Lean into the Chaos

Part three

Releasing His Kingdom into the Chaos

Ricci Johnson-Wilson

July 25, 2025

A little over two weeks ago, the Lord gave me a word, “Lean into the Chaos.” This prompted the message I shared July 11, wherein I detailed some of the chaos we are experiencing and why it’s important to stay the course as intercessors.

On July 18th we talked about how to lean into the chaos we see through persistent and prevailing prayer along with what it produces in us as intercessors; tharseo- a Greek word meaning “to be emboldened from within, this supports unflinching courage and is the result of the Lord infusing His strength by His inworking of faith in the yielded believer.

This week, let’s go deeper. Persistent and prevailing prayer by an emboldened intercessor is amazing, it produces a powerful intercessor. One question we get, if God has a plan and knows the end from the beginning, why do we pray? Tonight I hope to leave us with a greater understanding of the partnership of God with His intercessors to accomplish His Heavenly will here on earth.

The Lord taught His disciples to pray with what we may consider a very simple prayer, however, as we mature, we come to see the significance of every line. The beauty of this passage is the depth it can take us as we follow this wonderful guideline for our prayer life. 

Matthew 6:9-13

9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

66 words that focus on our dependence and relationship with the Father, increasing our faith, submission of our will to the Father, acceptance of His will, repentance, forgiveness, and worship. 

We really do want to be in tune with the Father’s heart and learn His will as we pray, and there are varying degrees and areas to which we can apply this prayer to our own prayer life but simply put, there are three basic areas:

  • We can pray on a personal level, prayer for family, finances, future. In addition to prayer for our own walk with God.
  • We can (and should) pray for the Church, that we would be one with one another as Jesus was one with the Father. That we would walk in unity and be purified as the Body of Christ (John 17:17-23). Why? So that we can walk out the Great Commission.

Matt 28: 16-18

19 Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them [b]into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

20 Teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you [c]all the days ([d]perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation of the age. [e]Amen (so let it be).

Mark 16:15-16

15 And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach and publish openly the good news (the Gospel) to every creature [of the whole [e]human race].

16 He who believes [who adheres to and trusts in and relies on the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth] and is baptized will be saved [[f]from the penalty of eternal death]; but he who does not believe [who does not adhere to and trust in and rely on the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth] will be condemned.

Part of the intercessor’s responsibility is to pray for the Body of Christ to fulfill this commission. There certainly needs to be more prayer coverage over this, especially in the days ahead.

  • We pray for the nation. For it to turn to God, execute godly justice for every citizen from our pre-born onward, and of course, that the rule of law be restored. We need to continuously pray for our destiny as a nation to be fulfilled. This nation was dedicated to God for His purposes clear back in 1607, before the writers of our Constitution were even born.

We want His will in all three.

How do we know His will?

I would say first and foremost we learn what His will is through relationship with Him. This relationship is built up through a consistently faithful Word and prayer life.  The more we pray, the more we study His Word, the more we understand His will and His ways. The more we understand His will and His ways, the greater our peace in times of chaos, and the better our ability will be to handle varying levels of chaos.

I’m going to use the different levels within our CedarWood Department as a real-life example for us to follow because most of us have been in the workplace and can relate to this example. Then we will apply that area or level of involvement to that of an intercessor.

When someone new comes on staff, depending on what department they will be in, we will run them through our operations, so they learn what we are about, what we do, how we do it etc. The more involved they become, the greater the relationship, the more responsibility and authority they will walk in and so on.

In our Cedarwood operations we serve the food and clothing needs of the community.

If a person is joining us as a volunteer in this outreach, it’s a pretty brief training. Overall vision of the work, safety protocol, and then a lot of hands-on stuff—”learn by doing” if you will. It is on the ground involvement during our Monday Pantry/Clothing outreach, BackPack Assembly, or Homeless Outreach event.  They may or may not stay, we have quite a few who have been with us for years, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think they were on staff.

If they are coming on staff, it’s more extensive. They need to really understand the vision of CedarWood because they are part of something born out of a vision given to Mom 12 years ago. Those who come on staff will represent us and that vision when they interact with people. We pick up food from several stores each week, assess gaps and potential needs and place orders to fill those gaps and so on.

We have several outreaches within Cedarwood so the training will be based on the particular outreach they will be most involved with. We have several vehicles in action and often those who come on for Cedarwood would be part of food pickups and need to know the routes we travel, the primary vendor contacts and so on. Still, as involved as that may seem, it is still at a surface level.

