How to Pray an Extreme Prayer (Deut 9.26-29)

I prayed to the LORD and said, “Lord GOD, do not destroy the people who are your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness, and their sin, otherwise the land from which you have brought us might say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.’ For they are the people of your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”

Deuteronomy 9.26-29

Background

This prayer is part of a remembrance of a famous event at Mt. Sinai. It is the story of the golden calf. Moses had ascended the mountain to receive God’s guidelines for His people. He was gone longer than the people thought he should be. They become restless and angry, and decide that other gods must have been responsible for their deliverance from Egypt. They made idols for these “gods” and began to worship them. God moved to destroy them and start again with Moses and his descendants as the new people of God. Moses begged Him to reconsider. After almost six weeks of prayer, God relented.

Meaning

The context of this passage is the giving of the Law to the people of Israel. It focuses on all that has happened to them and the history of God’s acts. Moses reminded them of this event at Mount Sinai and recalled the prayer that he offered for them.

First, Moses says that the people of God have been rebellious the entire time he has known them. If you are familiar with the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, you will likely agree. Though they are “God’s people,” they often rebelled against him, sometimes in offensive ways (such as the golden calf). While it is easy for us to look back at them and judge them with harshness, what if that sort of analysis was turned on us? Could we also be described the same way? Could Moses say to us, “you have been rebellious your entire life”? We may not have built golden calves to worship, but we have placed other things at the center and focus of our lives: career, self, money, loved ones, etc. Have we been faithful and subservient, never losing our focus on God?

Moses recalls that he “lay prostrate before the Lord” in prayer for forty days and forty nights, begging God not to destroy them. This is remarkable. Moses prayed for almost a month and a half! We can assume he stopped to eat and to sleep, but apart from that, he spent every moment in prayer. I find my mind drifting from prayer after more than five minutes! Perhaps we need to stretch our ability to pray for lengthy periods of time.

Finally, note that Moses’ extreme prayer is not for himself; it is on behalf of others. If God came to one of us and said, “I am going to build a new nation around you: you shall be the new figurehead of a people,” how many of us would say, “no, let’s keep working with the current set of ungrateful whiners”? Was this offer difficult for Moses to turn down? He had experienced plenty of frustrations of his own from the people: they had criticized him without mercy, too. Yet, he spends forty days and nights praying for these immature and self-centered people. It may tell us something about Moses—but what does it say about the nature of prayer?

With these three elements in mind, try engaging in an extended prayer time for someone else. Choose someone who you believe doesn’t deserve it, especially if they have been a bother and a frustration to you. Don’t begin by trying to pray for a month and a half. Instead, prayer without a break for ten or twenty minutes—longer than your typical session. The demands of our lives—jobs, children, living spaces—need attention and may make long prayer times difficult. But we should remember that our time with God is just as important as those other things in our lives. Of course, Moses’ lengthy prayer was during a severe crisis. The question we should ask ourselves is whether, outside of times of crisis, are we shortchanging our time talking to God?

Application

This week, try an extended time of prayer. Plan it ahead of time. Maybe you will try ten minutes one day, fifteen minutes the next, and so on. Adjust as necessary. Perhaps you can schedule a lengthy session every few days or once a week. Perhaps you do a longer session only on a weekend day, or on a day off. Decide when and where you will pray, inform your friends and family, shut off your phone and other distractions, and seek to explore what Moses experienced. 

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