If My People Pray
Post originally written March 20, 2020.
“Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:11-14 ESV
In the past four months alone, we’ve watched as wildfires ravaged some 18 million acres in Australia, locusts descended on East Africa in one of the worst infestations in 25 years, tornadoes ripped through middle Tennessee, an earthquake hit Utah, and we’re all experiencing the WHO-classified global pandemic that is COVID-19. I do not believe that God has caused these things to happen. Yes, He is ultimately in charge, but not everything that happens is of His original will. I’m not here to talk about the nuances of sovereignty, grace, and authority, but it’s important to note that if God was, in fact, the author all of natural events, then for Jesus to calm a storm, heal the sick, or raise the dead would have been to act in violation of His Father’s will, which was [1] impossible, and [2] in contradiction with Jesus’s own words in John 5:19 where He explains that He only does what He sees His Father doing.
We live in a fallen world, and disaster and destruction come with the territory. Now, more than ever, the above passage from 2 Chronicles is globally relevant (almost eerily so). This passage picks up just after King Solomon had finished the building and dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. When the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night, He announced that he had chosen it as His house of sacrifice, which was a ritualistic form of worship. And then the monologue moves immediately from worship to foreboding talk of disaster and drought. At first, I didn’t pick up on this transition. It felt like disjointed and choppy monologue, which wouldn’t be entirely unheard of for the Bible. But after reviewing the passage a time or two more, I finally saw it.
What Is Worship?
Beyond the music, beyond the emotion, what does it mean to truly worship God? The true answer is long, and I’m not sure I trust myself to do it full justice, but in short, worship is a lifestyle of absolute trust in God. And I’m talking holistic trust—not just the kind of trust that comes as a safety net in times of stress or crisis. To rest in God as your trust is to meditate upon His word day and night, to tune your ears to His voice, your eyes to His movement, your heart to His heart. It’s to live in constant awareness of His presence, to be the tree that is planted along the banks of His river, its roots stretching down into waters, finding sustenance through every season (Jeremiah 17:8). It’s to know Him intimately in all of your ways, to know Him as your life source in all things.
True worship requires a few things. First, it requires humility. Pride does not worship anything outside of itself. Second, it requires a relationship built on intimate and honest conversation, otherwise known as prayer. Third, it requires the desire to move closer to and be in the presence of the object of worship (ie, God). And finally (well, finally at least for this conversation), it requires a willingness to turn away from a life of misplaced trust and worship in order to turn fully towards a life of right trust and worship.
There are expressive forms of worship such as singing, dancing, and the like. But they are just that—expressions of the worship that is already taking place on a much deeper level. Sacrificial worship as seen in the scripture above is a form of expressive worship. It was a liturgical discipline mandated by God for the purpose of not only keeping His people in constant awareness of Him, but also of reminding them that He is to be their absolute trust. The mandated sacrifices were costly; they had to trust Him above earthly resources. The ritual of sacrifice was laborious; they had to trust that He was the source of their vitality. The instructions for the ritual were painstakingly detailed; they had to trust His divine designs over their own understanding.
The Kingdom Is At Hand
Three very important things take place when we adopt a lifestyle of worshiping God: renewal of the mind and alignment of the heart which lead to reformation of personal culture. To what standard is our personal culture reformed when we worship God? To the standard of God’s kingdom. In other words, when we become worshipers, our personal culture moves into an alignment with the Kingdom’s culture; thus Heaven invades Earth. When we become worshipers, we become like Solomon’s temple: a sacred space consecrated as a dwelling place for the presence of God.
When Jesus said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” He wasn’t referring to a timeline. The Greek word used for “at hand” is referring to proximity, meaning to literally become within reach. For so long I thought Jesus was talking about asking for forgiveness because the day of judgment was coming soon. What He’s actually saying is to repent, to turn back to a life of right worship, for the Kingdom of Heaven is literally within your reach. But in order to take hold of it, the King of that dominion must be your absolute trust.
Adding Context
Let’s return to the passage from 2 Chronicles. The monologue moves from the temple as a place of worship to ominous talk of coming disasters. What is the relevance between these two things? Think about it this way: what happens when we become worshipers? Heaven invades Earth by way of our personal culture. Are there droughts, locusts, and pestilence in God’s Kingdom? No. So what might happen when we lose sight of true worship, and begin to place our trust in things other than God? We are no longer yielded vessels, able to carry the Kingdom and the Presence that destroy the works of the enemy.
When the Lord appeared to Solomon in this verse, He was giving him the keys to his own salvation: continue in your lifestyle of worship and your nation will be a dwelling place for God, finding rest in the shadow of the Almighty. Stray from right worship, place your trust in false idols, and drought and disaster will follow.