For a department head, that information is far more extensive and involved. They must not only know every detail about each outreach, but they must know each route we have, every vendor, the manpower necessary for every outreach, they must also know who is on vacation for scheduling, who to place orders with, what holidays are coming up so we can begin planning for those distributions and so on. However, even more than that, they must fully understand the vision the Lord gave Mom for CedarWood so they can implement the vision of the Lord through CedarWood.

We can take and apply these levels within CedarWood to varying levels of prayer life that the believer walks out in their own lives.

  • The volunteer has two levels:
  1. Superficial- they can come and go, we appreciate notice, but we cannot require that of them. So, they can come and go. They are more in control of their own schedule, and they let us know when they are available and we plug them into the place we need them.

 

This is kind of like the Believer who blesses their food, thanks God for promotions, says a quick prayer before bed, but their primary focus is self.

 

  1. Committed-they are in it, they love the work, they want to volunteer because seeing a child get a new coat, or properly fitting shoes, warms their hearts, they pray over people, they are excited to be part of this work, in fact, several of our current employees were once volunteers with CedarWood.

 

This is kind of like the Believer who believes in prayer. They pray for themselves, their families, their church. They may not understand what it means to pray for the nation or why, but they do understand the importance of praying for family members and so on.

 

  • On the employee level—they need a job yes, but through this, they are getting ahold of the vision in a whole new way. The more they are trained, the more they understand how CedarWood blesses the community. They understand how hard our people work and how rewarding that work is. The employee witnesses the relief on the face of the senior citizens as they come to know their names and they hand them a week’s worth of groceries every Monday. They see them start to put weight back on because although they did not realize it before, they were losing weight due to the lack of food in their homes. They see the brightness returning to children’s eyes as they have enough meat, veggies, fruit and grains to maintain that healthy and energetic life of an active 6-year-old. They see the stress lift off the shoulders of parents struggling to make ends meet, as we pack another box of food into their trunk. For the Homeless outreach it goes even deeper, they see the faces of those society rejects and they hand them a warm meal, offer to pray for them, witness salvations and healing and it begins to transform them from within as they see God move through the mission of CedarWood.

 

For some, it is just a job and I’m not going to sugar coat that fact. However, there are those who come to understand the work they are involved with. They know they have become part of something bigger than themselves; they’ve transitioned from volunteer to committed employee. They recognize that this work is changing people’s lives for the better and it begins to change them. They start to think of ways they can be more involved or even help expand that outreach in greater measure. They spend time with our Cedarwood director of operations, asking questions and seeking out ways to help improve and even partner with this arm of our ministry. The relationship is continuously developed as time goes on so that the employee knows exactly what they need to do each day without much guidance. This next level employee however, goes above and beyond the call of duty because the development of this relationship has not only given them the freedom to do so, but it has helped them to know how to take those steps. When chaos erupts, they respond as we would, because they have learned how our director would respond.

This is like the intercessor. They are committed. They believe in prayer over their family, over the Church and have come to understand the need to pray over the Nation. The enemy may try to interfere, but they understand the vision and they go deeper to hear God’s heart on the issue and pray accordingly. They come to hear what the Lord is saying over the nation and then pray into that vision because it releases God’s heart, His plans, His purposes over the land. They may not even fully understand the revelation that is coming forth, but they trust the Word of the Lord and their greatest desire is to see His Heavenly will done in the earth. Through prayer, they’ve developed their relationship with the Lord and have come to know and understand His heart on the issues that need continual prayer.  When chaos comes, the relationship they’ve developed with the Lord helps them to firmly anchor themselves in place, building upon the lessons they’ve learned so they are not tossed to and from in the midst of the chaos but instead, they rise above it and pray accordingly.

