand Still: What happens when you dare to ask God for the impossible, Multnomah books, 2010). We spent about 20 minutes reading the text, gleaning principles for audacious prayers from it, aligning Furtick’s five steps to Sun Stand Still Prayer to other passages, and finally writing down our personal stand still prayers.

We all know the story. Amorite Kings attacked Joshua. Israel was winning the battle, but the army needed more time to finish the job. They didn’t want to let the enemy get away. Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still. In the hours that followed, almost 24 more hours if we understand the text correctly, the sun stood still. Joshua’s army was able to defeat the armies of five Amorite kings completely, including killing said kings. But when we dig a little deeper, we find some interesting things.

• This story happens right after Joshua entered into a treaty with Gibeon, without asking for God’s guidance. It is surprising that he did; he had been utterly defeated in Ai not long before for the same reason. But when the Gibeonite delegation arrived with their stale bread and worn shoes, he made what must have been for him the logical and compassionate choice: he entered into a treaty with a Canaanite tribe. When the other kings found out, in fear of the Jericho and Ai exploits, they entered an alliance and went after Gibeon. The Gibeonites then ran to Joshua, claiming their right to protection.

It would be easy to think that since Joshua did not ask for His guidance, God could have said: “Well Joshua, this seems to be a good teachable moment, you should have asked Me. I’ll let you suffer the consequences of your actions. Maybe the next time this happens, you will remember that I am the Lord your God, and you should come to Me first.” Instead, these were God’s words to His servant: “Do not be afraid of them. I have handed them over to you. Not one of them will be able to fight against you and win.” (Joshua 10:8) This is the God I love. He intervenes and gives us strength and courage, even when we’ve not acted according to His will. I don’t intend for this to be a presumptuous statement, but God’s ways are certainly different than ours.

• Joshua didn’t wait for God to deliver them. He started out that very night, to catch the enemy by surprise. We sometimes say: “The only thing I can do is pray.” OK. But that’s not the only thing you can do all the time. Sometimes you pray and stay up all night studying for that exam. Or you pray and send out applications and curriculum vitae for possible jobs. Or you pray and move, positioning yourself for better opportunities. There’s nothing wrong with prayer, plus action.
• God not only encouraged Joshua, He fought with the Israelite army. The Bible says that the Lord threw the enemy into confusion (verse 10), and after the Israelites completely defeated them in Gibeon, they pursued them along the road and the enemy fled. “…the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them, and more of them died from the hail than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.” (verse 11). If anyone had any doubts about whether God was supportive of Joshua’s endeavor, they disappeared. “Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel” (verse 14).

Here are Furtick’s five steps to a Sun Stand Still Prayer (pgs. 200-202), along with some Bible passages that we added to our study.

1. Activate your Audacious Faith. Ask God for big things. Bigger than you are able to accomplish on your own. In Joshua 10:1-14, in the entire chapter really, we see Joshua at his best, as a warrior, running toward the fight and giving it everything. Then He asked God to do the impossible, and God came through.
2. Approach God with Boldness. God invites us to ask, and reason, and talk with Him throughout the Bible. Hebrews 4:16 calls us to come boldly before the throne of grace. We can go to Him like our children come to us, they know they can ask because they know we love them, and we are willing to respond.
3. Ask specifically for what is humanly impossible. Joshua’s prayer wasn’t generic: “Lord, please help us win this battle.” He was very specific: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” Phillipians 4:6 reminds us to bring our requests to God, not to be anxious about anything. When we pray this way, we are asking God to do something that only He can do. So that when He responds, there will be no doubt as to who deserves the credit.
4. Advance toward the answer. This is probably my favorite one. I asked Jonathan, our 7 year-old, to read 1 Samuel 14:1-14. In this story, Prince Jonathan invites his armor bearer to check out the Philistine camp. He was tired of just waiting around for something to happen. It seemed foolhardy. Why would two confront an entire army, one they had to climb to reach? But Jonathan decided it was time to go over to the outpost of those “uncircumcised men.” He added: “Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.” (verse 6). The result? We all know it, not only did Jonathan and his armor bearer kill about twenty men, after acknowledging that the “the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel” (verse 12), all the other soldiers who had been in hiding, came out, and “on that day the Lord saved Israel.” Pray and move! Pray and push! Pray and fight!
5. Give God all the glory. At the end of the day, that’s what we are here for. We were created to give Him glory. He delights in answering our prayers, He inhabits the praises of His people. In Psalms 50:15 He says: “Call on Me in the day of trouble. I will rescue you, and you will give Me glory.” Ask God for things so audacious, so bold, so big, that only He can get the credit and receive the glory. Why not? If you could do it on your own, what would be the point?

I encourage you, as you to think of your “sun stand still” prayer. That one. The one you’ve been afraid or reluctant to pray. The one that your heart has been thinking about and yearning for. He made the sun stand still for Joshua. He wants to answer your prayer too.

Tricia Penniecook, MD, MPH, is the Vice Dean for Education and Faculty Affairs and Associate Professor in the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida, in the United States.