Book Notes: The Circle Maker, by Mark Batterson

There have been moments in my life when the Spirit of God has whispered to my spirit, Mark, the prayers of your grandfather are being answered in your life right now. Those moments rank as the most humbling moments of my life.

He proved, once again, that His promises don’t have expiration dates.

What promise are you praying around? What miracle are you marching around? What dream does your life revolve around?

Most of us don’t get what we want simply because we don’t know what we want. We’ve never circled any of God’s promises.

Jesus forced them to define exactly what they wanted from Him. Jesus made them verbalize their desire. He made them spell it out, but it wasn’t because Jesus didn’t know what they wanted; He wanted to make sure they knew what they wanted. And that is where drawing prayer circles begins: knowing what to circle.

What if Jesus were to ask you this very same question: What do you want me to do for you?

Well-developed faith results in well-defined prayers, and well-defined prayers result in a well-lived life.

Don’t just read the Bible. Start circling the promises. Don’t just make a wish. Write down a list of God-glorifying life goals. Don’t just pray. Keep a prayer journal. Define your dream. Claim your promise. Spell your miracle.

A few years ago, I read one sentence that changed the way I pray. The author, pastor of one of the largest churches in Seoul, Korea, wrote, “God does not answer vague prayers.”

The more faith you have, the more specific your prayers will be. And the more specific your prayers are, the more glory God receives.

If our prayers aren’t specific, however, God gets robbed of the glory that He deserves because we second-guess whether or not He actually answered them. We never know if the answers were the result of specific prayer or general coincidences that would have happened anyway.

I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want to be successful, but very few people have actually spelled out success for themselves. We inherit a family definition or adopt a cultural definition. But if you don’t spell it out for yourself, you have no way of knowing if you’ve achieved it. You might achieve your goals only to realize that they should not have been your goals in the first place. You circle the wrong city. You climb the wrong ladder.

the will of God has much more to do with “being” than “doing.”

it’s about being the right person, even if you find yourself in the wrong circumstances.

Success has nothing to do with how gifted or how resourced you are; it has everything to do with glorifying God in any and every situation by making the most of it. Success is spelled stewardship, and stewardship is spelled success.

In formulaic terms, change of pace + change of place = change of perspective.

If you think of a problem as being like a medieval walled city, then a lot of people will attack it head-on, like a battering ram. They will storm the gates and try to smash through the defenses with sheer intellectual power and brilliance. I just camp outside the city. I wait. And I think. Until one day — maybe after I’ve turned to a completely different problem — the drawbridge comes down and the defenders say, “We surrender.” The answer to the problem comes all at once.

Mother Dabney was more comfortable in the presence of God than the presence of people. As it was with Honi, some even criticized the way she prayed. Well-meaning friends begged her to take a break or take a bite, but she held on to the horns of the altar. And the more she prayed through, the more God came through.

Most of us don’t get what we want because we don’t know what we want. Here’s our secondary problem: Most of us don’t get what we want because we quit circling.

there are also situations where you need to grab hold of the horns of the altar and refuse to let go until God answers. Like Honi, you refuse to move from the circle until God moves. You intercede until God intervenes.

Praying through is all about intensity. It’s not quantitative; it’s qualitative.

Drawing prayer circles involves more than words; it’s gut-wrenching groans and heartbreaking tears. Praying through doesn’t just bend God’s ear; it touches the heart of your heavenly Father.

There are higher heights and deeper depths in prayer, and God wants to take you there. He wants to take you places you have never been before. There are new dialects. There are new dimensions. But if you want God to do something new in your life, you can’t do the same old thing. It will involve more sacrifice, but if you are willing to go there, you’ll realize that you didn’t sacrifice anything at all. It will involve more risk, but if you are willing to go there, you’ll realize that you didn’t risk anything at all. Make the sacrifice. Take the risk. Draw the circle.

Did you catch the verb tense? God speaks in the past tense, not the future tense. He doesn’t say, “I will deliver.” God says, “I have delivered.” The significance is this: The battle was won before the battle even began. God had already given them the city. All they had to do was circle it.

“Stop praying for it and start praising me for it.”

Prayer and praise are both expressions of faith, but praise is a higher dimension of faith. Prayer is asking God to do something, future tense; praise is believing that God has already done it, past tense.

Right after God gave me this revelation, I went over to the property we were praying for, got down on my knees, and started praising God for the promise He had put in my heart. We lost that contract three separate times, but we kept praising God. The deal died three times, but resurrection is the central tenet of the Christian faith. And it isn’t something we just celebrate on Easter. Resurrection is something we celebrate every day in every way. Prayer has the power to resurrect dead dreams and give them new life — eternal life.

Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past.

