The Family Disciple Me Podcast // Discipleship Starts With a Conversation

Facedown Forty: A Personal Challenge to Pray for Our People

• Tosha Williams for FDM • Season 5 • Episode 5

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Are you ready to pray through some strongholds and witness miraculous breakthroughs in your life and family? I (Tosha Williams) sure am! Join me on a transformative 40-day journey of prayer and intercession, inspired by a powerful story from the book of Deuteronomy. 

In this episode, I talk about a recent moment when God spoke to me about the need for deeper, more committed prayer, modeled after Moses' 40 days and nights of face-down intercession. We'll dive into the significance of Moses' unwavering dedication to seeking God's redemption, and extend an invitation for you to join the "Facedown Forty" challenge. Let's get serious about our prayer lives and commit to pray in a more intentional way than ever before! 

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The Family Disciple Me ministry exists to catalyze devotion driven discipleship in our homes and around the world. We believe that discipleship starts with a conversation, and FDM provides free, easily-accessible, biblical resources to encourage these meaningful conversations along life's way. Sign up through our website to be "the first to know" about upcoming releases and resources (including the FDM App - coming soon!!!) You can also follow Family Disciple Me on social media.

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Speaker 1:

I was spending time with the Lord a few days ago and I was in the book of Deuteronomy when the Spirit of God highlighted something to me and gave me an invitation that has struck me to my core. It's an invitation that I know he has for me personally, but I also feel like it's an invitation that I am to extend to you. How do you pray? How do you intercede? What does your prayer life look like? If you're like me, I am certain that you pray, and yet the invitation that I heard from the Lord was an invitation to go deeper, to go lower, to fall face down, and not just face down every once in a while or on special occasions, but face down for 40 days and nights, face down, seeking His redemption. Face down, seeking for breakthroughs from strongholds. Face down in agreement with Him for His purposes, in our lives and relationships and specifically in the lives of those who have wandered away from Him, are prodigals or have rejected Him. If that intrigues you just a little bit, well then stick around. I'm going to cue the intro, then I'll be right back to share with you what I felt like the Lord showed me and invite you into the journey with me. This is the journey of Face Down 40. Hi, my name is Tasha Williams and this is the Family Disciple Me podcast. In this particular episode, I want to share with you something that God has personally laid on my heart. The Family Disciple Me ministry also has regular podcasts that include conversation content that we encourage you to use to seek Him, speak Him in your own life. But in this particular episode, I'd like to share with you just a little bit of my journey and invite you in. Thanks for joining me. A few days ago, after a week of less than spectacular sleep, I finally awakened refreshed. It was dark, but I was ready to get out from underneath my covers before the sun slipped out from behind its own covers. I made my coffee, grabbed my Bible and phone and settled onto my favorite couch, turning on my phone flashlight. I opened the Word to my next chapter in Deuteronomy, where I've been doing my devotions, and I began to do what I always try to do with God's word, and that is seek him. And there, in the pre-dawn stillness, I heard God speak. Hours later, even days later. Now, his voice keeps reverberating with this invitation, one that I believe is for me personally, as well as one that's for me to share with you. This invitation is a call to prayer, a call to what I felt like the Lord himself named a face down 40. Now the background for this is the book of Deuteronomy.

Speaker 1:

Deuteronomy is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It is a book in which Moses retells the story of his journey with ancient Israel. I love this book because, to me, it is so absolutely crystal clear for the people of God. In Deuteronomy, moses reminds the Israelites of their high highs and their low lows, their incredible moments and their abysmal failures. He reminds them of everything God told them to do, of how God wanted them to obey him and seek his blessings, and how God was going to discipline them if they chose not to obey him. In this book of Deuteronomy we find one of the passages that really is a foundation for the family disciple me ministry, where, in chapter six, moses encouraged the people of God to love him with all their hearts, souls, mind and strength, and then to impress these truths upon their children, to talk about them when they sat at home and when they walked along the road, when they went to bed and when they got up. So much truth is in the book of Deuteronomy, but on this particular day a few mornings ago, the truth that God had for me was found specifically in chapters 9 and 10. And in this we get to journey with the Israelites in yet another part of their story and learn from it or not when we arrive with them. To these chapters 9 and 10,.

Speaker 1:

Moses describes how he was up on the mountaintop watching God inscribe with his own finger the original Ten Commandments. For 40 days and 40 nights he was in God's presence. What an unspeakable privilege. At the end of that otherworldly 40 days, god told him to go on down the mountain and check on his people. Well, along the way, god showed him how sinful, stubborn and quote stiff-necked end quote the Israelites were Instead of doing what God had already commanded them. Their attitudes and their behaviors were so egregious that God was about to destroy the lot of them. Moses went down the mountain to investigate, and well, he found how terribly true God's word was.

