Category: Daily Devotionals

Let’s make a prayer map for the following life scenario:

Your mother-in-law was rushed to the hospital after suffering a mild heart attack. They admitted her for further testing and believe her heart has suffered some permanent damage.   This has sent your husband, David, into a tailspin. 

        1.) David and his mother have a love/hate relationship and he says he can’t live without her.  (*Soul tie)

        2.) David is irrational about her condition and her future.  He fears she will  die soon, but at the very least, her life as she’s known is over.  She has no future. He makes one gloomy prediction after another to the family. (*Fear and unbelief)  

Legal Foundation:

Lord, before heaven and earth, I stand in these truths.

For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.  2 Corinthians 13:4

He is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded? Job 9:4

To Him who rides upon the highest heavens, which are from ancient times; Behold, He speaks forth with His voice, a mighty voice.  Psalm 68:33

Soul Tie:  Because I am one flesh with David, I am asking You to break the soul tie between David and his mother.  This is not of you.  Sever the toxic connection and forgive him for his idolatry.  Cleanse him of all effects of this unholy alliance.  Strengthen the connection between him and You.  Help him turn to you as His helper, for the things his mother has provided that has fed this co-dependency.  He can live without her because You are His life-source.  

I pray that the eyes of David’s heart will be enlightened so that he may know what is the hope of Your calling, what are the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of your power for David if he believes. Ephesians 1:18

Fear and Unbelief: Lord, David forecasts doom. In Your name, I ask you to be longsuffering about every potentially untrue and faithless word David has spoken regarding the future.  Use his mother’s frail health as a catalyst to teach David about faith in suffering.  Help him lean on you and the power of Your promises.  

Bind David to the truth and loose him from the effects of his faithless words.  May they have no binding effect over his mother’s life. Your Word says that You ‘deliver even the one who is not innocent because he is delivered through the cleanness of another’s hands.’   In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

You might be asking ~ ‘Can we ask God to hold back the consequences of another’s sin?’  Yes, we can ask God to withhold judgment for a while longer.

“He delivers even the one who is not innocent, who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”  Job 22:30 

“Therefore he said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.   Psalm 106:23

If we are right with God, our intercession for others moves the heart of God and often results in God withholding judgment. He is long-suffering, historically, giving room for repentance and heart change.

Let’s make a prayer map for the following life scenario:

You are going to attend an important meeting in a restaurant.  You are concerned about its outcome because a lot hangs on the success or failure of it.  You know you need to pray strategically so that you can give voice to each area that needs God’s attention and intervention. 

Start by asking the question ~ ‘How would the enemy tamper with this meeting to prevent a kingdom outcome?’

1.    Facilitating a noisy booth for your conversation.

2.    Stirring up angst in your waiter.

3.    Bringing an illness to someone in your party.  

4.    Creating a lack of unity through poor communication. 

5.    Distracting all involved from discerning the voice of God’s Spirit.

Legal Foundation:

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.  Psalm 45:7   

You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.  But you are the same, and your years will have no end.   Hebrews 1:10-12

Lord, you know the spiritual potential of this meeting.  I ask for you to guard it from behind, before, above and beneath. I ask You to be in charge of the table, the waitress, and all the environmental factors that could make or break this discussion.  Let Your peace descend on our booth and on our servers.

In Jesus’ name, I ask you to deliver us from evil, from all forces that would bring disunity and misunderstanding.  Loose us to enjoy perfect spiritual synergy, each hearing Your Spirit speaking to us simultaneously.  On this day, we are committed to find Your purpose, to honor You in our fellowship, and making You great in every plan we carve out for the future.   In Jesus name, I pray.

A SAMPLE PERSONAL PRAYER MAP  

I should always start with a prayer map for myself.  It’s imperative that I take inventory of my own life so that I can target all the ways my personal fence line has been compromised.

As with all prayer maps, I start with a legal foundation.

Legal Foundation:

Before heaven and earth, I stand in these truths.  

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  Col. 1:17

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.  Psalm 90:2

For you, LORD, are the most High over all the earth!  You have set your glory in the heavens.”  Psalm 8:1

Great is my Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.”  Psalm 147:5 

Next, I move on to the main part of the prayer map where individual issues are addressed. 