  • Director of Operations: There’s a higher level here, the director of operations. This person knows everything about Cedarwood. The coming and going of every employee and volunteer. He sees the ins and outs and searches for efficiency and quality in the whole operation. He spends time with Mom and I to know the vision God has given for Cedarwood and his sole purpose as director, is to look for ways to fulfill that purpose as given by the Lord. Much discussion, many hours week after week, has gone into the development of Cedarwood, most of which our current director was involved in at an entry level in the very early days thus developing and solidifying a lasting relationship. He knows the heart behind steps we take so that even when things are incredibly difficult, when chaos pours out on the department, people get sick, our trucks are vandalized or our freezer goes out and we have 1000s of dollars of meat in the freezer, he knows how we would respond, and when he calls, he presents me with the solution to that problem as he relays the problem. He knows this is our backyard mission where we have the privilege to serve an international clientele and they embrace this as more than a job, but an international ministry outreach where opportunity to preach the Gospel and pray for the lost and the sick is everywhere they turn.  He sees Matthew 28 and Mark 16 in action every day!

 

That was 12 years ago, and our Cedarwood team, while not without intermittent chaos, stands strong in the midst of the storms that come our way. Relationship has allowed us to progress to this point!

 

Again, this is a real-world example for us to consider in our own life as an intercessor. What level are we at? What is our goal? Entry level believer? Intercessor? Mature prophetic intercessor? 

I liken this Director phase to that of the mature prophetic intercessor. Where they walk in unity, responding with the wisdom, knowledge  and understanding of the Lord, because of the time spent knowing His heart, building relationship, and of course, continuing to seek the  face of God to develop that relationship to the fullest so that even if everything seems to be descending into absolute chaos, we lean into that chaos and learn what the will of the Lord is in the midst of it all. This results in us imprinting the chaos with His presence.

How do you know when you are effectively imprinting chaos with His Kingdom? When chaos no longer controls your actions, your emotions, your responses. Then you can confidently know and understand that you are effectively imprinting His Kingdom into the chaos.

What did the Lord mean when He said to “lean into the chaos”?

He meant do not be afraid of it, do not be distracted by it, do not be dismayed by it, do not allow it to pull us off the course God set before us because God can be very present even in the chaos the enemy stirs up!

How? When we lean into chaos, we are imprinting that chaos with the presence of God. Whether it is good chaos meant to uproot o, or whether it is bad chaos such as an impending hurricane with the potential of flash floods, or riots, or exposure of crimes committed by former leaders, we imprint the presence of God upon that chaos when we pray.

When we seek the face of God, we build relationship. That relationship increases our faith. When we pray for someone in a meeting and they are healed it ignites faith in the heart of those in attendance and many will come to the Lord. What I am referring to is a faith that is infused by the inworking of God in the heart of the believer—particularly the intercessor—because of the relationship they’ve built with Him through prayer.

It’s that faith that is emboldened within us, it becomes intertwined with every fiber of our being, we know that we know that we know kind of thing, it’s THAT faith that moves mountains.

Let’s look at the prayer life of Jesus for a moment; I’m going to give you just four examples of what this looks like in the Scriptures through His life. He demonstrated what I’m talking about at every opportunity. But these four examples demonstrate decisions or actions He took based on the relationship between He and the Father immediately following prayer.

Jesus was God, but He was also man. He took on flesh to come as a man and bear the curse of sin and death. Make no mistake about that truth. That said, He consistently sought the will of the Father in all He did when He walked this earth. He is our purest example.

In Luke 6:12-16 we see Jesus praying all night for God’s will before selecting the 12 Disciples. Make no mistake, this was a passionate conversation between Jesus and the Father. Why? One of those 12 would betray Him with a kiss, another, one of His closest confidants, would deny Him during His greatest moments of agony and shame. He sowed into all of their lives for nearly 3.5 years, and all but John scattered when He was taken into custody. Pain, physical and emotional would come at the end of this road with them, at least until His resurrection, I imagine He knew the time He would invest in relationship with them and that outcome was not necessarily the one He as a man, hoped for, but as He wrestled with God, and the Father said choose this one, and that one, because the call I have on their lives once Our work is finished on the Cross, has eternal ramifications and they will fulfill their destiny. Trust Me in this.   Jesus chose the Father’s will over His own. Let me ask you, would you choose Judas?

In Matthew 14 we see Jesus building the faith of the Disciples by feeding the 5000, afterwards He puts them in a boat to cross the lake, and then He retreats into a mountain to pray. This is the mark of a deep relationship with the Father. His celebration was to tuck Himself away and rejoice with the Father. While He’s on the mountain, a storm kicks up in the sea, these men, half of them actual fishermen by trade, panic in the chaos of the storm. But Jesus, build up in the Spirit, Lord of the elements, walks across the sea in the midst of the storm. He does not calm it first; He imprints His presence right into the chaos. If you remember, this is the storm where Peter climbs out of the boat to walk to Jesus, he sinks, and we chuckle, but he was the only one who dared step out of the boat and into the chaos. The rest were begging for it to stop.