As we age, either imagination overtakes memory or memory overtakes imagination. Imagination is the road less taken, but it is the pathway of prayer.

the more you pray the bigger

your imagination becomes because the Holy Spirit supersizes it with God-sized dreams.

the death of a dream is often a subtle form of idolatry. We lose faith in the God who gave us the big dream and settle for a small dream that we can accomplish without His help.

Foolishness is a feeling that Moses was very familiar with. He had to feel foolish going before Pharaoh and demanding that he let God’s people go. He felt foolish raising his staff over the Red Sea. And he most certainly felt foolish promising meat to eat for the entire nation of Israel in the middle of the wilderness. But his willingness to look foolish resulted in epic miracles

In order to experience a miracle, you have to take a risk. And one of the most difficult types of risk to take is risking your reputation.

If you’re unwilling to risk your reputation, you’ll never build the boat like Noah or get out of the boat like Peter. You cannot build God’s reputation if you aren’t willing to risk yours.

we scoff at the Israelites for grumbling about a meal of manna that was miraculously delivered to their doorsteps every day, but don’t we do the same thing? There are miracles all around us all the time, yet it’s so easy to find something to complain about in the midst of those miracles.

You know God wants you to take the job that pays less, but it doesn’t add up. You know God wants you to go on the mission trip, but it doesn’t add up. You know God wants you to get married, go to grad school, or adopt, but it doesn’t add up.

In terms of addition, 5 + 2 = 7. But if you add God into the equation, 5 + 2 ≠ 7. When you give what you have to God, He multiplies it so that 5 + 2 = 5,000. Not only does God multiply the meal so that it feeds five thousand; the disciples actually end up with more leftovers than they had food to begin with.

Only in God’s economy!

If you put what little you have in your hand into the hand of God, it won’t just add up; God will make it multiply. One footnote. Do you recall what Jesus did right before the miracle? It says Jesus “gave thanks.” He didn’t wait until after the miracle; He thanked God for the miracle before the miracle happened.

You are only one defining decision away from a totally different life. One defining decision can change your trajectory and put you on a new path toward the Promised Land. One defining decision can totally change the forecast of your life. And it’s those defining decisions that become the defining moments of our lives.

We can’t figure out how to do what God has called us to do, so we don’t do it at all.

if you aren’t willing to put yourself in “this is crazy” situations, you’ll never experience “this is awesome” moments.

If you aren’t willing to run off the cliff, you’ll never fly.

God doesn’t just provide in dramatic fashion; God provides in dramatic proportion.

You learn to multiply bigger and bigger numbers. That’s also the way it should work spiritually, but many of us never graduate beyond addition and subtraction.

Jesus taught multiplication. He promised that He would multiply His blessings if we work like it depends on us and pray like it depends on God.

And he used one hundred, sixty, and thirty as multipliers.

We’re giving this gift because you have vision beyond your resources.”

“vision beyond your resources.”

you take a step of faith when God gives you a vision because you trust that the One who gave you the vision is going to make provision.

One day, I was praying for God’s provision when I felt a prompting to pray for a $2 million miracle. The first thing I had to do was decipher whether this prompting was just my own desire to be debt free or whether it was the Holy Spirit who dropped that promise into my heart. It’s tough to discern between natural

desires and holy desires, but I was about 90 percent sure it was the Holy Spirit who put that promise in my heart. I had no idea how God would do it, but I knew I needed to circle that promise in prayer.

If we repent,God always recycles our mistakes.

God has surprised me so many times that I’m no longer surprised by His surprises. That doesn’t mean I love them any less.

Are you willing to be perplexed? Are you open to holy surprises? Do you have the courage for God to move in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways? If you are not open to the unprecedented, you will repeat history. If you are open to the unprecedented, you will change history. The difference is prayer.

One Sunday morning in 1851, during a Communion service, Harriet fell into a trance not unlike the trance that Peter had on the rooftop of Simon the tanner’s house. In her trance, Hattie saw an old slave being beaten to death. The vision left her so shaken that she could hardly keep from weeping. She walked her children home from church and skipped lunch. She immediately started writing down the vision God had given her as words poured from her pen. When she ran out of paper, she found brown grocery paper and continued to write. When she finally stopped, and read what she wrote, she could hardly believe she had written it. It was nothing short of divine inspiration. Hattie said that God wrote the book; she just put the words on paper. In January 1852, a year after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s vision, the forty-five-chapter manuscript of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was ready for publication. The publisher, John P. Jewett, didn’t think the book would sell many copies, but three thousand copies were sold the first day. The entire first printing was sold out by the end of the second day. The third and fourth printings were sold out before

the book was even reviewed. The book that Jewett didn’t think would sell many copies ended up in almost every house in America, including the White House. No novel has had a greater effect on the conscience of a country than Harriet Beecher Stowe’s vision, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In fact, when Hattie met President Lincoln, he is purported to have said: “So you’re the little woman who started this Great War!”

But God doesn’t call the qualified; God qualifies the called.

