Big Hairy Audacious Prayers!

By Aly Yohn

Matt. 17:20-21- He replied, “…Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Several years ago I had the opportunity to travel to Michigan with my husband for a conference where he was going to be the keynote speaker for the day. I love to do that! I just love that man. I love listening to him teach and looking around the room and seeing the looks on people’s faces in the moment when a light bulb turns on and they finally just “get” something! He has that way about him. It’s a gift from God and has been a blessing and a huge help to people all over the world!

Well, he was teaching that day on some kind of real estate stuff, and at first I was just watching to see people’s responses but then it hit me: God was using him to speak to them about business, but at the same time he was actually speaking to me about prayer!

Ricky was talking that day about an author named Jim Collins. Collins has written many leadership and business books, one of which was called Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. In Built to Last he talks about something that all these great companies have in common: a BHAG.

So you might be wondering, what on earth is a BHAG? And why on earth should you care? Well a BHAG is a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. Sounds a bit odd, I know! It’s a goal that is so big, so hairy, so audacious that it seems impossible or almost impossible to achieve! And according to Collins, the great companies all seem to have it in common. Their leaders have so bought into a goal or dream that they are able to carry it on to greatness! They envision something great, often decades (10–30 years) before it even could come to pass! These companies see things happen that wouldn’t happen ordinarily.

Maybe you’ll recognize a few of these BHAG examples:

Amazon: Every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds
Disney: Be the best company in the world for all fields of family entertainment.
Microsoft: A computer on every desk and in every home.
Google: Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful
And one of my personal favorites…
JFK’s Moon Challenge: This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth

Those were ALL crazy ideas once upon a time! And now obviously, we know that they all succeeded, or at least are close to completion.

As I sat there listening that day, I was mesmerized! I wondered if anyone could see it on my face? As he spoke, it began to come together in my mind that perhaps what God wants from us is not for someone to call out a BHAG, but maybe a BHAP- yep, you guessed it- BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS PRAYERS!

I couldn’t help but feel like God was telling me to stop praying my tiny, wimpy prayers, and to turn to something that was worth his time! Something that would show what He was made of!

I wondered if some of my prayers had been like asking Michael Jordan to dunk on one of those plastic Little Tykes basketball hoops. Or if perhaps God felt like some of my prayers were like me asking Mario Andretti to drive one of those little pink Barbie cars from Wal-Mart? I wondered if maybe all along God was thinking, “Come on! Ask me for something real! Let’s go big! Let’s go HUGE! Let me show you who I am! Let me AWE YOU!”

Nehemiah 9:6 says, “You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.”

Wow! We serve the creator of the universe! The All-Powerful, All-Knowing God who is ABLE to do anything! I needed to start praying like that!

That day in the conference room, I told God that day that I wanted to start praying BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS PRAYERS that were worthy of His power and might! I wanted to pray prayers that were so big I couldn’t make them happen myself! Prayers that were so huge that they could not happen without His intervention. I wanted to see God’s power and might. I wanted to see God’s hand move.

No more, “Please be with the missionaries in Uganda.” Nope! Now it was “Lord, YOU ARE HUGE AND MIGHTY! Let’s wipe out Aids in Africa! Lord, I pray that you would put a Bible in every single child’s hand in Uganda! Lord, I cry out to you because of who YOU are! I pray that you would wash over that entire African continent! No more war, no more genocide! Go big God! Send your angel armies!”

No more “Please bless TJ” (our son who struggles with kidney disease), It was going to be, “Lord, in your GREAT POWER AND MIGHT, give TJ another chance at life! Bless him in a huge way! Give him a long, long life on this earth! Give him new kidneys! Or make those shriveled up kidneys inside him come to life again! Give him your best, Lord! Please, Lord!”

I always wonder what God is thinking in those moments when he hears prayers like that. Yes, he does care about my little prayers, like “please let me make every light so we’re not late for school again.”

But I do wonder what he thinks when we pray those big prayers. “Lord, I pray for
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Ahmadinejad was the very evil leader of Iran until last year.) I pray for his salvation and a huge conversion or that you would remove him from power!” I wonder if in those moments God is thinking, “OKAY!!! NOW we’re talking! Stand back and watch! GO BIG OR GO HOME!”

I want to tell you another story: For 10 years Rick and I prayed that God would give us somewhere to live that could be a huge blessing to the missionaries in our lives. You see we have many missionaries who come and stay with us and they have always been so kind about staying in our basement and eating with us, but we knew that it would be better if missionaries and their families had somewhere, even if very small, to just get away to relax and renew with their family all by themselves. So we started praying that God would give us something like that. I shared all kinds of great ideas with Him.

We prayed about it for a very long time, and we watched. About 6 years ago I saw a house come on the market that was WAY out of our price range- literally 4 times too much! I saw it and thought to myself, “Wow! That would be an AWESOME home for ministry!” But I never, ever, even in my wildest dreams thought God would give it to us.

I watched the price fall for 3 years on that home and one day I decided to drive by and look at it. It had a pond to fish in, a pool, a barn and plenty of acres for walking paths and benches to sit and pray on. I told God I thought it would be a great idea for our ministry. Then I told my husband, but he was not totally convinced. I took him out to look at it and his first gut instinct was, “Not a chance!”

It was decorated with all kinds of weird things inside. I kept telling him that the bones were good and that God could use it for great things. His response was that it was still, even after the price drop, FAR too expensive for us. I agreed. So I asked him to pray with me- that if that was God’s house for us that He would give it to us. Rick was all about that! He agreed. So then we prayed that God would give us a number to offer on that house. And if indeed God intended us to have it, I told him I believed we would get it.

