The Price Is Right

I hate to admit it, but I was once addicted to The Price Is Right. It was the summer before my sophomore year of high school, and I did not have my drivers license yet, so I found myself waking up every day at 10:00 a.m. and turning on the television to the words, “Come on down! You’re the next contestant on the Price Is Right.” Little did I know my hours of watching that show over the summer would years later pay off. Let me explain.

Our former College Pastor had a vision of God on the Price Is Right the moment before the announcer was going to call the next contestant. When he shared this vision with me, the Lord began to speak to me. Because of my vast knowledge of the game show, I couldn’t get over the profound picture this vision gave us of God. If you’ve ever seen the show, you know how it works. There are the host Bob Barker and the announcer Rod Roddy. The show is based around guessing the price on certain items; whoever guesses the closest price without going over the real price gets to proceed. But before the game begins, Rod Roddy picks out a random name from the audience to play. Right before he reads the name, the entire crowd is on the edge of their seats. Each one of them is thinking, “Come on, pick me! This is it! I know I’m going to get called!” Many of the audience members are wearing t-shirts that say something like, “I love Bob Barker” or “Jones’ Family Reunion” or “It’s My Birthday Today.” Then Rod Roddy announces in dramatic fashion the next contestant, “Jill Johnson, come on down! You’re the next contestant on the Price is Right!” The camera then begins frantically scanning the audience for Jill Johnson. It’s obvious who she is, for you can always tell who the next contestant is because he or she is the one standing up, screaming, looking completely foolish. Then Jill stands up, still screaming of course, gives some high fives and runs down the aisle to the front. In my entire summer of watching the show, I cannot remember one time it didn’t happen like that. Not one person, when her name was called, casually got up from her chair and began to calmly stroll down the aisle to the front like it was no big deal.

That was the vision our College Pastor had – God on the Price is Right. Can you see it? There’s God, on the edge of His seat, excited and eager to be called on. Psalm 145:18 says,

The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.

It’s crucial we catch this concept. God is eager to show up when we call on Him. I’ve been in prayer meetings where I wasn’t sure we really believed God wanted to show up. We somehow believed our job was to convince God to do something He really didn’t want to. We thought our job was to twist God’s arm to get Him to respond and send revival. We would cry out to God but were never certain if God would respond or not. That’s not God. God wants to show up in response to our prayers even more than we want Him to show up!

I feel at times that much of the repentance happening in prayer meetings is not true biblical repentance but is instead a wrong understanding of the character of God. I’ve been in prayer meetings where all we’ve done is repent. We’ve spent the entire time in repentance, and that was the extent of our prayer time. The entire prayer meeting consisted of telling God how sorry we were for being sinners and how sorry we were that all the people in our city were sinners. Please hear me; I am not opposed to repentance. I believe in it with all my heart, but not when it’s motivated by a wrong concept of God. I began to realize one of the main reasons we were repenting was that we didn’t think God wanted to show up. Somehow we had a concept of a God in Heaven who was disgusted with us and our sinful condition, and the last thing He wanted to do was show up in the middle of such a sinful group. As if God was in Heaven not wanting to come down because He needed to prove the point that He was not happy with us. So if we could just let God know we were really, really, really sorry, perhaps He would feel bad enough for us and show up even though He didn’t want to.

But this isn’t the God we are praying to. God is eager to show up and loves to respond to our genuine and truthful prayers. I’m not saying we shouldn’t deal with sin in our lives and get rid of things that grieve the heart of God. We can’t live any life we want and then expect God to show up when we pray. What I am saying is the Father heart of God, even when we aren’t perfect, longs to respond to our cries. God so wants to respond to our prayers, He confronts those issues in our lives hindering His Presence.

God is on the edge of His seat in Heaven just waiting for someone to call His name. His heart is burning with passion for cities like San Francisco and other cities in the earth and He longs for His Church to catch the vision of His eagerness and willingness to come. God is being stirred by the cry being released throughout the earth by the current prayer movement. Again, I can see Him in Heaven. I’m sure He’s on the edge of His seat eagerly waiting for us to declare, “God, come on down!” He’s got His t-shirt on that says, “I love My Church” and when the Church calls Him, He jumps out of His seat screaming for joy. He looks at the angels gathered around His throne and says, “They called Me, and I’m going down!” Perhaps He even gives some of the angels high fives on His way down.

This is why the vision so gripped me. We are praying to a God who is eager to show up. Realizing we don’t have to convince God to show up but that we just have to call on Him and He’ll come, let’s begin to give ourselves to night and day prayer. All over the world, God is placing believers who have this revelation and are calling on Him in families, businesses, campuses, neighborhoods, and cities. The amazing thing is God finds our cries irresistible. God set this whole thing up like a family.

One of the stunning revelations Jesus taught us is we can relate to God as a Father the same way Jesus related to Him as a Father. The implications of this truth are staggering. I have three little kids, and as a father, I understand the power of my children’s cries. Bobby Conner, a great prophet friend to Bethel, prophesied over my first child when she was still in the womb. He told us we needed to pay attention to some of the first words she would speak because they would be prophetic. She was a little over a year old, and as new parents, we had gotten into the habit of allowing her to come into our room and sleep in our bed when she would cry at 2:00 am. After a few months of having a foot in my back all night and not getting solid sleep, we decided to move her back into her crib to sleep all night long there. Being rookie parents, we began to ask around to find out how to best go about this transition. Almost everyone we talked to told us we needed to let her cry it out when she woke up in the middle of the night. They informed us it might take a few nights of her crying for extended periods of time, but eventually she would learn to go back to sleep on her own and sleep in her room all night. So we prepared to go for it and began to gear ourselves up for the extended nights of crying. We set aside three days where we knew we could devote ourselves to this process. The first night rolled around and sure enough, right around 2:00 am she began to cry. I walked into her room, told her I loved her and that she was a big girl now, and walked out of the room as she screamed at the top of her lungs. I walked into our room, turned on the lights, and told my wife we must stick this out and not give in. About ten minutes into this ordeal, my little girl began to do something she had never done before. In the midst of her loud tears she began to yell, “Da Da, Da Da!” I began to melt in my bed. My little girl needed me! How could I sit her in bed when my girl obviously needed her daddy. I turned to my wife and said something to the effect of, “I cannot believe you are making her sleep in her room. I am going to get her. She needs me!” I walked into her room, picked her up, and told her she could sleep with us forever!

God the Father finds the cries of His children irresistible. It’s how He set it all up. This is why the cry of a surrendered child of God is so powerful. It moves all of Heaven because it touches the heart of the Father. He’s on the edge of His seat just waiting for His children to lift up their voice and call on their Daddy. Who knew my hours spent watching the Price is Right that summer would eventually pay off.