PUSH: Persevere Until Success Happens Through Prayer (3 page)

Before Hannah became pregnant with Samuel, she travailed in prayer. From her barrenness, Hannah cried out to God
“in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord”
(1 Samuel 1:10 NLT). God was waiting for a woman to pray forth the prophet heaven was ready to give birth to. She consecrated herself, and she consecrated the fruit of her womb, to the Lord. As a result, Hannah became pregnant with a son while heaven was pregnant with a prophet and two kings. Hannah gave birth to Samuel, allowing heaven to birth the prophet who would anoint Saul, and then eventually David, to be kings of Israel. Although she only conceived one child in the natural, heaven conceived triplets in the spirit. If Hannah had not travailed in prayer, she may have never conceived and there may not have been a prophet or a king or a Christ who descended from that king.

The nation of Israel needed a leader, but there had to be a woman through whom God could birth the particular child who would become that leader. This child would become the catalyst that would change the destiny of an entire nation. Not only was this pressing upon heaven, but this was also an urgency in the natural realm, much like what we are experiencing now. The planet is in the throes of a major global crisis—governments everywhere are looking for that man or woman who will provide visionary, moral leadership. This is a global cry. The nation of Israel faced a similar leadership void in its time. Who are these men and women of purpose and destiny whom heaven is wanting to birth? Could it be that while we are waiting for God to intervene, God is waiting for us?

I am convinced that this Scripture is an urgent word for God’s people today:
“If My people who are called by My name will 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 7:14). Your prayers move heaven. Similar to the Butterfly Effect, a small action in one part or realm of the universe can produce an exponentially larger impact in another.

Globalization has helped us realize how interconnected we truly are. The Butterfly Effect theory asserts that the fluttering of a butterfly wing in California significantly impacts the weather on the opposite side of the planet—for example, “down under” in Australia. Similarly, the actions and prayers of each one of us can have a profound effect in other hemispheres. We all have a piece of the puzzle. While our piece might not be as astounding as an MIT scientific discovery or as impressive as Gandhi liberating India from British rule, it might be the little things we are birthing on a daily basis that hold the key to healing the social ills plaguing our world today. As the nineteenth-century philosopher William James said, “Act as if everything you do makes a difference. It does.”

This raises the question, “What has God put in you?” What are you going through that might be indicative of being in labor in one of these areas? I’m here to tell you that God has seeded you with quantum potential—infinite possibility that need only be captured by the force of imagination, harnessed by the power of faith, and birthed through unwavering belief. Every morning you wake up to unlimited potential and possibilities. From the moment you make a decision, all of those possibilities collapse and bring you an experience or occurrence that is a result of that choice. In
Mother’s Intention: How Belief Shapes Birth,
author Kim Wildner writes, “You are constructing your own reality with the choices you make…or don’t make. If you really want a healthy pregnancy and joyful birth, and you truly understand that you are the one in control, then you must examine what you have or haven’t done so far to create the outcome you want.”
²

Personally, I look at crisis as a divine indication that I need to change something or a divine announcement that heaven is pregnant and getting ready to deliver something to me. All I need to do is adjust the little choices I make every day. Pain does not always equate with something bad; it could simply mean it’s time to adjust. It could be an indication that the time has passed for you to be where you are now and that you need to push to the next level. We must be able to clear our minds and hearts of what we feel is the main reason for our struggles or our pain and look beyond to ask whether God is pushing us into a position where we can birth His plans and purposes in the earth.

Is God birthing something through you? Is He trying to show you how you might be the solution to a problem or hold the key to addressing a social ill? Is God trying to get your attention within your family, within your mind, within your church, or some other arena? Are you prepared to receive and then conceive what God is wanting to birth through you?

Just as you’ll never understand the mystery of life forming in a pregnant woman, so you’ll never understand the mystery at work in all that God does. Go to work in the morning and stick to it until evening without watching the clock. You never know from moment to moment how your work will turn out in the end.
—E
CCLESIASTES
11:5-6 MSG

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
—V
OLTAIRE

You are the gardener of your own being, the seed of your destiny.
—T
HE
F
INDHORN
C
OMMUNITY

E
verything in the universe has been birthed out of the mind of God,
“who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb”
(Job 38:8 NLT). God is a Spirit; therefore, the spirit realm is the causal realm. Everything that was, that is, and that is to come emanates from this spiritual location. All that you see in the natural began as a spiritual seed, a divine thought. In the words of E. B. White, “Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom!” Before the foundations of the world, God conceived a heavenly blueprint for all that exists according to the purpose for which He created it; He contained that blueprint within the seed. Even the kingdom of God starts as a seed:
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed”
(Matthew 13:31 NLT).

It is from the womb of God’s mind that the universe was conceived and birthed:
“From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?”
(Job 38:29 ESV). A womb is a physical
and
spiritual dimension where life is generated, incubated, and developed, awaiting the appointed time and season for manifestation. The words of God spoken forth are like strong spiritual contractions expelling the promise from the womb of conception to the realm of manifestation at the precisely appointed time. It is from this birthing place—what I refer to as the Alpha Zone, for God is the Alpha and Omega—that all things are created and sustained by Him for His purposes. It is also from this place that the power of God is made available to all who would receive it.

