Outside the Circle – Blogging about The Circle Maker – Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Cloudy with a chance of Quail

• Summary
  • Faith is the willingness to look foolish
  • In order to experience a miracle you need to take a risk
  • If you put what you have into God’s hands, He will multiply
  • God provides in dramatic proportion
• Problems
  • Faith isn’t just about looking foolish or taking the big risk, it’s about following God even if it makes you look foolish, etc
  • God multiplying what you give to Him doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get riches here on earth
  • If you believe/circle you’ll get blessings, if you don’t believe, you won’t
  • The entire concept of multiplication anointing
• Solutions
  • God asks us to do the mundane as well as the outrageous, it’s important to obey no matter what He asks us to do
  • There are examples in the bible (Job, Jesus, Paul) and examples in the world to show that earthly measures of wealth aren’t God’s top priority. Matthew 6:19-21
  • Yes, it’s important to have faith but placing the power of blessings in human hands is giving us too much power - Romans 9:16
  • The entire story of multiplication anointing makes me uncomfortable. From the statement of “wasn’t even sure if it was in the bible but I did it anyway” to the highly formulaic way of answered prayer.

Outside The Circle – Blogging about The Circle Maker – Chapter 4

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Chapter 4 - Praying Through

• Summary:
  • Story of Elizabeth Dabney who ‘prayed through’ faithfully
  • Circle makers are history makers
  • Most of us don’t get what we want because we quit circling
  • Praying through is about consistency
  • Praying through is about intensity
  • We should praise God for disappointment because it draws us back to Him
  • Faith is about believing, even when it seems impossible
  • Praise through - praise God before the miracle happens
  • If God has put a promise in your heart, pray through and praise through
• Problems:
  • Dabney’s story illustrates a woman who “asked God” something, rather than demanded, who obeyed God’s direction and saw His promise fulfilled - not like Honi story
  • Dabney’s real life story doesn’t say anything about a ‘circle in the sand’ - she obey’s what God told her to do, didn’t just arbitrarily do her own thing
  • Circle makers = History makers and “It’s your prayers that change the eternal plotline” pg 34 - Seems pretty person-focused and prideful
  • Not getting what we want because we quit circling again puts the power and emphasis on us rather than God
  • Praying through won’t take no for an answer
  • “God had already given them the city. All they had to do was circle it.” - is he talking about “all they had to do was obey God’s commands” or is he speaking about the whole ‘circling’ concept
  • You need to stop asking because God has already answered
• Solutions:
  • The pride issues and it’s all about us and how awesome our circles are - “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Galatians 6:14
  • Circle quitting causes us not to get things - Malachi 3:6 - God says he doesn’t change, he keeps his promises
  • Sometimes God says no - 2 Cor 7:8 - Paul’s thorn, Matt 26:42 - Jesus
  • Romans 8:28 - “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Outside The Circle – Blogging about The Circle Maker -Chapter 3

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Chapter 3 - The Jericho Miracle

• Summary:
  • Overview of the battle of Jericho
    • God told the army to circle the city
    • And he promised that if they obeyed, the wall would fall
    • “In keeping with God’s command” pg 23
    • God’s promises don’t have an expiration date
    • If you keep circling a promise, God will deliver it
  • Jesus forced the blind men to define exactly what they wanted from him
  • Write down a list of God glorifying life goals
  • Miracles won’t have happened if I hadn’t drawn a circle
  • If our prayers aren’t specific, God doesn’t get the glory like He should
  • Spell out success for yourself
  • You need to have a personal definition of success
• Problems:
  • Contradictory stories - very obvious that the Israelites were obeying God and that God was fulfilling a promise He had made to them before. Whereas none of that is shown in the story of Honi.
  • Pg 22 - “story doesn’t explicitly say” and “backdrop of this book” - again going outside what the bible says and using that as the foundation of the book
  • Miracles wouldn’t happen without us - Seems to place the power with us
  • God doesn’t answer vague prayers - I’m fine with specific prayers, but there are times when you don’t have specifics and God listens to you then as well
  • The whole success thing squicks me out, but I think that is simply because I’m not a dude? Or because I feel like there is less focus on “how do I serve God” and more focus on “how does serving God fit in with having me succeed.”
• Solutions:
  • Miracles and us - Phil 2:13 - “For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.” Acts 17:24-25 - “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”
  • God doesn’t answer vague prayers - Exodus 2:24 - God heard the captives groaning, Romans 8:26 - “Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans”

Outside The Circle – Blogging about The Circle Maker - Chapter 2

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Chapter 2 - Circle Makers

• Summary:
  • Prayer circles are an important part of our prayer life
  • Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers
  • God is for you
  • God is not a genie in a bottle, drawing circles starts with discerning God’s will
  • Miracles are by-products of prayers that were prayed by you or for you
  • God won’t do it (certain expressions of His power) unless we pray for it
  • If you draw prayer circles, God will answer those prayers at some point

