Starfish
The Power of Persistent Prayer
Starfish. That name is beguiling and it kind of hints at magic—as if they had spent their allotted time in the heavens and then retired and fizzled down to a sparkling plunge in the sea. Why do they want to trade neighborhoods? Is the ocean a more inviting place than space? Occasionally starfish wash up on shore so we can look at their helpless estate. Their rosy and golden hues make them look like water colored accents on our sandy shores. On closer inspection, their arms are limp and soggy underneath. A few tube-like feet on their underside may wave at us in defenseless resignation.
And usually we are moved to throw them back into the sea. It seems the right thing to do. They are the darlings of beachcombing parents with their children because we know we can touch, pick up, and examine starfish without fear. They are the lumpy but quaint accessories that charm our coastlines. But starfish actually, are neither stars nor fish.
In fact, if you want to be scientifically, correct, you call them sea stars. Sea stars belong to a large group of animals called echinoderms. Other echinoderms are sea urchins, sand dollars and sea cucumbers.
These animals have no bones. So, they are invertebrates and their outer covering is tough and sometimes spiny or knobby. They come in a myriad of colors and arm assortments. Usually you will see the typical five-armed sea star but some have seven arms, nine or ten or even more. About 1,500 species of sea stars are found around the world oceans from the tropics to the icy polar regions.
They are found flung up on the sand in tide pools and as deep as 20,000 feet below the surface. Once when I was visiting my great-uncle on San Juan Islands, he introduced me to the Sunflower sea star.
I've never been quick to wake up, which is an understatement. I'm a very slow waker-upper (especially before I realized that my thyroid was slow). Mornings felt like my blood was clogged with molasses and not yet quite pumping, and my brain felt like it was steeped in ether. So my brilliant, slightly crazy great uncle had graduated magna cum laude in engineering from Princeton and he had designed the hydrofoil waterjet propulsion system for Boeing. So, you know those hydrofoils? He had designed the engine and he was always trying to reach, teach and excite others about the cool things in the world. Into his 70’s, he was an avid tennis player and downhill skier. This one morning, he bounded up the stairs to my loft where I was sleeping with a gigantic sunflower sea star on a cutting board.
The center blob was about a foot across and instead of having five arms, it had about 20 crammed around its periphery and drooping over the edges of the board.
It looked like a massive, gooey, alien sunflower and it wreaked of the briny dhore. He waived it under my sleepy eyes and crowned triumphantly, “Look, what's for breakfast!” He was kidding, but you never knew with him. But his enthusiasm was infectious. I was enchanted by the diversity and variety of sea stars along his northwest shores.
Some had humorous names like, cookies star and slime star, or the gunpowder star. Years later while snorkeling off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, I was enchanted by the bright blue sea star, Linckia Laevigata. And the one that looks like it has chocolate chips on its back, the horned sea star.
Here on the California coast, I mainly spy ochre colored sea stars and orange and purple, plus the occasional bright red or orange bat star (and its named the bat star because its arms are kind of webbed like a bat). Although they look helpless and sweet and tossed up on our beaches, the first clue as to the power of sea stars is when you encounter them in a tide pool or underwater clinging to a rock.
Just try to pry it off. It will be a struggle. Although not as firmly cemented as barnacles, sea stars with their thousands of suctioning little tube feet have formidable staying power. But there's something I find uniquely fascinating about these seemingly passive and mythological gifts from the heavens.
The sea star despite its docile looks and charming shape is a powerful predator.
Have you ever shucked oysters or clams? It takes a specially designed sharp oyster knife because of how tightly close they are. And you better have gloved hands. (I know this from experience). A chainmail type of glove that protects you from knife slips and stabs is recommended, especially in our household. So although you need a specialty knife and protected hands to open these tough mollusks the sea star does not.
Slowly roaming along the sand, rocks, or coral beds, the sea star encounters a tightly closed muscle or scallop. Delicately, it feels along the shell for an opening. The thousands of tiny tubular feet beneath its arms dance along the shells body searching, questioning, imploring. The bivalve is firmly shut. No matter.
The sea star wraps its body around the meek mollusk and, with its arms on either side of the shell, it begins to pull. It is in no hurry. Slowly, slowly, it exerts outward, suctioning pressure until the clam or oyster cannot resist the pull. The shell cracks open, just a tiny slit. But that is enough. Our sea star then does something that's sort of like the movie Alien.
The sea star extends his stomach outside of his body and into the clamshell through the tiny opening. Its digestive enzymes soften and destroy the meat inside and then the sea star slurps up its tasty meal. The stomach retreats back out of the shell and into the sea star. Our petite predator has prevailed. Mission accomplished.
If you want to see an amazing video of this, go here.
The surprising tenacity of this little seemingly innocuous lumpy little thing? It gives me hope. His example of appearing charming, small, and decorative but yet hiding this relentless predatory strength is the ultimate switcheroo. You don't expect it. He's like the little old lady who faithfully shows up in church in her matching little sweater set and blue tinged hair.
