Prayer Passion #8 — Open Heavens
OK, pick a number, any number. What was the number? Did you pick a number between 1-10? Did you pick a number between 1-100. If anyone picked a number over a million, please respond to this and let me know! It isn’t always our first inclination to think big, is it?
In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated Google while still grad students at Stanford University. According to Fortune Small Business Magazine, Internet users perform over 150 million searches a day on the Google Search Engine. Google can access over two billion pages in 74 different languages. One study recently showed that Google users used the search engine 13 million hours in one month. How did they get so big? I don’t fully know the answer that question, but here’s what I do know…it started with their vision. The word Google comes from a mathematical term that is the #1 followed by 100 zeroes. Did you pick google as your number?
While most people are likely to pick a number like 3, or 27 or maybe 79. Page decided to pick a 1 with 100 zeroes. Jim Reese, chief operations engineer of Google says this about the company’s founders:
It takes a lot of confidence and courage to go ahead and …[be huge]. It’s rare to find people who think on such a grand scale and are also able to create a great product at the same time.
Last week as Lynn and I were prayer-walking on Penn State’s campus, I felt like God wanted us to expand our vision — help us pray huge. So as we sat in front of Eisenhower auditorium, I started praying that God would fill it. As we wandered amongst the science labs, Lynn started praying for a revival among the scientists, that they would come to know and love the Creator. When we got the Creamery we prayed…that the ice cream would be free… just kidding.
The great American philosopher, Forrest Gump, said one time, “When somebody says to you, ‘I am here to help you’, hang on to your wallet.” Well, let me tell you to hang on to your wallet, because I want to help us pray huge for Penn State University. I want to help us expand our vision… actually not so much our vision of what we can do, or even our vision how much might happen, but ultimately our vision of God.
In Malachi 3:10-12, these words are written…
Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.
Now these words are not specifically about prayer, but it contains a picture that describes what we are hoping for as we spend 21 Days of Prayer for Penn State. It’s the picture of “open heavens.” We long for God to hear us and respond. We long for Him to pour out His blessings. Imagine what it would be like to live under “open heavens.”