1. I start by taking inventory of generational bents.  I’m specific, naming each one, and breaking them with the prayer that was provided in an earlier devotional.  Prayer is then followed up by discipleship and daily obedience.
2. I ask God to show me if I have a soul tie with anyone. Where do I feel I’m being overpowered, even manipulated?  Do I emotionally depend on someone so much that if they fail to give what I feel I need from them, I’m sure I won’t survive?  I break the soul tie by repenting of it in prayer, asking God to sever it.  I turn to Christ for the very things the other person was providing. And I lean on Him for the strength to resist the one who is controlling.  
3. I take a hard look at whether or not I have made inner vows throughout my life that continue to control me.  They are vows that begin with ~ “I swear I will never ______.”  Or, “I swear I will ___________.”  In these vows, I am the one in control.  God is not acknowledged.  I repent of the vows, one by one, and become conscious of trusting God in the areas I had previously vowed to take care of myself. 
4. I ask God to show me if I have a heart of stone.  How was it formed?  I ask God to free me from hiding, to call me out from behind protective walls, to awaken my heart and show me how to trust and receive His love.  
5. I recall the significant lies that have been spoken over my life.  They were cursing words according to scripture. Insults, stereotypes, nicknames, gloomy predictions.  If they have shaped my life, they need to be broken and God’s corresponding truths need to be embraced.  
6. Lastly, I ask God to show me if I have a set of pet lies that hold me hostage.  Perhaps I don’t believe God can forgive a certain sin.  Or, that all hope for a redemptive future has been erased by my past sins.  I identify the lies and work them out alongside the promises and precepts of scripture.  

I will not have issues in all of these areas, most likely.  If something doesn’t pertain to me, I skip it.  The goal is for me to identify personal strongholds and blindspots and then tackle each of them strategically in prayer.  

To review these topics, you can go to the home page and search for all devotionals by date.  I am praying for you if you are going to begin to  craft a customized prayer for yourself.  This will be a project, carved out over a long period of time.  Don’t wait to pray it until it’s completely finished.  Start with what you have.  As you see changes, you will feel spiritual adrenalin to keep going. We have a powerful God who delights to see us experience resurrection power in the areas we have been held captive.

Where does another person’s free will weigh into the results of my prayer map?    

Christine, I can spend many hours prayerfully crafting a prayer map for someone, but in the end, they could reject Christ or choose not to change.  Isn’t that true?

Yes, that is true.  God never overrides free will.  However, Prayer Mapping is valuable because of what it sets up in, and around, a person ~ giving them the best possible scenario to make a decision toward Jesus and away from the evil one.  

The god of this world lives to deceive and to distort.  Paul says in II Corinthians that ‘he blinds the minds of the unbeliever so that he cannot see the glory of God.’  For anyone to come out from under deception, there must be prayer for that person.  In Prayer Mapping, we learn to take our God-given authority and restrict the enemy’s ability to continue to deceive them.  We give them a war-free zone to consider the Gospel.  They are able to hear the truth and make their own decision apart from the swirling activity of the enemy.  If they are bent to believe and allow God to open their eyes, it will be in this spiritually calm atmosphere.  Will some still reject Jesus?  Certainly.  Wide is the road that leads to destruction.  But the ones who will choose Jesus need every spiritual advantage, accomplished through prayer, to see His glory and believe.  

Christine, I can spend many hours prayerfully crafting a prayer map for someone, but in the end, they could reject Christ or choose not to change.  Isn’t that true?

Yes, that is true.  God never overrides free will.  However, Prayer Mapping is valuable because of what it sets up in, and around, a person ~ giving them the best possible scenario to make a decision toward Jesus and away from the evil one.  

The god of this world lives to deceive and to distort.  Paul says in II Corinthians that ‘he blinds the minds of the unbeliever so that he cannot see the glory of God.’  For anyone to come out from under deception, there must be prayer for that person.  In Prayer Mapping, we learn to take our God-given authority and restrict the enemy’s ability to continue to deceive them.  We give them a war-free zone to consider the Gospel.  They are able to hear the truth and make their own decision apart from the swirling activity of the enemy.  If they are bent to believe and allow God to open their eyes, it will be in this spiritually calm atmosphere.  Will some still reject Jesus?  Certainly.  Wide is the road that leads to destruction.  But the ones who will choose Jesus need every spiritual advantage, accomplished through prayer, to see His glory and believe.

Next week, we’ll look at some sample prayer maps.  I’ll walk you through some life scenarios and show you how to problem-solve them with the concepts we’ve learned over these past months.  But for today and tomorrow, I’d like to answer some questions that are commonly asked.  I’ll address the first two today.

Q & A

1. Christine, I don’t know where to start.  You’ve addressed many issues: generational bents, soul ties, hearts of stone, inner vows, and how the enemy works to compromise someone’s boundary lines.  Frankly, everyone in my life needs a prayer map.  Where in the world do I start?

While so many can benefit from a prayer map, not everyone is ready for one.  God knew you’d be learning this material.  He also knew there would come a day when you’d be ready to construct a customized prayer for someone in your life.  So, in preparation, He’s been working behind the scenes in the heart of someone close to you.  He’s been readying them to respond to the prayers you’ve yet to write and bring before the throne.  Only He knows the right person for you to focus on.  Start asking God to show you who that person is.  Perhaps as you read this, a face/name dominates your thoughts.  Chances are, God is already speaking to you.  If not, He will.  