Solomon was the son of David (who carried a mantle of worship), born out of wedlock in an adulterous relationship. Even still, God promised David that he would bear a son who, along with the entire nation of Israel, would be given peace and rest during his days. (This alone tells us something important about God’s unchanging nature: He’s a restorer and redeemer, not a destroyer. Not only did he redeem the sinful relationship, He blessed the outcome. As a result of this redemptive blessing, an entire nation would one day reap the benefits). Solomon’s reign was unbelievably prosperous; the Bible says that silver was so common, it wasn’t worth counting. He had supernatural wisdom, a glimpse into the mind of Christ, but because he didn’t worship the Lord with all of his heart, he would eventually fall into moral failures. Solomon’s achilles heel was lust; he had countless relationships with foreign women whom God had strictly forbidden. Why were these women an issue? Because they came from cultures with pagan belief systems, and by engaging in relations with them Solomon would eventually be pulled away from a lifestyle of right worship and would allow for the worship of pagan gods and idols in his city. Furthermore, Solomon himself would erect “high places,” or places of sacrifice and worship, to these false gods. As a result of this pagan worship, the people of the nation would come to place their trust in those false gods and turn from lifestyles of righteousness.
After Solomon passed, his son Rehoboam took the throne. The nation was taken from his hands as a result of Solomon’s turning from God. Which raises the question, why wasn’t it taken from Solomon? Because of the covenant made with his father, David, who was called a man after God’s own heart. God had promised David peace in the years of Solomon, and because David was a worshiper, God held fast to His promise. It’s amazing how worship is followed by grace and favor.
If you read through 1 and 2 Kings, you’ll find further consequences of Solomon’s fall throughout the texts. The kings that reigned after him were mostly wicked, but even the good ones who tried to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord failed to tear the high places down. The idolatrous worship continued. The people continued to place their trust in pagan idols. No amount of “right living” on behalf of the king could ever make up for misplaced trust and worship.
Let’s take Asa, for example. He was the third king to take the throne following Solomon. The Bible describes him in 1 Kings, chapter 15, as someone who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He put away and destroyed idols and even removed his mother from her position of authority because of her misplaced worship. But, in verse 14 we see that, “…the high places were not taken away…”. Even though Asa’s heart was right, he didn’t remove the places of wrong worship. And as a result, the generations that followed would continue wrongful worship, and the nation would suffer greatly because of it.
As I read this I couldn’t help but ask myself, what high places have I not torn down? My heart can be in the right place, but unless I am willing to act in faithful obedience and remove places of misplaced trust, then I am stopping short of being a resting place for the Presence of God and I am limiting myself in my ability to be a touchpoint for the Kingdom of God to those around me.
Let’s bring this a little closer to home. The Lord gave Solomon four keys to returning to their lifestyles of right worship (they might look familiar):
Humility, or submission to God’s purposes, shedding of your own hard-nosed “strengths” and taking up the supernatural strength of God.
Prayer, or real, honest, and intimate conversations with your Father.
Seeking His face, or His presence.
Repentance, or returning to right trust and worship.
Humility
Humility is strength. And not just strength of character, but legitimately powerful make-stuff-happen kind of strength. Humility is the posture of one who recognizes God as the ultimate life source and authority, and submits to Him, thereby placing trust in Him. The word submit comes from the Latin sub, or “to go under” and mittere, or “to be sent,” as on a mission. So, to submit to God is to place yourself under His mission, thereby taking on the strength of His forces. You are only as strong as the mission force that you submit to. To worship is to gain access to supernatural strength.
Humility is often mistaken for passivity; that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s a far greater amount of diligence and intentionality required of the humble than of the proud. For example, resisting temptation is an form of worshipful humility. As Jon Tyson said, sin is man’s prideful attempt to “get God out of his heart.” Recognizing that the desires of the flesh aren’t your master, aren’t the “mission" that you are subscribing to, is humility that safeguards your center of trust and worship. (Side note: humble worship also begets wisdom. It’s not coincidence that the mantle of worship on David’s life beget a mantle of wisdom in his son, Solomon.)
Prayer
God isn’t after your fancy words, He’s after your heart. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable in your relationship with Him. After all, He’s already seen what’s going on inside of you. Any hesitancy to say what you feel in prayer is ultimately an issue of belief. Do you believe that He is who He says He is? If so, He can handle you in all your ways. Prayer is where we exchange our wrong thinking for His wisdom. Sometimes, in order to make it to the point of transaction, we must be willing to engage and wrestle with what’s going on inside of us. I like to think of Jacob’s encounter with the Lord in Genesis 32 as an illustration of some of my hardest prayers. There is a struggle, it does take time, and sometimes He has to reach down and break something off of me. But if I submit, I walk away from the prayer different than I came. Sometimes my gait is a little different, sometimes my name has changed. Regardless, it’s evidence that He has done a good work in me because I had been willing to speak what was truly on my heart.
