Faster than a Speeding Bullet!

The Power of Bullet Prayers!

What if God answered your prayers as fast as you spoke to him in your head? That is what happened to Nehemiah as recorded in 2:1-5, emphasis mine:

 

In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. 2 And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. 3 I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4 Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So, I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.

One Desperate Moment!

One Desperate Plea!

Nehemiah's prayer was faster than Superman's speed, and yours would be, too, in that dangerous situation. Nehemiah wanted God to restore his nation, and here was the opportunity of a lifetime! Though he wanted to be heard and had prayed for this moment, he had not brought it about by appearing sad. God had allowed this unbelieving King to perceive Nehemiah’s heart. Of course, Nehemiah was afraid to answer: “The king himself had stopped the Jewish efforts at rebuilding the wall (Ezra 4:17–23).” He will be asking for a royal reversal!

Now Nehemiah has one shot. There is only one chance to secure the king's favor for his people, and so Nehemiah does what we should always do: he entreats the King of Kings above to move the king's heart below (Proverbs 21:1). But does God really answer such a spontaneous prayer? Yes, often he does! Every believer has experienced such moments when there is no time even to speak a prayer aloud, so we think heavenward and whisper, “God have mercy!” Or “God help us!” It's a bullet prayer.2 That is exciting!

Let’s think of 3 ways that you can prepare yourself to

fire off the bullet prayers that hit the target!

First, bullet prayers must be balanced with the other way you must be praying. You (hopefully) eat planned and nutritious meals at regular times. That is what you live on – physically. In the same way, the bulk of your prayer life must be scheduled, sustained, and rooted deeply in God’s word. God speaks through his word: “God speaks to the believer, and the believer speaks to God. This reciprocal communion is obviously summed up in the Bible and Prayer; for it is through the Bible that God speaks to us and through Prayer that we speak.”3

Jesus not only assumed you would “go into your room and shut the door” to pray (Matthew 6:6), but he modeled it, rising early and staying up late to have a lengthy time alone with his Father (Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12). He showed what a scheduled and disciplined prayer life looks like.4 While commending Nehemiah’s bullet prayer, D.A. Carson cautions: “What we should see from this bullet prayer is. It is a bullet prayer in the matrix of massive, sustained, theologically rich prayer. It is almost the overflow of a life of intercessory prayer.”5

Second, you must be desperate, like Nehemiah. God is not interested in blessing you until you return to a state of dependent begging for his grace (Matthew 5:3). He alone will get the glory when He alone answers your prayer. Nehemiah had not only reached a point of desperation, but also of mourning both for the sins of his nation (Nehemiah 1:7) and the destitute condition of God’s people because of it (Nehemiah 2:3). Nehemiah had already “sat down and wept and mourned for days” (Nehemiah 1:4).

You can think of meeting the conditions of the first and second Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-4) as storing up the gunpowder for your bullet prayers.

Third, the quality of all of our prayers, both scheduled and spontaneous, depends on our knowledge of God learned through his word studied privately at home and publicly with his gathered church. So, the absolute best preparation for having God answer your prayer is to encounter, embrace, and internalize his words regularly. That is exactly what Jesus promised: everything on the condition of being in line with his words within us. John 15:7 (emphasis mine) says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

In 2026, let us be more people of scheduled and spontaneous prayers, of slow, lingering time in the presence of our Father, and of quick pleas for his assistance. You might lean one way or the other, either by temperament or depending too much on scheduling or spontaneity. But we can use both types of very biblical prayer to advance his glory and our good.

Your Turn!

What are some ways that you have been successful in planning out and carrying out scheduled times of prayer? Likewise, what are some tips you can share about firing off bullet prayers? Do you have any remarkable stories of God’s faster-than-a-speeding bullet intervention? Reply below!

1Edwin Yamauchi, “Ezra-Nehemiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1988), 684.

2D. A. Carson, “Steady Prayer, Desperate Prayer, Private Prayer, Public Prayer,” in D. A. Carson Sermon Library (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2016), Ex 32:15–35. Also see Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavePress, 2017), 53–4.

3W. H. Griffith Thomas, Life Abiding and Abounding: Bible Studies in Prayer and Meditation. Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1910), 5-6.

4Jay S. Lowder, Transformative Time Travel: Deepening Discipleship through Meditation on the Future, Past, and Present (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2024), 96.

5Carson, “Steady Prayer.”