Climb The Watchtower

I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost.

Habakkuk 2:1 NLT

Watchtowers served a variety of purposes in ancient culture — as built-in defense systems in the walls of ancient cities, as built-in pastures so shepherds could protect their flocks from wild animals, and as built-in vineyards for protection from thieves. Watchmen would climb into their watchtower, station themselves at their guardpost, and scan the horizon for enemy armies or trading caravans. The watchmen were the first to see, and they saw the farthest. So it is with those who pray. Intercessors are watchmen and watchwomen. They see sooner and see farther in the spiritual realm. Why? Because prayer gives us a unique vantage point.

My watchtower is Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse. I love praying on the rooftop because I’m praying on top of an answered prayer. I often climb the ladder, pop the hatch, and pace back and forth in prayer. It’s hard not to pray with faith when we pray in a place where God has already done a miracle.

I wonder if that is how Elijah felt as he prayed for rain on top of Mount Carmel.^a God had just answered an impossible prayer on that very mountain. Elijah defeated the 450 prophets^b of Baal in a sudden-death showdown on Mount Carmel. The God who sent fire can certainly send rain, right? That miracle gave Elijah the faith he needed to pray hard. And that is one of the by-products of answered prayer. It gives us the faith to believe God for bigger and better miracles. With each answered prayer, we draw bigger prayer circles. With each act of faithfulness, it increases our faith. With each promise kept, it increases our persistence quotient.

Geography and spirituality are not unrelated. That’s why the Israelites built memorials in places of spiritual significance. During seasons of repentance, they would often return to those ancient altars to renew their covenant with God.

I have to believe that David revisited more than once the battlefield where he defeated Goliath. That Abraham made a pilgrimage back to the thicket where God provided a ram. That Peter rowed out to the place on the Sea of Galilee where he walked on water — and it renewed his faith. That Paul built a personal altar on the road to Damascus where God knocked him off his high horse. And that Zacchaeus let his grandkids climb the sycamore-fig tree where he had gotten his first glimpse of Jesus.

Going back to places of spiritual significance should be part of our spiritual rhythm. I occasionally go back to the cow pasture in Alexandria, Minnesota, where I felt called to ministry. I go back to the chapel balcony at my alma mater where I learned to pray. I go back to the places that remind me of God’s faithfulness because they renew my faith.

For that reason, and a hundred others, where we pray is not insignificant. The Israelites pitched the tent of meeting outside the camp for a reason. Jesus prayed on mountains, by water, and in gardens for a reason. We need to find a place where we are free from distraction, where we get good reception, where we can focus, and where our faith is strong.

Prayer Targets

One ancient translation of Habakkuk 2:1 reads, “I will stand upon my watch,^c and station me within a circle.” This Scripture inspired Honi to draw a circle in the sand and pray for rain. Honi stationed himself within the circle by kneeling inside it and praying the prayer that saved a generation: “Lord of the universe, I swear before Your great name that I will not move from this circle until You have shown mercy upon Your children.” Honi was willing to die within that circle!

Once again, there is nothing magical about circling something in prayer, but there is something biblical about it. There are times when we have to mark God’s territory. We have to pray a perimeter around a promise God has put in our heart. We have to be willing to go in and not come out until God answers.

Doing so can take a hundred different forms. Let me share a few examples.

I recently spoke at the weekly prayer meeting at Christ Tabernacle in Queens, New York. Michael and Maria Durso founded Christ Tab, a daughter church of Brooklyn Tabernacle, nearly three decades ago. Their three sons, Adam, Jordan, and Chris, are on the pastoral staff, and they are one of the most anointed families I’ve ever met. This anointing is a testament to the power of prayer because all three boys were prodigals as teenagers. At times, it seemed as though their sons were lost beyond lost, but Michael and Maria would not stop fasting and praying for them. They literally purchased a shooting target, wrote their boys’ names on the bull’s-eye, and kept aiming their intercessions at their boys. That target was a tangible way of drawing a circle around them. It took years of circling, and they experienced seasons of discouragement, but one by one their boys came back to Christ.

One footnote.

When Michael and Maria were in their twenties, they were as far from God as a person can get. They lived from drug fix to drug fix, and they mocked anything remotely religious. They were on vacation when Maria mysteriously came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. She wasn’t in church. She wasn’t listening to a preacher. She wasn’t reading a Bible. The conviction came out of nowhere. What she didn’t know is that thirty of her friends had gotten saved after she and Michael had left for vacation. The moment she came under conviction was the same moment that her friends formed a prayer circle and started interceding for her!

One more footnote.

For many years, the Dursos prayed for a youth group. What they didn’t realize is that the youth group was right under their noses. They were raising the youth pastors in their own home. One day, God gave Adam a vision of young people lined up to get into their youth ministry the way people line up to get into nightclubs. Adam started a youth ministry, and Chris now leads it. And hundreds of kids line up around the block on Friday nights to get in.

Circle It

Since the release of The Circle Maker, I’ve heard amazing stories of the circles people are praying around the promises and promptings God is putting in their hearts.

The longest prayer circle may be a two-thousand-mile prayer drive around six New England states by my friend Josh Gagnon, who pastors Next Level Church. After reading about my 4.7-mile prayer walk around Capitol Hill, he felt compelled to pray a perimeter around their Promised Land. The five days that he and several staff members spent singing and praying in that car was such a powerful experience that they are making it an annual tradition at the beginning of every new year.

The most unique prayer circle happened right in my backyard. I don’t necessarily prescribe it, but let me describe it. Through a dream and a prophetic word, a group of intercessors felt led to bury three thousand Bibles around the seventy-two-mile Beltway that encircles Washington, D.C. Armed with shovels and backpacks filled with Bibles, they circled the city over the course of ten nights and planted the Bibles in the ground forty paces apart. They second-guessed it more than once, but the Lord kept confirming it. Just as Ezekiel built siege works^d as a prophetic picture or sacred sign, they planted Bibles to stake claim to the nation’s capital.

Let me repeat, there is nothing magical about circling. It honestly doesn’t matter whether it’s literal or figurative. And it can be a circle, oval, square, or hexagon. The shape isn’t the point. The point is this: if the Holy Spirit prompts us to pray, then we need to take a step of faith and mark God’s territory.

Going back to places of spiritual significance can help us find our way forward again.