Ask & You Shall Receive #14:
How to Pray When Your Life is on the Line

On June 23, 2013, our brother in Christ, Nik Wallenda, established a new world record by being the first person to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope (actually a wire cable) without a safety net or tether. We watched the whole event with a strange combination of great suspense and spiritual joy as history was being made by a man who boldly and unashamedly bore public witness to the Living Christ while performing this incredible feat.

One of the things which impressed me about Nik is he has been taught — and taught very well, I might add! — how to pray effectively. As we watched, I thought to myself, “Self, I wish every believer could/would pray the same way. They’d sure get a lot more of their prayers answered!”

I’ve already taught on the spiritual authority over nature and the powers of darkness — never God! — which every born-again believer has in Christ through His finished work of the Cross, so I’m not going to get into that again because I feel I got that right the first time and you can read that at your leisure.

The Event

What I want to do in this article is have you play the publicly available video footage of Nik’s feat and then makes some brief comments afterward​. Here is a video showing the highlights of this spectacular achievement:

If the video will not play for you within this page, you can view it by clicking the following link: Highlights of Nik Wallenda Crossing the Grand Canyon on YouTube

My Comments

• There appears to be no doubt in his mind his prayers would be answered. His trust in the promises of God and the God of the Word was absolute, or he would never have set foot on that wire.
• There was no vagueness in his prayers. On the contrary, he was extremely specific about what he was asking for. There was no “God, please be with me” as so many spiritually-flabby, anemic-in-prayer believers tend to pray because Nik knew his God was already with him and in him on that wire. God is already “with” — indeed, inside! — every believer, so praying for God to be with him would be an expression of unbelief, not faith. Nik asked for — and received — what he wanted from God.
• There was no wishy-washiness about his prayers. You never hear what I call the religious escape clause, “if it be Your will,” come out of his mouth. He knew the will of God — that he was supposed to complete his walk across without incident under God’s protection — and was operating in agreement with that will according to the following promise:
  

  Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us and if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
  1 John 5:14-15

• He operated in the prayer principles found in Mark 11 by praying to God and literally speaking to the mountain:
  

  So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
  Mark 11:22-2

  In Nik’s case, his mountain was the crosswinds​ and the oscillating​ wire upon which he was walking. In his mind and heart, he had already received the answer to his prayer before he ever put one foot on that wire.

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• Nik worshipped his way across the wire, magnifying God rather than his obstacles. He exuded the confidence which comes from knowing his God as well as knowing and believing His Word — he was totally assured God had him safely in the palms of His hands.
• He paused whenever he needed to, rather than foolishly forging ahead regardless. Often those who are immature throw out reason and experience and wisdom, deluded into thinking they are operating in faith. Nik relied not only on God’s protection and answers to his prayers, but there were also moments when he paused and “took a knee” on the wire to dampen the oscillations as his own experience and wisdom dictated.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, a full-length video of this event is not available online, but if you could see it in its entirety, you would see the above characteristics demonstrated all the way across the canyon. It is a marvel that a secular TV channel didn’t edit out the spiritual aspects of this feat, though I imagine that could have been part of the negotiations beforehand.

In closing, I would like to address all those who love to take cheap shots at Joel Osteen. Joel and his wife were present on-site at this event — evidently Nik is either one of their congregants or a personal friend — and they prayed for him prior to the attempt. It was an equally faith-fill prayer!

Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: The above video was embedded in this article for educational purposes only. Neither the author nor this website have received any financial consideration from the use of this copyrighted material.