In Mark 4:36-41 we see Jesus and the Disciples in a ship at sea. The storm erupts and chaos ensues.  Where was Jesus? Asleep in the hull of the ship. Why? His relationship with the Father kept him in absolute peace as He walked in His will and lived out His ways. This is the peace that surpasses understanding. Jesus of course, speaks to the storm because He is Lord over all and understands the importance of imprinting His presence into the chaos for His Disciples to truly understand the Kingdom of Heaven. To learn His will and His ways, there are times, Jesus displays His magnificent authority over the elements as He imprints His presence, His Word, right into the heart of the chaos to silence it.

In Matthew 26:38-46 we see Jesus in the Garden the night before His passion. These 12 He walked with, trained up, and made every attempt to prepare for this moment. The remaining 11 were about to be scattered. His heart would be broken but the path to the Cross was a solitary one. Only He could do this, and it would be done to pave the path for all mankind to accept or deny the invitation. He would not be able to lean on mankind, and this battle, the battle for all mankind, was the cup He submitted to the Father that fateful night in the garden. It was here where He submitted His flesh to the will of the Father and that submission to the Father’s will rather than His own, is truly the ultimate battle. The last time we saw a battle for mankind in the Garden was with Adam and he rebelled against the will of God and chose his own path rather than that of the Father. Jesus won the battle Adam lost so long ago.

We should ask ourselves: Is our relationship with God so deeply anchored that should we be called to lay down our life for Him, we would? Prayer, persistent, emboldened prayer that supports unflinching courage is born out of relationship with God. If we want to be fearless, unshakable in the face of Chaos, we have to have a solid relationship with our Father, there is simply no other way around this truth. Do we want to be an intercessor who is unflinching in the midst of the chaos? We must develop and maintain that relationship on a daily basis.

Why? God partners with us in the fight for His Kingdom purposes. When God created the heavens and the earth and all that is therein, He brought the animals to Adam to name them. Adam, because of the authority he walked in before he fell, breathed the boldness into the Lion, he spoke strength into the Elephant, he declared the Ant would carry such a work ethic, it would one day be written about in Scriptures by the wisest man alive. Jesus came in part, to restore the dominion and authority man once walked in. This requires obedience and relationship with the Father to achieve. This really is what God is calling His people to walk in today. We cannot walk in it if we remain superficial volunteers.  

Jesus came to restore the relationship between man and God. To give us the grace to walk both the solitary path in our pursuit into the deeper things of God, as well as the fellowship of the Body of Christ as required. He taught us how to pray to release the will of the Father, restore relationship through repentance and forgiveness and be willing to walk out faith-filled submission and acceptance to the will of the Father.

If we could really grasp this reality: God partners with us in the fight for His Kingdom purposes here on earth, and Jesus came to restore the relationship between man and God so we could partner with Him, we would have a powerful, unflinching prayer warrior built and trained for Kingdom purposes. One who understands the relationship with the father is key to accomplishing His heavenly will here on earth. 

When we pray, we know we are releasing the power of the living God over a situation and when we do, we release an anointing over that event. This helps to bring the power of it under the subjection of the will of God. The more we pray, the more authority we will walk in until we are not just imprinting His presence into the chaos before us, we are taking authority over the chaos!

Several years ago, I had a dream that chaos was walking down our streets. It was in the form of demonically charged figures. They moved slowly but the fear emanating from them was palpable. As they turned the corner to come down the street I was walking down with my grandkids I ran forward and raising my arms released His anointing over the situation. They fell backwards to the ground and disintegrated before my eyes. I woke up. As I shared that dream with Mom she blurted out suddenly “That’s the power of the I AM!”

Why am I sharing all of this? I believe God has been preparing us for this season for the last several years. Now, He’s calling His prophetic intercessors, those who have submitted their will to the Father, going into the deep levels in God, to rise up in the power of the I AM and bring this ungodly chaos down, and faithfully pray for His Heavenly will to be imprinted into the chaos that’s been ordained by Him, that chaos that’s intended to expose corruption.

I have only one question now:

Have you made yourself ready to lean into the chaos?

Much love,

Ricci Johnson-Wilson