My Forty Year Journey to Discovering the Supernatural Power of Prayer

The following are snapshots of my 40 year journey to discovering the power of prayer.

– In 1986, after years of wandering away from God in a sewer of sex, drugs, and alcohol, I started making my way back to Him. My prayer life at the time was like fumbling in the dark. Was God there? Did He hear me? How would I know? There was a lot of groveling and begging for forgiveness, especially when it came to sexual sin (I was binging daily with porn and masturbation). I felt empty. Most of my prayer life was contained in 10-15 minutes in the morning and was usually filled with making requests for what I wanted. Many of my prayers were me-focused.

– While away on a business trip, falling again to porn, and begging for forgiveness, I heard the words “Beloved of the Lord.” I dared not believe those words were for me and thought the enemy was tormenting me. I had yet to understand that listening and receiving what God says was just as important – if not more so – than anything I might say to Him.

– I often wished that I could hear God’s voice. It seemed He spoke only to those Christians who were at a much higher plane than I; I felt like I was an inch taller than pond scum. Beating myself up was a part of my prayer ritual and my life. I didn’t realize that self-condemnation and self-hatred are tools of the enemy that block the flow of love and grace.

– Fast forward to 1999. My prayer life of the previous 13 years was little better than what I described above. Still a lot of me-focus and begging for forgiveness. In 1999 God started putting verses in front of me about seeking Him like this one:

”You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13

The message got through to go after God hard, which I did, chasing after Him with everything I had while locking my focus onto Him and setting self aside. In June of 1999, after 2 weeks of intense seeking, He overflowed my heart with a burst of joy, power, and love. It was a resurrection.

– 2003. I take my first trip solo prayer trip to the desert, in Borrego Springs, California, and have a powerful encounter with God. This ratchets my prayer life up a step or two more as I experience the blessing of focused time away alone with God in silence. Since then, I’ve made days long trips alone with God a consistent part of my life.

– I now know that God speaks to me and I can hear His voice. No seminary degree or celebrity Christian status required. In fact, those things can get in the way if we stay stuck in our head. God spoke to His people from Genesis to Revelation. My hunger for God and love of prayer is growing. When I share my solo trips with God alone for several days of prayer with other Christians, they tend to give me a weird look or say nothing at all. Why is binging on prayer so abnormal or bizarre for modern Christians?

– There are many battles with my flesh and the enemy along the way. Some that I lose. In the early 2000s I knew little about spiritual warfare or how critical prayer was in that arena. Pride, fear, wanting to run my life my way, anger, and disobedience messed me up with the result that I got my butt kicked a lot.

– In 2007 God placed me in a red-hot furnace of suffering chemically, emotionally, and spiritually, which would go on for the better part of 4 years. The process was painful, especially the pride within was exposed. Every drop of pain was necessary to burn into that part of my heart. The Christian life demands pain and suffering; self doesn’t die at a deep level in a Bible study or reading a book about it. In 2010, as my time in the furnace came to an end, I slowly realized I wasn’t who I used to be. There was an internal strength that wasn’t there before. A lot of fear had been burned off. My perspective on the Christian life had changed. I was getting wins in spiritual warfare. My confidence grew, the right way, not in my flesh. I was just beginning to experience how powerful prayer was.

– In the years leading up to 2020 I had been reading the book of Acts and noticing how the early church prayed constantly. They began with 7 days straight of prayer meetings in Acts 1 and never let up meeting together for prayer from there. When I compared the early church with the modern church I started asking why the prayer meeting had died. This isn’t right. God’s people need to know that many are barely dipping their small toe into the ocean of what God has for them in prayer. Beginning with the Assyrian revival in Jonah 3, throughout history the most powerful spiritual awakenings were built and sustained by prayer, not teaching or worship bands. I wrote the Rogue Christian in early 2020 and The Way of the Rogue Christian, Living a Life that Counts for Eternity, in 2022. Both Rogue books have a heavy emphasis on prayer.

– We moved to Arizona from Colorado in 2020. I’m going away for solo trips to the desert for several days every 3-5 months to binge on prayer with God. Each trip there was more healing, another encounter with God, more peace – and more warfare. The warfare ratcheted up with those desert trips. I’m going deeper into prayer than ever before and loving it. If our heart is in the right place as we pray and we’re learning to discern what God is doing and saying, the door opens to the spiritual realm and we can be immersed in the presence of God. It’s incredible.

– January 2022. I contracted long covid and have had it ever since. My prayer life was about to have another growth spurt from the blessings of suffering. There have been many times in the past 4-1/2 years when I was having a hard time breathing or was wasted from a crash and I prayed and asked God for strength or to open my lungs, and He did so. This happens often before a ministry event or I’m about to speak. There have also been times when I’ve asked for strength and the answer was to slow down and rest. More suffering, more weakness, more warfare, more prayer, more spiritual power. That’s the way the Christian life works; how we become spiritually powerful. Feeling physically good isn’t the same as being filled with the Spirit of God, which demands death to self and surrender.

I don’t want you to get the impression that I’ve got it all together. A lot of my 40 year journey included fumbling around and making mistakes. I didn’t always get suffering right, which l-covid has helped me with.

The hunger for more than status quo Christianity is key. Comfortable Christians have no reason to throw themselves in prayer, nor do those who live their walk from their head. Doing what the Bible says is a non-negotiable if we want to grow. Jesus went away often for hours of prayer. So should every believer. There isn’t anything sophisticated or complex about having more of God. We mess it up once we start spinning around the axle with endless theological debates as Job’s three friends did – which sparked God’s anger at them.

My friends, the way we learn to pray, is to pray often.

This is the supernatural life that every believer can live if they’re willing to face suffering instead of running from or medicating it, and go all-in on prayer, every day, no matter how hard life is, and pay the price in warfare and hours alone in silence.

There is much more to the Christian life to be discovered and enjoyed. No matter who you are or what your background is, you can enjoy the abundant life to the fullest that Jesus offers every believer.

I pray this gives you great encouragement and hope.