• Problems:
  • God is offended/insulted by little prayers, prayers that do not include the impossible or bold - I think that God wants us to commune with Him about everything in our lives, not just the ‘part the red sea’ prayers. I do think that He wants us to be honest in our prayer lives, but I don’t believe He gets offended by prayer. Phil 4:6 (Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything)
  • You are only one prayer away from a dream fulfilled, a promise kept, or a miracle performed - God works in His time and not our own
  • Prayers are prophecies - Prayers are our communication with God. It’s still His will and power that will work, and He’s not bound to whatever we pray
  • Genie in a bottle - How does that statement line up with the story of Honi? It doesn’t say that he was a prophet and talked to God, it doesn’t say that he spent time in prayer before drawing his circle to discern God’s will. It doesn’t say that God held the land in a drought and was ready to lift it at Honi’s urging. Where is the discernment here?
  • The concept that if you draw prayer circles then God will answer those prayers is misleading. God promises to answer prayer, circles are not mentioned.

• Solutions:
  • God’s offended by small prayers - Phil 4:6 - “Come to God about everything,” Ephesians 6:18 - “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests”
  • Only one prayer away - Loads of verses about praying continually, praying for long periods of time, pray constantly for you - 1 Thes 5:17 “pray continually”
  • Prayers are prophecies - Isa 55:8 - “My thoughts are not your thoughts”
  • John 16:24 - Jesus tells them to ask for things in his name

Outside The Circle – Blogging about The Circle Maker - Chapter 1

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Chapter 1 - The Legend of The Circle Maker

• Summary:
  • tells of Honi, “sage” who drew a circle and prayed/demanded that God send rain and he wouldn’t leave until it was done.
  • Prayed more than once until God delivered the rain he wanted
  • Celebrated by people but also accused of dishonoring God
• Problems:
  • Character/story is not in the bible
  • Honi doesn’t seem to get leading from God before praying
  • Author states that Honi and Jesus’ miracles are on the same level despite the fact that Honi’s story was not included in the bible
  • No biblical reference to base our study on in the very beginning
• Solutions:
  • “stands forever as a testament to the power of a single prayer to change the course of history” pg 13 Find character/scripture/story in the bible that similarly illustrates this concept.
  • Joshua asking the sun to stand still - Joshua 10:1-15
    • Joshua was leading army and came to defense of Gibeon
    • God said to him “Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand against you.” v8
    • Lord threw other army into confusion before attack v10
    • Lord threw hailstones at the other army v11
    • Joshua’s prayer was in line with what God had directed him to do

The Circle Maker

For our most recent bible study we’re going through The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. From his website:

According to Pastor Mark Batterson in his book, The Circle Maker, “Drawing prayer circles around our dreams isn’t just a mechanism whereby we accomplish great things for God. It’s a mechanism whereby God accomplishes great things in us.” Do you ever sense that there’s far more to prayer, and to God’s vision for your life, than what you’re experiencing? It’s time you learned from the legend of Honi the Circle Maker—a man bold enough to draw a circle in the sand and not budge from inside it until God answered his prayers for his people. What impossibly big dream is God calling you to draw a prayer circle around? Sharing inspiring stories from his own experiences as a circle maker, Mark Batterson will help you uncover your heart’s deepest desires and God-given dreams and unleash them through the kind of audacious prayer that God delights to answer.

I have to admit that I don’t have the best attitude about this book. Just reading the summary and the first chapter have already made me feel like I’m not going to like it all. Why? Well, the reason has little to do with this book and a lot to do with Sunday school. My current teacher is doing an overview of bible characters and stories and in addition to having us read from the bible, he’s also adding in information from lots of other sources like Josephus, the Talmud and Midrash, bits from Islamic tradition and there was a couple of weeks where we learned the beliefs of the Ethiopian Orthodox church. All well and good, except it means that I leave class most Sunday’s with a long list of stories that I’m not sure are biblical.

Part of the problem is that I’m not as well versed in my bible knowledge as I need to be, and I’m working on that. Another part of the problem is that this is a new church and I’m struggling to feel like I fit in and I don’t always feel comfortable asking questions…which, again, I’m working on. All that aside, there are times when I have a real problem when we take what the bible says and try to temper/augment that with other texts. When we say that this other story or other belief better explains than what is in the bible. Or instead of using the examples we’re given in the bible, we turn to something else that teaches us something different. Which, after reading the first chapter of The Circle Maker and it’s non-biblical tale of Honi, is something I’m worried about.

I don’t want to be close minded. I love learning and history and finding out new things and I believe that God is big enough to use all things to bring us closer to Him. But I also don’t want to follow along with something blindly without making an effort to hold it up to God’s word. So, in that vein, I’m going to be doing The Circle Maker study and blogging along, thinking about the problems I have with it and how the book does or does not line up with scripture.