She appears sweet and harmless and inoffensive. Nothing to take much notice of; but in fact, she's kind of cute. But back in her home when she's alone, some of those little old ladies? They rise up in the full armor of God like a ninja warrior in prayer. She won't give up, she won't shut up, and she doesn't cease putting the pressure on until she sees Victory.
This is how we crack tough cases persistent prayer. The Bible is full of stories of people who engaged in persistent prayer. They applied steady pressure and refuse to give up no matter how tough the case looked—just like our little sea star.
Look at James chapter 5, verses 16 through 18 for the example of Elijah: “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results Elijah was as human as we are and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall none fell for three and a half years. Then when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops” (NLT).
I love that phrase, “Elijah was as human as we are.” It's so easy to imagine that these people mentioned in the Bible are so much holier, sinless, without envy or pride or ambition. However, they too were riddled with holes, habits and humiliations. God isn't looking for perfect prayers, but persistent prayers. God moved as a result of Elijah's persistent prayer.
We don't have to look back thousands of years either for examples of persistent prayer producing wonderful results. The Berlin Wall came down as a result of prayer. Ronald Reagan is not responsible for this historic event. Although you can watch the videos on YouTube where he says, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!” and while it all looks historic, epic, and moving, actually a greater movement happened just behind those walls inside a small church in East Germany and it began seven years earlier in 1982.
Tired of the Berlin Wall the ongoing Cold War and the repressive East German regime, a faithful pastor began organizing prayers for peace every Monday evening at St. Nicholas church.
On many occasions fewer than a dozen people attended the prayer meetings. The East German government strongly discouraged its citizens from becoming involved in religious activities, but the meetings continued each Monday without fail.*
By 1985 the thriving prayer group was growing in earnest. A sign, “Open to All,” was put outside and attendance was exploding. On October 9th 1989, the police were in riot gear warning the pastor and all the citizens the price they would pay. And if you know anything about the East German government—like the Stassi—they were nothing to be trifled with. They were notorious for their iron fist. Nothing would be tolerated. But 70,000 praying people filled the streets holding candles. No massacre happened. The East German president Eric Honecker, resigned. One month later, the Berlin Wall came down.
Download this poster here!
Remember our verse from James? “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (James 5:16).
So when we say, “All I can do is pray,” after we've called all of our friends, and consulted with our spouses, and eaten half of the refrigerator contents, bitten our nails, and sunk into despair. Prayer shouldn't be a passive folding of the hands, a whimpering murmuring with an unbelieving heart. It can be, when faced with daunting opposition. But prayer can be a proactive wielding the sword of truth‑God's word‑the Bible.
I love the movie War Room. In it, a little old lady instructs a younger woman how to pray God's word over her tough situations. And her “War Room” is her little prayer closet. In it she post pages of her prayers for her family written out with accompanying scripture verses. And you know what? I've done this in our bathroom, I wrote and posted scripture verses to pray like this for my son, and he'll be totally embarrassed to hear this, but I put his name in there and the scripture passage.
So like the unassuming pastor in East Germany, we can pray down mighty walls, figuratively and literally. When people say, “Well what difference will it make?” it's insulting to the faithful prayer warriors who have modeled steadfast prayer for us throughout the Bible. It can make all the difference. Can you think or speak? Then you are capable of wielding great power.
When Jesus asked Peter,”Who do you say I am?” and Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Messiah.” Jesus announced that upon this confession, this bedrock of truth, Jesus would build his church. And then Jesus adds, “And the gates of hell will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:15 -19. Most of us picture ourselves trying to keep hell away from engulfing our lives, our kids, our cities, our nation.
But here is a picture of the church invading hell's territory and smashing down its gates. I love that we are to advance against these tough situations. We are to move forward in persistent prayer, reach in and dissolve that evil.
You are not a little bitty helpless person who has no friends in higher places. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have God's power on your side. It doesn't matter if you're a little old lady, a beleaguered businessman, a maxed-out mother or a student. Remember our cute, little, squishy starfish? Like a determined predator, surround that tough obstacle and apply the persistent pressure of prayer.
Prayer is powerful. Jesus depended on it. The disciples relied on it, and we can use it to tear down walls, soften hearts, or crack open tough cases. Persistent prayer may sound innocuous and kind of squishy but it's like a sea star.In tough cases, it's lethal.
So this week, I want you to write down your prayers, and use scripture that talks about the situation‑insert the person's name in there that you want God to move in their life. And you're going to see things change. Develop your own little war room like that movie and employ the persistent power of predatory prayer like our little charming starfish. Because in tough cases, it's lethal.
*Peter Crutchley, “Did a Prayer Meeting Really Bring Down the Berlin Wall and End the Cold War?” http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24661333.
If you love nature, and want to connect with God through His creation, you will enjoy my book, This Outside Life: Finding God in the Heart of Nature.