• Someone in my family has abandoned their faith.  They say they no longer believe.  How do I approach this in a prayer map?

No one abandons their faith out of the blue.  Unbelief is preceded by something that happened. Reactions based on wrong interpretations of events took off like a runaway train.  Remember ~ the enemy is anxious to interpret painful things when they happen.  Unless a believer diligently examines his thoughts to keep or discard what is true or untrue, there is a risk of becoming a casualty to the distortions.  Someone who decided he didn’t want, trust, or love God anymore dealt with anger or disappointment that colored everything.  God’s character was maligned.  The resulting pain became a stumbling block.  If you’re writing a prayer map for them, ask God to show you the origins of their unbelief to target those roots.  

Prayer Mapping is all about being as specific as possible with our requests. It’s about getting to the roots of an issue. Praying generalized prayers such as ~ “Lord, help them change” Or “Be with them and bless them” ~ is easier, but praying such things lacks the specificity to track the miracle God wants to do.  There is a ‘Goliath-sized spot’ on the enemy’s head, a target that the tip of the ‘sword of the Word’ wants to penetrate.  Prayer invites us to take aim.    

My soul finds rest in God, my hope comes from him.  My salvation and my honor depend on God, he is my mighty rock, my refuge.  Psalm 62:7-8 

How I’ve prayed for you over the weekend.  Many of you have written to tell me that you’re  relieved to finally have a way to apply the act of forgiveness.  You’re ready to disentangle yourself from your offender.  You’re ready to rid yourself of the bitterness that has tied you to the vivid memories of whatever it was that they did to you. You’re ready to rid yourself of torment and know the peace that Jesus gives when we leave matters of injustice in His hands.    

Allow me to give you some guidelines as you get ready to take this foot-washing journey.  Your offender will take the chair and you will assume your position on the stool.  Jesus will be ever with you, giving you what you need to move forward. He will always be your encourager to propel you upward on this steep path of obedience. As you prepare, here are some things to keep in mind ~

1. Feel the hurt.  Most likely, you haven’t been able to forgive because the pain scared you and, quite frankly, it felt unjust to forgive.  With their face ever before you in prayer, you will re-live the critical moments.  It will be emotional.  You may be surprised at the depth of your feelings.  You may wonder if you are strong enough to bear it.  Jesus is with you and, if needed, He will bring other people to walk alongside you during these next weeks.      

2.  Wash their feet until you have quiet tears.   The pain you will feel is necessary.  What will come out will be what has been trapped inside.  The emotional outpouring will be confusing and messy.  Tears will express grief, anger, and many other things.  Persevere.  Over time, the nature of your tears will change.  As you wrestle with God’s will, you will move to accept that His providence and sovereignty is over all things.  Tears will quiet as you believe Him for redemption. 

3.   Wash their feet until you feel a release in your spirit.  How will you know when you have finished?  Listen closely to the small, spontaneous voice in your spirit.  The Holy Spirit will lead you to a new threshold.  You will breathe fresh air, feel the turn in the road, maybe even sense a ‘well done’ being spoken over you.

Everything has been leading up to today.  Jesus stands with you on this threshold of freedom.

You have promised to lead the blind in a way they do not know.  All of this is foreign for so many who are reading this.  It was foreign to me, Lord.  But You are faithful to unveil each next step with grace.  Amen 

My salvation and my honor rest on God, my strong rock; my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him.  God is our refuge.  Selah   Psalm 62:7-8 

Washing my offender’s feet in prayer became my template.  (It still is.)  The process of doing it daily spanned the course of several months.  Just as David had to affirm things out loud in today’s scripture, I had to make audible confessions that centered on truths like these:  Lord, You will come to my rescue.  Your honor is really all that’s important.  My trust is in You.  I will pour out my heart to You and You will be gracious to help me when I can’t continue in my own strength.