Maybe you were brought up in an environment that modeled a rigid and formal approach to praying; it’s time to shed that way of thinking. To pray is to sit at the feet of the One who dropped everything and ran to you while you were still a long way off. He’s good, He’s kind, His love is unconditional. His arms are open. Prayer is your time to throw yourself into His embrace.
Seeking His Face
The Hebrew word used for face in this passage is “pânîym,” which is also often translated as “presence.” To seek God’s presence is to turn your attention towards it. He’s always present; do you live in a constant awareness of Him? Or do you wait until emotion moves you to feel Him? In my experience, waiting to have an emotional reaction to something (either good or bad) before noticing God’s presence in my life creates a distorted dynamic between my emotionality and spirituality. Some of the best encounters with God happen in the most mundane of moments if you’re paying attention. Learning to seek God’s presence at all times and in all things requires a level of intentionality and personal accountability. There is an element of discipline in discipleship that’s neither legalistic nor obsessive; to neglect discipline is to undermine God-given potential. Discipline your ears to hear and your eyes to see. The more you look, the more you’ll see. The more you listen, the more you’ll hear. When you find God in the midst of the ordinary, you’ll more fully understand that He is so worthy of your trust and worship.
Repentance
Let’s clear the air. The words “repentance” and “sin” have become wrongly attached to ideas of shame and degradation. As I mentioned above, sin is an act that comes from a spirit of pride that says “my way, not God’s way.” If you knowingly sin, you’ll feel a little nudge from within waving a red flag at your wrong decision. This nudge can be interpreted one of two ways: as conviction, which compels you to return back to a place of right living, or, as shame, which drives you to try and hide from the standard of right living. Conviction addresses thoughts and behaviors; shame attacks your identity. The Father who created you and who has given you your identity would/could never launch an attack against that identity. Don’t read or hear the word “repentance” and associate it with principle-pushing, legalistic schools of thought; those aren’t of Christ. To repent is turn back to the beginning, back to right thinking, before your mind was tangled with fear-filled lies. If incorrect thought patterns are at the root of sinful behaviors, then correcting thought patterns is the key to true repentance.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind….” Romans 12:2a ESV
The act of worshiping renews your mind, and a renewed mind is necessary in order to trust Him well.
Power Of The Presence
Worship first changes you. Then a changed you changes your environment simply by bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to the places and people around you. In Matthew 5, Jesus teaches that we are the salt of the earth. This is a multidimensional analogy, but my favorite understanding of it is in reference to the purification abilities of salt. One method of water treatment is called coagulation. Coagulation is necessary when water contains impurities that are suspended in the fluid and too small to be caught by a filter. These impurities actually carry an electrical charge that keep them suspended in the liquid instead of settling to the bottom or clumping together and forming flakes that can be filtered out. To remedy this and purify the water, coagulants (which are salts) are added to the water, neutralizing the charge of the impurities. Now that they’ve lost their charge, they’re no longer suspended in the fluid and begin to either settle to the bottom or clump together, allowing for them to be more easily filtered out. And here’s the most important thing: the actual granules of salt do nothing to purify the water; it’s not a physical process, it’s a chemical one. Because the energy that the salts carry is of the opposite charge of the energy of the impurities, simply being present in the fluid causes a change in the total energy of the environment, resulting in purification.
Maybe it’s just the chemistry nerd in me, but I like to think that this is one point that Jesus was making when He said that we are to be salt of the earth (“coagulants of the earth” got lost in translation). Our role here is not go around fixing things and people by barking orders and pushing principles; it’s to carry the “energy” of the Kingdom into the environment of the earth, allowing His presence to change the environment. We cannot be salt if we don’t carry His presence. If the body of Christ collectively becomes a consecrated dwelling place for the presence of God, ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven, then we’ve got a recipe for national healing and restoration, just as was promised to Solomon.
We are in a sovereign season. It may not feel that way when every week brings new calamity, but God is a first hour God. He doesn’t wait until sunrise; He starts when the clock strikes midnight. He didn’t wait until the light had come before He began forming His creation. He started in utter darkness. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t yet see the light. As the body of Christ, we have to recognize the time that we are in. The King is moving, He’s already on His way. And He’s looking for those whose trust is in Him.