No one on our team had ever worked in a coffeehouse when we started pursuing that dream.

let me remind you that these answers have rarely happened as quickly or easily as they sound. There is usually a backstory. So we are quick to celebrate the answer to prayer, but the answer probably didn’t come quickly. I’ve never met a person who didn’t experience some big disappointments on the way to his or her big dream.

Bill would never have gotten his dream job if he hadn’t lost his job of eleven years as the head professional at a private golf club in 1985.

shoulders of Him who carried the cross to Calvary. After

Bill had worked odd jobs as a golf pro for six years, he and Debbie threw up their arms and got back on their knees because they weren’t any closer to their dream than they had been a decade before. That’s when they decided to write a letter to God. They posted that letter on their refrigerator, and every time they walked by the refrigerator, they praised God, Jericho style, for the job that He was going to provide.

The parable of the persistent widow is one of the most pixilated pictures of prayer in Scripture. It shows us what praying hard looks like: knocking

until your knuckles are raw, crying out until your voice is lost, pleading until your tears run dry. Praying hard is praying through. And if you pray through, God will come through. But it will be God’s will, God’s way.

Praying hard is two-dimensional: praying like it depends on God, and working like it depends on you. It’s praying until God answers, no matter how long it takes. It’s doing whatever it takes to show God you’re serious.

The only way you can fail is if you stop praying. Prayer is a no-lose proposition.

In the words of my friends who have experienced their fair share of unanswered prayers, “We try to live our lives unoffended by God. Jesus promises that we will be blessed if we aren’t offended. Obviously we aren’t in prison about to be beheaded, but we have seen many answers to our prayers for other people when we have prayed for their finances, their health, and their kids. Yet in our own lives, well …”

“Jesus promises blessing if we are not offended when He does things for others. And if He does it for them, He might do it for us.

“Never put a comma where God puts a period, and never put a period where God puts a comma.”

there is another dimension of faith that believes that God can undo what has already been done.

Second-degree faith is resurrection faith. It’s a faith that refuses to put periods at the end of disappointments.

As you pray, the Holy Spirit will quicken certain promises to your spirit. It’s very difficult to predict what and when and where and how, but over time, the promises of God will become your promises.

When you pray for something in the earthly realm, God puts a contract on it in the heavenly realm if you are praying in accordance with the will of God. So while February 7, 2002, is the date we signed the physical contract, the spiritual contract predates it by several years. The deal dates back to the first prayer circle we drew around it.

He is watching over Matthew 18:18. He is watching over Isaiah 59:21. He is watching over Luke 7:23.

If you take God at His word, you’ll make the joyful discovery that God wants to bless you far more than you want to be blessed. And His capacity to give is far greater than your capacity to receive.

Luke 2:52

The greatest moments in life are the moments when God intervenes on our behalf and blesses us way beyond what we expect or deserve. It’s a humble reminder of His sovereignty. And these favor moments become our favor-ite memories.

the beautiful thing about it is that we couldn’t take credit for it. It was nothing more, or maybe I should say nothing less, than the favor of God. It was God’s time. It was God’s favor. It was God’s word. And God was watching over it.

The hard thing about praying hard is letting God do the heavy lifting. You have to trust the favor of God to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Every time I got angry, I converted that anger into a prayer. Let’s just say that I came as close as I had ever come to praying without ceasing!

When it was all over, I thanked God for the opposition we encountered because it galvanized our resolve and unified our church. It also taught us how to pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. I learned that we don’t have to be afraid of the enemy’s attacks.

They are counterproductive when we counteract them with prayer.

Psalm 50:10.

when God gives a vision, He makes provision.

God must love the game of chicken because He plays it with us all the time. He has this habit of waiting until the very last moment to answer our prayer to see if we will chicken out or pray through.

When God provided the miraculous manna for the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness, it says He provided “enough for that day.” Just enough. The language describing God’s provision is extremely precise. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered a little had enough. God provided just enough. Then He gave them a curious command: “Do not keep any of it until morning.”

“Give us today our daily bread.”

One of our fundamental misunderstandings of spiritual maturity is thinking that it should result in self-sufficiency. It’s the exact opposite. The goal isn’t independence; the goal is codependence on God. Our desire for self-sufficiency is a subtle expression of our sinful nature.

The will of God gets harder. Here’s why: the harder it gets, the harder you have to pray.

God will keep putting you in situations that stretch your faith, and as your faith stretches, so do your dreams. If you pass the test, you graduate to bigger and bigger dreams.

The blessings of God won’t just bless you; they will also complicate your life. Sin will complicate your life in negative ways. The blessings of God will complicate your life in positive ways.

With every promotion, there are complications.

A few years ago, I prayed a prayer that changed my life. I believe it can change your life as well, but it takes tremendous courage to pray it like you mean it. And you have to count the cost. Lord, complicate my life.

