Midweek Meditation: "The Circle Maker"

In the book, The Circle Maker, Mark Batterson shows us the way to pray without ceasing. Using the circling metaphor, he seeks to encourage us to circle ourselves with prayer, constant prayer. Based on the first-century Jewish sage, Honi, whose faith was expressed in fervent prayer, he describes three types of circles. For the next five weeks, we will be dealing with the topic of prayer according to the Circle Maker.

"God has determined that certain expressions of His power will only be exercised in response to prayer. Simply put, God won't do it unless you pray for it. We have not because we ask not, or maybe I should say, we have not because we circle not. The greatest tragedy in life is the prayers that go unanswered because they go unasked.

Now here's the good news: If you do pray, all bets are off. You can live with holy anticipation because you never know how or when or where God is going to answer, but I promise you this: He will answer. And His answers are not limited by your requests. We pray out of our ignorance, but God answers out of His omniscience. We pray out of our impotence, but God answers out of His omnipotence. God has the ability to answer the prayers we should have prayed but lacked the knowledge or ability to even ask." (Mark Batterson, The Circle Maker, Zondervan, 2011, p16-7)