The word
conception
comes from the Latin,
concipio
, which means “to receive; to take in; to bring together.”
³
To
conceive
is “to receive seed.” Paul wrote to the Galatians, saying,
“We receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”
(Galatians 3:14). In other words, we receive Christ, the seed of promise (Galatians 3:16-19), by faith. We consummate our union with God by
taking in
His seed. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, saying,
“[He planned] for the maturity of the times and the climax of the ages to unify all things and head them up and consummate them in Christ, [both] things in heaven and things on the earth”
(Ephesians 9:10 AMP). Our union with God is consummated when Christ is conceived within us.

Christ is the seed of promise from which springs forth the entire will of God for our lives—from the place where “all grace abounds” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Using a symbolic view of obstetrics, I see a room within the Alpha Zone that is like a fertility clinic, abounding with every kind of seed—grace, provision, anointing, and so on. At the appointed time it is from this place that God births into man divine inspiration and empowerment, potential, assignment, gifts, abilities, and purpose. From these seeds, success, prosperity, the ability to subdue and replenish, fruitfulness, multiplication, and dominion are birthed out of man. Look at the seed of genius, the unique intelligence God engineered into every person.

In 1983, Harvard University professor Dr. Howard Gardner published his theory that there are multiple types of geniuses in his seminal work,
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
. Gardner proposed that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on IQ testing, is far too limited. In his original research, Dr. Gardner identified seven core intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Later, however, he added an eighth, the naturalistic intelligence, and suggested there may still be a ninth he termed existential intelligence.

What is your “cognitive profile”? How has God called you to reflect His manifold, or many-sided, wisdom? You are but one reflection of the myriad of faces on the prism of His glory. Become familiar with and operate out of your unique intellectual strength. Get in sync with the wisdom God has ordained for you. Press into God’s chambers and pray as the psalmist David did,
“I’ve been out of step with You for a long time…. What You’re after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life”
(Psalm 51:5-6 MSG).

There is a unique genius that resides within each one of us. This is the seed God has hidden in every individual that the Lord Himself “travails in prayer” over (Romans 8:34), His Spirit coming alongside helping you to push out this new life. It is the unique expression of Himself that He has deposited within you, giving birth to an all-new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). This mystery is as ancient as it is beautiful.

In the oldest book of the Bible, Job asks,
“Who has put wisdom in the inward parts?”
(Job 38:36 ESV). It is God who puts His Spirit of wisdom within us. In another translation, we read,
“Who gives intuition to the heart and instinct to the mind?”
(NLT). The intuition and instinct at work within each person is distinct to that particular person. As Paul told the Ephesians,
“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift”
(Ephesians 4:7). It is up to each of us to discover and cultivate that grace. David wrote,
“In the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom”
(Psalm 51:6). God’s grace is germinating in your spirit and soul while it is yet hidden—a mystery:
“Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things”
(Ecclesiastes 11:5 NLT).

God has downloaded all knowledge and wisdom within the depths of our hearts and minds, but we need to upload it and bring it forth into the world. When you conceive a word or promise or purpose from God, you must allow it to mature in your spirit until it has grown to full term and becomes due for delivery. How do you know it’s time to be delivered? When you begin to feel pressure, when your life seems to be pressing in as if contracting around you and you feel as if you have entered into a season of hard labor.

God will provide challenges to cause you to tap in to this hidden potential. Editor and author Susan Taylor has famously stated, “Seeds of faith are always within us; sometimes it takes a crisis to nourish and encourage their growth.” The seed is the potential that is lying dormant on the inside, the genius sleeping within, the champion hidden within you. Look past the discomfort and awkwardness to see the new life potential you are carrying. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu recognized that “to see things in the seed, that is genius.”

Most people believe the fruit is the most important part of a tree, but the seed is the most valuable because hidden within the seed is the invisible assignment of the tree. In the words of renowned science fiction writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, “Flowers and fruit are only the beginning. In the seed lies the life and the future.” A seed not only encapsulates the full-grown fruit, but an entire harvest, a future generation hidden to the human eye. As Robert Schuller once said, “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.”

The power resident within a seed is truly miraculous, yet it pales in comparison to the resurrection power at work within the seed of promise every believer has been impregnated with. It caused Paul to exclaim,
“Glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think”
(Ephesians 3:20 NLT).

We are told in 2 Peter 1:3-4 that
“His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.”
God has already given us everything we need to live a supernatural life in order that we might be
“partakers of the divine nature.”
By His nature, God is a creator. He is a creative force awakening to life the germ within every seed and the seed of promise alive in every believer. Be faithful with the seed you are carrying. God could be using the currents, and sometimes torrents, pushing against you to cause you to make some adjustments for the sake of the new life growing within you. Protect and nurture that life force, for it could grow to be a fountain of life in someone else’s desert.

Make sure you are conceiving and bringing forth the life of God and not something else. Begin by living and walking in righteousness and truth:
“But You desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there”
(Psalm 51:6 NLT). Listen to what the Bible has to say about those who don’t walk in the truth:
“They conceive trouble and give birth to evil. Their womb produces deceit”
(Job 15:35 NLT);
“The wicked conceive evil; they are pregnant with trouble and give birth to lies”
(Psalm 7:14 NLT);
“You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw; your breath is a fire that consumes you”
(Isaiah 33:11 ESV); and,
“They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil”
(Isaiah 59:4 NIV).