In a quest to make my way through 52 books this year, I made my to book 37 for the year and wow it was a good one. Someone suggested this book because I’ve been talking a lot about prayer lately, so I added it to my reading app and when it arrived I did my normal listening routine. I set my speed at around 1.75 – 2.25 times normal and started to listen. It didn’t take long before I realized that this book would require two runs through and one at a much more manageable speed!
So here’s the gist of the book. Simply put we pray to small and too seldom. It’s pretty much that easy. The idea behind The Circle Maker is the story of Jericho in the Bible. The Israelites were told by God to walk around the city everyday. Each day they essentially drew a circle around the city until one day God finally did something amazing. The walls crumbled to the ground. They didn’t crumble because of the weight of their trampling feet. The walls didn’t collapse because the Israelites were so mighty and so powerful that just walking had this massive effect.
The walls came down because the Israelite people did what God told them to do and circled the giant city and let the results be in God’s hands. You see so often we start to circle our Jericho and think it’s too big so we stop walking. We look at the size of our problem and forget the size of our God. The author, Mark Batterson, tells us that the things for which we ask of God are just flat too small. If we can do it then why do we ask God to do it?
I’ve started my own journey of circling my prayers. I’m not sure if you have one or not but I re-started my prayer journal. In it I write the things I’m praying for and the ways God has answered them. As I pray, I’m now circling some words in the prayers. I circle the words that are my Jericho. Some of the words are physical things like helping us pull off a big event at church while others are non-tangible things like self-confidence or focus. Whatever they are, in the moment they’re like a Jericho to me. But as I look at my prayers I’ve quickly realized that I don’t pray nearly big enough!
I guess it’s time to find a prayer that only God can answer and start praying that prayer. Will you join me is becoming a circle-maker?