Speaker 1:

Moses' immediate reaction probably wasn't so great. He shattered the Ten Commandments that God's own finger had written. That probably wasn't the best thing to do, but then his next response made me pause. Next response made me pause. Moses' response was I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights. Thing is, god responded to Moses' face-down intercession, as Moses later recorded. Quote again the Lord listened to me on that occasion. Quote again the Lord listened to me on that occasion. He wrote the Lord was angry enough with my brother Aaron to destroy him, but I prayed for Aaron that time also. And then, a paragraph later, we read I fell down in the presence of the Lord 40 days and 40 nights because the Lord had threatened to destroy you. I prayed to the Lord. Then, in the next chapter, we read in chapter 10, verse 10, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. Like the first time, the Lord also listened to me on this occasion.

Speaker 1:

As I sat there that morning pondering this scripture in the wee morning hours, I asked God what he was saying to me through his word, and in that moment he responded to me with a question Tasha, do you take prayer for your people as seriously as Moses did? I know the truth of the answer to that question. I pray and pray and pray, but face down, hands and knees, intense prayer for 40 days and 40 nights. Intercession of the deepest, most urgent level. Maybe, maybe sometimes, but probably, truthfully, mostly not. And yet thing is, the warfare is thick. The list of prodigals to pray for is growing. The urgency of bringing them back home to Jesus from the gates of hell it's more pressing now than ever. I pray for all of these. Yes, I do, and I would bet that you're praying for all these in your own life as well.

Speaker 1:

However, the invitation I heard from the Lord was go deeper, go lower, go face down, and not just every once in a while, but for the next 40 days and 40 nights. And so, for me, I began leaning into this a few days ago. On Sunday morning, I set aside my pride and I kneeled during worship at church. That evening, I knelt face down in prayer, praying specifically for prodigals. Today, I make my way to the closet, out of the way of all the noise and motion of my household, to kneel before the Lord, god who etches commandments on stone, and Christ on hearts, christ on hearts. Tonight I'll kneel again. Already, I feel the powers of hell tapping on my shoulder to distract me, whispering in my ear that none of my other prayers have succeeded, reminding me of all the ways I've failed.

Speaker 1:

None of these accusations are the end of the story, though, because the success of prayer and intercession, well, it's not in my control, it's not in my efforts or about my achievements. The success of prayer is coming alongside the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and spending time in his presence and seeking his heart about those he has entrusted to me, seeking his power and his authority for their lives. This is what Moses did for the people of Israel, and he wrote in scripture that God listened to him. This is also what Job did in scripture for his children. I'm not sure if he did face down 40 in the evenings, but the Bible says that he would rise up early in the morning and he would intercede for his children. So for whom is God calling you to intercede? I know who he's calling me to intercede for. Some of these are family members. Some of these are precious ones that belong to my friends. Some of these are people that I know and that I've been in relationship with, who've walked away from the Lord.

Speaker 1:

For all of these, for this list that matters so much to me and matters even more, a million times more, to the heart of God, I believe that God has called me to face down 40, to literally get on my hands and knees and bring their names before the God of the universe every morning and every night. I know that's kind of strange. I know face down 40 isn't a normal invitation and yet if you feel the Spirit of God speaking to your heart through this, I invite you to join me. In fact, would you join me and send me a message? You can email me at Tasha, at FamilyDiscipleMeorg, or send a message through the Family Disciple Me social media.

Speaker 1:

It is so much better for us to gather together and do this prayer journey in unity, going to the steps of the throne room on behalf of the people that God has entrusted to us, and doing it persistently, consistently, intentionally. Face down 40. That's what God has for me in this season. I would love to journey with you, together in this. So here's your invitation. I'm sharing it with you.

Speaker 1:

Let's pray down some strongholds, let's break through some barriers, let's fight the enemy for the lives of those people that God has entrusted to us. Let's be willing to go to the gates of hell and do some serious spiritual warfare, because we believe in the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and we want to see the captives set free in Jesus' name. Oh God, may you give us the faith to join you in prayer and intercession, like Moses did. His immediate reaction, his immediate reaction was to fall face down on behalf of those that he loved and cared about. May we do the same.

Speaker 1:

God of heaven, may you hear and answer our prayers for our loved ones as surely as you heard Moses' prayer. We give you our lives, we give you the next 40 days, we give you our praise, we give you our thanks. We look forward to what you're going to do, how you're going to defeat the enemy and how you're going to bring the prodigal home. To bring the prodigal home and not just the prodigal, the prodigals plural. You win, and we look forward to seeing that, for your glory, for our good and for the good of all those that you've entrusted to us. Amen. Now, friend, if you're with me in this, let's go face down, be encouraged. I can't wait to hear the stories of what God does and share a few of my own. God bless.