Taking Prayer "To the Mat"

By David Hobbs

Prayer is not prayer until the Holy Spirit shows up with His anointing. That’s why so many Christians hate to pray: they don’t understand “pressing through to the anointing.” Without the anointing, prayer is a dry and powerless drudgery.
When I’m asked to pray in a crowd--you might call it “prayer on demand”--I do the best I can with what anointing I can muster on the spot. But when I get alone to seek the Lord, that’s when I set the terms. And the first thing I do always is search for the anointing. Another way to say it is I try to get into the Presence of the Lord. I need Him to supply the direction, unction, and power. Otherwise I’m just spinning my wheels.
How do I get into the felt Presence of the Lord? There are many different ways. Even before I do anything I try to sense some direction—What is the Spirit saying? What is my own spirit wanting to do? It will be different from my last prayer time, I can count on that. One thing I’ve been doing a lot lately is sitting in stillness and waiting: let my mind clear and my thoughts cease. At other times I might try to prime the pump with the sacrifice of praise, read aloud from the Psalms, sing a song or two, meditate on who God is, what He’s done, and His "great and precious promises," and give thanks accordingly…. All the while I’m looking for the response of the Spirit. It’s usually not hard to get or long in coming. Then the prayer time takes off in glory.
That’s when conditions are right. But what if they’re not? What if the enemy has been messing with me, beating me down with accusations, discouraging me with running commentary on how pathetic I am, flooding my mind with distracting thoughts and then accusing me of being unfocused! Sometimes the pressure and bondages are so great I can’t enter in; I can’t break through to that “sweet spot” in the Spirit. What then?
Last week I had just such a time. I was at a hotel in Sacramento to work with the State Contractor’s License Board on updating the painting exam. I was fasting because we were having a big spiritual push leading up to the woman’s retreat last weekend. My intent was to lock myself in my room all evening and seek the Lord. But my soul was crying out for food, my body was crying out for sleep, the pressure on my spirit was crying out for release, and nothing worked—God was nowhere to be found. There were also other issues going on in my head that the enemy was working with: e.g. I was needing to update my blog but was having “writer’s block.”
The situation was not conducive to prayer: the beds were too high to kneel at, I couldn’t be loud, there was little room to pace; but mostly it was the pressure. I was bound up tighter than a drum, like being squeezed by a demonic anaconda. Other times in similar circumstance I have simply given up, gone to bed, turned on the TV or otherwise vegged out. But even that wasn’t a viable option here—how can you satisfactorily "veg out" when you’re fasting!? This time the circumstances pushed me into a corner until I had no choice but to push back. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Filled with what turned into fierce determination, I lay down on the bed, drew my knees up and turned my face to the Lord, resolved I was not going to quit till I got an answer from Him. The intensity was too great to speak so I just lay there in silence. The enemy said, “Go ahead and lie there, because I’m going to make you fall asleep! Try as you will you can’t keep yourself awake!” (He was correct. Ever try and keep yourself awake with sheer willpower?)
Just like he said, worn out from the battle, I dozed off. But when I awoke I was still there lying before the Lord. I dozed off and awoke again, but I was still there; unwilling to get up; unwilling to end my vigil. Then I realized something. Falling asleep didn’t negate my prayer as long as I kept my resolve and kept my face toward God. “Go ahead and put me to sleep,” I said in my mind to the devil. “I won’t sleep forever, and when I awake I’ll still be here praying. You can put me off for awhile, but you can’t stop me!”
A couple of hours went by and darkness came over the room. I dozed and waked, dozed and waked, but always with my face to the Lord, in mute appeal for His help. “Lord I can do nothing but cry out in silence. Lord I’m here; I’m waiting on You!”
About 8 o’clock I felt like the intensity had abated, though I hadn’t heard or sensed any word from the Lord. But the pressure had eased, and I no longer felt tired. I got up and went to my computer and typed out my last blog entry. The writer’s block was broken; God’s Presence returned. I had taken the enemy to the mat in prayer and won!

My Greatest Goal

By David Hobbs

I have a very deep, emotional goal in my life. “What’s an emotional goal?” you might ask. One that’s deeper than intellectual; one that impacts and draws from the emotions as well as the mind. A mind goal might be to have three children, or graduate from Harvard. An emotional goal, for someone who had a poor and turbulent upbringing, might be to own a house with a white picket fence around the front yard. That would symbolize the peace, tranquility, and stability that was absent from the childhood, and achieving it would bring a satisfaction deeper than words could express.
Since knowing the Lord and getting glimpses of His great love and all he has done to draw me to Himself, my deepest emotional goal has been to be totally poured out for Him--for one moment in time when I could totally fulfill the first and greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mk. 12:30).” It’s funny, but that’s the first and greatest commandment and I haven’t done it yet, and I don’t know anyone else who has either. We can handle the heart and soul and mind and strength part, but it’s that pesky word “all” that throws us!
What would it look like to love the Lord with all of your strength? It would be like a great runner running the marathon and giving his last gasp as he collapses over the finish line. “With all of the heart” would be someone who lavishes all their affection and devotion and attention on the Lord so that the way they feel about their spouse and children and parents and siblings and even themselves is hate by comparison (Luke 14:26). Any takers on that one?
You get the picture. Yet there have been times when I have gotten close: times when I was so moved in my spirit that I was overwhelmed, awash on my inside with the Love of God—when I couldn’t sing sweetly enough, couldn’t shout loudly enough, couldn’t preach strongly enough. I couldn’t quite plumb the depths of my soul and get it all out on the altar! There is a deep, inexpressible joy that comes from being poured out in worship. But there was always a little more left somewhere inside.
That’s where this goal sprang from: someday, somehow, somewhere I am going to find an opportunity and a way to do it--to get it all out. And at that point I am going to hear the Holy Spirit say, “There! That’s it! Every last drop is on the altar!” And my spirit is going to say the biggest “Yes!” that has ever been uttered by mankind. “Yes! Now I can die in peace.”
Sound crazy? It shouldn’t. I come from a family of fanatics. My Father once said of Himself: "For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant (Isaiah 42:14).” And it was said of Him, “When his voice resounds, he holds nothing back (Job 327:4).” He certainly held nothing back when He sent the best He had, the Crown Jewel of heaven, His only Son, to suffer and die for me. Why shouldn’t I have the same frame of mind to want to give everything I have back to Him? Like Father, like son.
My Brother was the same way, you know, my brother Jesus. He had the same love of the Father for mankind. He wept over Jerusalem when it wouldn’t come to Him. He upbraided the cities where His miracles were done when they wouldn’t repent—upbraided them in anger, but an anger fueled by sorrowing, unrequited love.
Jesus had a problem with His disciples. He was having to rebuke and correct them so much that it was hard to show them how much, through it all He still loved them. They knew He must care for them because He didn’t cast them off, but just how much He loved them… He knew they didn’t have a clue.
But He was determined to show them how much He loved them, because He knew it would be the most important revelation they would ever receive. And sure enough, it all fit perfectly into the Father’s plan. “Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love (John 13:1).” There it is. Jesus poured Himself out for us on the cross, showing us for all time the full extent of His love. Right before He died, when He said, “It is finished,” part of what He meant was that the greatest demonstration of love throughout eternity was now completed. Every last drop was on the altar. That’s my Brother!