After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
Mark 9:28,29
There is nothing quite like having to live through a great big public failure. I don’t know about you, but this is when we are most likely to humbly look for help. Turn to restart and restore relationships. Look to God for help.
And God seems particularly interested in directing our failures towards the areas of life that connect where we have the most pride. Where we get most of our self-worth from. This makes the failure all the more painful., All the more relevant. Better able to get our attention.
Failure comes in all different shapes and sizes. One person’s failure is another’s minor irritant. Some people have failures in many different parts of life. Others seem to have their failures focused in one area.
There have been so many failures in my life that I wouldn’t know where to even begin. But it’s safe to say that many of my failures have been work related. Having positions eliminated in reorganizations, or just being released.
If these had just affected me, that would be one thing. But they all came after I had a wife and family. This made being unemployed all the more painful. All the more gut-wrenching. I was responsible for bringing home a paycheck to put food on the table. Put a roof over their heads. This really hit me hard, as you can imagine.
The disciples had a great opportunity to do something great in the name of Jesus. They not only had a problem to solve, but they also had an audience. And not just a crowd of your average people, but teachers of the law were there.
To perform a miracle in front of this crowd would certainly cement him in the hearts and minds of the people. And to do this in front of the spiritual giants of the day would give legitimacy to their ministry.
To have succeeded would have driven their social media connections and hits through the roof. Their video channel numbers would have skyrocketed. Requests for interviews and talk show appearances would have overwhelmed their email account.
But they failed, so it didn’t. Instead, they get a private, indoor debriefing session with Jesus. Where did they go wrong? How could they do better? What should they do next time? What did they do wrong?
The answer from Jesus is rather simple and straightforward. But the implications are far-reaching. It’s not about their performance. It’s not about procedure. It’s not even about practice. But it’s all about prayer.
In order to have the ability, the power to move this particular kind of mountain takes prayer. And not the kind of prayer that you’ve memorized. Not the kind of prayer that you go through like you’re speed-reading, but a deep, personal, intimate, and transparent prayer lifestyle. Not a “one-and-done” kind of prayer, but a prayer life that is determined and dedicated to God. Jesus described this kind of relationship to God to his disciples.
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength
Matthew 12:30, Deuteronomy 6:5
You don’t stumble into this kind of prayer life by accident. You also don’t achieve this level of intimacy with God through a checklist, attending a seminar, or watching a DIY prayer video on the internet.
You arrive at this prayer life place through three steps.
Time – it takes time with God. Time where you are with him. Time to be able to get to know God.
Alone – Some of this time needs to be spent alone with God. Nobody else. No interruptions. You can either turn off all your technology or go to a place where there are no “bars” on your phone of Wi-Fi signal.
Struggle – Like anything else worthwhile, it does not come easily. It takes struggling through life. Uncertainty. Loneliness. Being misunderstood. Through the struggles you learn to run to the only one who meets your deepest desires and needs.
In order to restart our life, there is a price to be paid to achieve this caliber of life. Are you willing to pay that steep of a price?
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