Praying hard is asking God to make your life harder. The harder you pray, the harder you will have to work. And that is a blessing from God.

Think of praying hard and working hard as concentric circles. It’s the way we double-circle our dreams and His promises. There comes a moment, after you have prayed through, when you have to start doing something about it. You have to take a step of faith, and that first step

God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him;

The reason many of us miss the miracles is that we aren’t looking and listening. The easy part of prayer is talking. It’s much harder listening to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. It’s much harder looking for the answers. But two-thirds of praying hard is listening and looking.

Each miracle was precipitated by a concrete step of faith: setting up a sacrifice on Mount Carmel, baking a loaf of bread, and striking the Jordan River. And God honored those steps of faith by sending fire to consume Elijah’s sacrifice, multiplying that last loaf of bread so it lasted until the drought ended, and parting the Jordan River

After you have prayed hard, you need to swallow hard and take a flying leap of faith. That’s how you circle the miracle.

The key to getting out of the boat is hearing the voice of God.

Where do you feel like you need God least? Where are you most proficient, most sufficient? Maybe that is precisely

where God wants you to trust Him to do something beyond your ability.

Not only was God not answering our prayers; it felt like He was opposing our efforts. It felt like God was actually getting in the way. And He was. And I’m glad He was.

I was frustrated and confused because they seemed like good options, but they weren’t the best option. And God doesn’t settle for what is good.

Our frustration will turn to celebration if we patiently and persistently pray through.

Sometimes God gets in the way to show us the way.

I’m so grateful that God doesn’t answer all of my prayers. Who knows where I would be? But part of praying hard is persisting in prayer even when we don’t get the answer we want. It’s choosing to believe that God has a better plan. And He always does!

“These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David.

What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.”

Prayer is like that. It has a way of opening the right doors at the right time, even if we’re sometimes as clueless as Agent 86.

As I look back, I laugh at the fact that we were so scared when the doors to Giddings School closed. If God hadn’t closed those doors, we would have never looked for the open door at Union Station. And that’s the way it works: God closes doors in order to open bigger and better doors.

For what it’s worth, that DC public school eventually reopened as Results Gym, where I have a membership. Every time I walk through those doors, I thank God that He closed them on us. It all worked out, literally.

We had no idea where to go or what to do, but that’s when God has us right where He wants us.

“Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the LORD rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. The LORD himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.”

We want God to provide for our need before we even need it. But sometimes God waits. And then He waits longer.

Once again, the God who provides just enough parts the Red Sea just in time.

I felt like Moses as I stood before our congregation that day and stood on this promise: “I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I do know what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to be afraid. We’re going to stand still. And we’re going to see the deliverance of the Lord.”

And God delivered.

praying is planting.

Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. It disappears for a season, but it eventually bears fruit that blesses future generations. In fact, our prayers bear fruit forever.

the Holy Spirit has reminded me that the prayers of my grandparents are being answered in my life right now. Their prayers outlived them.

Because we are surrounded by technologies that make our lives faster and easier, we tend to think about spiritual realities in those terms. But almost all spiritual realities in Scripture are described in longer and harder agricultural terms.

One dimension of thinking long is thinking different, and prayer is the key to both.

Prayer doesn’t just change circumstances; more important, it changes us. It doesn’t just alter external realities; it alters internal realities so that we see with spiritual eyes.

But if you pray long and boring prayers, your life will be anything but boring. Your life will turn into the spiritual adventure it was destined to be. It won’t always get you where you want to go, but it will get you through.

If I had written it at twenty-five instead of thirty-five, it would have been all theory and no substance.

What we’ll remember are the days when we had everything to do, and with God’s help, we did it.

It’s not just where you end up that’s important; it’s how you get there. The harder the better. It’s true in life; it’s true in prayer.

I particularly love the fact that Hilton tipped his hat to the Waldorf whenever he walked by. It was a gesture of humility, of respect, of confidence. When you dream big, pray hard, and think long, you know your time will eventually come.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. If you stop, drop, and pray, then you never know where you’ll go, what you’ll do, or who you’ll meet.

Humility honors God, and God honors humility. Why not kneel? It certainly can’t hurt.

One way I’ve put this principle into practice is praying through my calendar instead of just looking through it. It’s amazing what a difference it makes when I pray circles around the people I’m meeting with. It turns appointments into divine appointments. When you go into a meeting with a prayerful posture, it creates a positively charged atmosphere.

You need to identify the times, places, and practices that help you dream big, pray hard, and think long. When I want to dream big, I hang out at the National Gallery of Art. When I want to pray hard, I climb the ladder to the rooftop of Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse. When I need to think long, I take the elevator up to the sixth-floor observation gallery at the National Cathedral.

What would happen if you focused your prayers on one thing for one person for one month or one year?

Pick up The Circle Maker, by Mark Batterson at Amazon.