Each day when I went to prayer ~

1. I pictured myself sitting on the stool.  My offender was in the chair and I was attempting to wash her feet as Jesus did the disciples.  My struggle was ever before me, and I talked to Jesus about how I was feeling.  Every day was a crisis as I wanted to flee the scene.  
2. I felt the hurt of her offenses as I reviewed every detail of them.  This was not some cerebral exercise but a purging of my heart.  I asked all the questions that erupt when painful events are re-visited.  “Why?” “How could you?” “Did I really deserve this?”  These were honest feelings but, in them, I also saw my own sense of entitlement.
3. Over time, I saw the nature of my tears change.  For a few weeks, they were tears of anger and injustice.  I couldn’t imagine I would ever get beyond them.  After crying, my face broke out into an ugly rash where the tears came down.  It quickly dawned on me that the tears I had held inside were toxic to my body.  What would they have done to me internally if I’d held them in for another 10 years!   Eventually, I came to peace with God’s sovereign rule over my life, and the nature of my tears changed.  They were no longer angry tears but quiet tears that reflected submission and trust.  I realized that God allowed betrayal to become a theme in my storyline.  I shared in some of the sufferings of Jesus, and because of His resurrection, I chose to believe that my pain could also lead to something redemptive.
4. God showed me that He qualifies the kinds of tears we cry. Israel wept when they were taken into captivity.  God told them that their tears were for deliverance from pain, not because they were mourning their sin.  Understanding that, I knew I had to continue washing her feet in prayer until the bitter tears changed to surrender to God’s providence.
5. Many months later, deep in my spirit, I heard Jesus say.  “Well done.”  I was free.

Still, every now and then, there are days I still have to wash her feet in prayer.  I discover new evidence of the damage she caused.  Each time, I need the wind of the Spirit to fuel obedience.

Jesus, You washed Your disciple’s feet on the eve of their desertion of Your darkest hour.  You didn’t withhold from them in disillusionment. Give me that same grace. Amen 

You call Me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, because I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example so that you should do as I have done for you. John 13:13-15

We’ve worked our way through what forgiveness is, what it is not, and also given thought as to why it’s so hard. Hopefully, you’ve allowed your heart to open up to old wounds that are yet unhealed in hopes of being freed from the torment of remembering. I suspect it’s been difficult and you’ve wondered how this series would come to a conclusion. Would there be instruction, then closure? The answer is yes. I hope you are poised to take action because these next few days are pivotal to take you to the freedom God promises.

I have been humbled by what God’s forgiveness of repentant sinners really looks like. It is only through feeling gratitude that I can think of giving away the same gift. It is only then that I am able to ache to live a different way….a way that is realized when forgiveness is worked out between God and me for my offender. If so, what’s next?

I asked that in May of 1997 as God showed me that I had not forgiven someone who hurt me over the course of many years. It was entangled and messy. As I asked God how to begin, He took me to this passage in John. I panicked and then thought about what it would take to wash this person’s feet. I began to talk to God about it everyday in prayer. I spent the next three months working on this. This is what happened.

My prayer time became all about forgiveness. I couldn’t think of much else.

I could see a foot washing scene in my mind as I prayed. A basin. A stool. A chair. And a pitcher of water.

My offender came and sat in the chair. I took my place on the stool.  I could sense Jesus near, watching me.

In my anger, I momentarily wished the basin was filled with scalding water as my hurt fully resurfaced. Immediately, I had to deal with my desire for vengeance.

I began to wash her feet and for many weeks, I re-lived the experience and began to pour out my hurt. What that looked like will be for tomorrow. Until then, think about whether this foot washing ‘template’ would be helpful to you.  If you decide to proceed, and that will take courage, Jesus is waiting to help you.

Jesus, I need You because with You all things are possible. Amen

Forgiveness is messy. Why would I look forward to that! It will require a review of what’s painful, asking God to show me how I internalized it, feeling anger, grieving a loss of some kind, and many other things not easy to navigate. I fear that if I start feeling angry or begin to grieve deeply, I’ll never be able to escape the cycle.  

What’s the safe alternative? The one the church so often adopts, a paradigm that goes like this ~ A person goes forward during an invitation, they kneel at the altar, they cry a few tears and tell God that they will forgive their offender. They get up and truly believe that it’s finished. Issue and person forgiven.

This person’s brief encounter with the edges of forgiveness leads others in their Christian community to expect them to be all better. When this person’s heart fails and hurts again, they will beat themselves up over being a failure of a Christian. And if they confess their struggles to another, they will probably hear sermons that stir up added layers of guilt.  

What is the answer? To understand that forgiveness is not cerebral, nor is it momentary. The bigger the hurt, the longer the process, and the messier it is. I must not surround myself with confidants who have the false expectations of an unbiblical kind of forgiveness. To be vulnerable to hardliners who diminish God-given emotions  is a mistake. I don’t know what they would have done with Jesus when He modeled a very wide emotional spectrum. He was free to express joy and also free to grieve to the point of sweating drops of blood. We here in the western world have numbed out to the extremes. We believe that to be stoic is to be holy.  

If you are one who has walked the aisle, said the words, cried briefly, and then wondered why – with time – you didn’t feel much better, perhaps you have been the victim of poor teaching and unreasonable expectations. What should you do? Start over. Find a journey partner or prayer partner. Be yourself and acknowledge what you have been afraid to disclose to anyone, including yourself. God already knows it’s there. He will lead you into the dark, by faith, and turn on the light as you go. 

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. Isaiah 42:16