The Beautiful Upset: WK2 - FRI
PRAYER AND POWER
Mark 9:25–29 (NLT) “Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with His disciples, they asked Him, ‘Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?’ Jesus replied, ‘This kind can be cast out only by prayer.’”
The week my daughter turned two, she became a tiny tornado. The terrible twos didn’t ease in, they slammed into our home like a storm front. I remember turning to my wife and saying, “I thought this was supposed to be gradual.”
So, I did what anxious parents do: I gathered techniques. Books, podcasts, workshops, five steps to raising responsible kids, one phrase that ends tantrums. I treated parenting like a problem to solve. But none of those scripts helped much when she melted down in the grocery store or battled bedtime for the third night in a row. In those moments, I wasn’t actually present with her, I was scrambling for the next method. I wanted a technique I could master.
What she needed was a father who would sit in the chaos. Someone who didn’t have all the answers but wouldn’t leave the room. The shortcut was believing I could engineer connection through the right strategies. The truth was that relationship required presence – showing up, staying with her, even when I felt powerless.
That’s exactly what Jesus means when He says, “This kind comes out only by prayer.”
He isn’t offering a technique. He’s calling us to dependence. Prayer isn’t about mastering a method; it’s about staying connected to the Father when the situation feels beyond us.
We often feel powerless because we live prayerless, not prayerless as in “never praying,” but prayerless as in treating prayer as supplemental instead of foundational. Prayer isn’t the power; God is. Prayer is the posture that opens us to His presence, the way we stay in the room with Him rather than rushing for the next shortcut.
Mark 9:25–29 (NLT) “Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with His disciples, they asked Him, ‘Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?’ Jesus replied, ‘This kind can be cast out only by prayer.’”
The week my daughter turned two, she became a tiny tornado. The terrible twos didn’t ease in, they slammed into our home like a storm front. I remember turning to my wife and saying, “I thought this was supposed to be gradual.”
So, I did what anxious parents do: I gathered techniques. Books, podcasts, workshops, five steps to raising responsible kids, one phrase that ends tantrums. I treated parenting like a problem to solve. But none of those scripts helped much when she melted down in the grocery store or battled bedtime for the third night in a row. In those moments, I wasn’t actually present with her, I was scrambling for the next method. I wanted a technique I could master.
What she needed was a father who would sit in the chaos. Someone who didn’t have all the answers but wouldn’t leave the room. The shortcut was believing I could engineer connection through the right strategies. The truth was that relationship required presence – showing up, staying with her, even when I felt powerless.
That’s exactly what Jesus means when He says, “This kind comes out only by prayer.”
He isn’t offering a technique. He’s calling us to dependence. Prayer isn’t about mastering a method; it’s about staying connected to the Father when the situation feels beyond us.
We often feel powerless because we live prayerless, not prayerless as in “never praying,” but prayerless as in treating prayer as supplemental instead of foundational. Prayer isn’t the power; God is. Prayer is the posture that opens us to His presence, the way we stay in the room with Him rather than rushing for the next shortcut.
- How would you describe your prayer life right now?
- Where do you feel spiritually powerless—and how might prayer reshape that?
- What simple step could you take today to deepen your dependence on God?
By Andreas Beccai
Crosswalk Redlands
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