So we prayed for several days and came up with a number in our minds. We called the realtor and made the offer and told him it was as high as we could go. The owner’s response was, “Not a chance.” And so we thought it was over. God’s answer was no. I told Rick I would let it go and start looking at other properties. But whenever the house would come up Rick would just say, “Pray about it.” So I did. I prayed for many, many weeks. If the house came to mind again, I just prayed! Sometimes when we have big prayers, even if it looks like God is not going to answer the way you intend or want, you just need to persevere and keep praying! (We’ll talk more about that tomorrow).

Fast forward about 8 weeks. One night in the middle of the night I just could not sleep. I kept tossing and turning until Rick finally said, “What is up with you?” I told him I could not stop thinking about that house. He seemed quite bugged at my tossing and suggested I just get up and write the realtor and find out if it had sold yet. So I did. That was about 2 am. At about 7:30 in the morning I got an email from the realtor, basically saying, our timing was incredible! He said that the woman who owned it had just decided she was done and wanted to sell it immediately. He said that if we were still serious we should go back out that day and make an offer.

I’m sure you can imagine my shock and excitement! I told Rick and he said, “Well, if she is ready to take 29 cents on the dollar (which is what we could afford), go for it. Knock yourself out, Aly. Go ahead, say a prayer and re-offer.” So we prayed together. “Lord, if this is your will for us to get this house, we pray she will take this offer as is!” It was a ridiculously huge prayer request! That we could purchase a home WAY over our price range, for just 29 cents on the dollar! It was a huge prayer! A Big, Hairy, Audacious Prayer!

So we made the ridiculously low offer that we could afford, and told her she had three hours to decide. It was our max; we wouldn’t be countering or negotiating. The realtor told us there were two other parties who were going to make offers as well. You can imagine our shock when the realtor called back just about an hour later and said, “She accepted.” Big, huge prayers for a big, huge and mighty God! We were AWED! The home was way nicer than we had ever imagined, envisioned or even dreamed of!

Now to Him, who is ABLE, to do immeasurably, (exceedingly, abundantly) more than we could ask or imagine, to Him, be the glory!

The exciting thing is, we envisioned the home for missionaries, but God had envisioned it for so much more. Last year, we had literally more than 1,200 people come through our home for ministry events. I tell you that not so that we look special, but so that you can see how God can use anything! And how His plans are even greater than ours!

Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God’s thoughts and ways are higher than mine and his time frame was different too! We always seem to want instant gratification, and sometimes have trouble patiently waiting on answers, but God’s timing is always perfect!

And God’s plans are ALWAYS greater than ours! He can DO anything! He can do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine! And I believe He wants to bless us so that we can be a blessing!

Think it through:

Do you believe that God is truly ABLE to do anything? Have you been making wimpy requests or are you praying God-sized requests?

What do you need to bring to God today that is a BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS request?

What is something within your family or extended family that could never happen in your life without a radical intervention from God?

Now think WAY outside you and your family. What nation could you be praying for that is desperate for a God intervention?

In Matthew 7:20–21, we hear Jesus tell the disciples that they could not cast out a demon because they had such little faith, but that if they had faith as small as a mustard seed they could literally move a mountain! I regularly pray, “Lord, grow my faith! Forgive me in my unbelief!” I want to see God for who He really is! And I want God to grow my vision of him every single day! Whether you’ve been a believer for 10 weeks or 50+ years, I encourage you today to cry out, “Lord, grow my faith! Forgive me in my unbelief!” And stand back and see what He will do!

Here’s the bottom line:

When we ask, we receive. When we see answers to prayer, it grows our faith. When our faith grows, we pray bigger and bolder prayers because we grow our image of who God is! And I think God loves those prayers! It says we are beginning to understand the scope of what He can do!

God loves when we pray big, bold, audacious prayers that only He can answer! What will your prayer be today?

2 Responses to “Big Hairy Audacious Prayers!

  • Thank you for sharing your story with your house. It was a great encouragement to read and a great motivation to pray and to have great expectations from God.
    May God bless your ministry.
    Bela Dobos
    Missionary with
    Word of Life Hungary

  • margie Herbert
    3 years ago

    Hi there. I was just told by a friend that I should pray big, audacious prayers. I have been praying for 6 months that my husband of 30 years, who walked out on me in August, would come back. Sadly, he is now pushing for a divorce with no chance of reconciliation and I have all but given up on my marriage. While I am very distraught over all of this, I recognize that it needed to happen.

    I was angry with God for 5 years, mockingly angry and so done with Him. During this time I was chased down by God through the work of several friends, some I did not know before Randy left me. I was the 1 for whom he left the 99. At the beginning of the ordeal, I had a vision of Randy and me coming back together and Randy becoming a minister. He spoke of it in passing a few times over the years, but he was Baptist and I was Catholic and that was not going to happen as long as that were true. Since my turn back to faith I have spent my time at a nondenominational church that I love. Truth be known, I wanted to do that for a long time before my 5 year hiatus from God, but my stubbornness (and a little bit of ugly selfishness) kept me from making the move.

    I am meeting with Rand this weekend to discuss our property settlements, but it is not what I want and I don’t feel it is right. I’m not totally convinced that it is truly what he wants either. There is something he is not doing or saying that makes me feel that way. I have prayed, with my face on the floor, a breakthrough prayer sequence from Rick Warren. I thought I was praying big and audacious. Is just asking God to reunite us not big enough? I prayed a little about the whole ministry thing. Should I start focusing on that? Right now I am trying to get in to nursing school and that is as far as I can see. I feel I am floundering and grasping. My friends say it is time to give up. My prayer mentor says no! My husband’s uncle says no! Keep going! I’m so confused. Please offer any insight you may have. Thank you. I loved reading this piece and it has encouraged me to keep praying for my marriage, but maybe in a bigger way?

    Thank you in advance for your time and attention.

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