Walking into tonight’s Torrey session, I was truly excited to hear what Mark Batterson had to say. In his earlier session, “The Shrewdness of a Snake and the Innocence of a Dove,” I was completely enthralled, and for that reason alone I was quite excited to listen to him again tonight. As I walked in and sat down in Crowell Hall, I realized I had no idea exactly why I was excited or what it was that Mark was going to be speaking about, but for some reason I thought that it was going to be good. And let me tell you, it was.

So many things were amazing about tonight’s talk on prayer. Personally, prayer has been a huge struggle for me. I’ve only recently started praying before meals. But, tonight the importance and the power that is held within prayer was revealed to me more so than ever.

“We have not because we ask not.” This was one among many of the quotes from Batterson that rang out to me. These few words were so convicting. For so many years I constantly wondered why the salvation of my father, which I so longed for, had not yet come, but I never fervently prayed. Tonight I realized that it’s through prayer and the power of the Spirit that these things come to fruition. Only recently have I stopped wishing and started wholeheartedly praying for the salvation of my dad.

During this session, I was overwhelmingly encouraged by the Spirit to continue praying, and through the stories of answered prayers that Batterson told, I felt as though God was showing me just what can be accomplished through a simple, honest prayer. Adding onto this, I came to the realization that no words I can say to my dad, no verse that I could show to him and no hope that I had for his salvation will ever accomplish what God could if I only put it in His hands.

Batterson also spoke on his specific prayer circle through the city of Washington D.C. Through this story, I saw just how important it is to listen for the prompting of the Spirit and to be intentional in acting on it. Throughout D.C., Mark stopped at five different locations to draw circles on the ground where he felt prompted by the Spirit. He had no idea what they could mean, but God did. The circles were drawn in front of a movie theater, a crack house and an $8 million piece of property. The theater is now the seventh location of their church plants, the run down crack house has become Ebenezer’s Coffehouse, a non-profit coffee shop started by the National Community Church in D.C. and the eight million dollar piece of property is a recent gift to the church.

The point of this story is that we don’t have to know, we only have to listen. God has the plan and when we listen to the prompting of the Spirit and act on that with prayer, things that we never thought imaginable will happen — from a seventh church plant to the salvation of a loved one, nothing is impossible. In the words of Batterson, “When you pray regularly, irregular things will happen on a more regular basis.”