Get Off the Obstacle Course
Prayer.
It’s something that we cling to or run from depending on where we are in life. It’s something that Jesus modeled over and over again for His disciples. It is found throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Prayer can be the thing that brings us closer to God or the thing that drives us further away. Prayer is something that both believers and non-believers find themselves doing at some point in their lives whether they realize it or want to admit it. When we get to the end of our rope or we find ourselves in a situation so terrifying we feel like we may never make it out, we automatically turn to prayer, whether we believe in God or not. It’s like prayer is just ingrained in us, like it’s part of our DNA.
So why do we struggle so much with prayer? If prayer is a part of who we are, it should come naturally right? So why does there seem to be so many obstacles to prayer? I hate to tell you this, but most of those obstacles were put there by us. Most of our problems with prayer stem from our own misconceptions about what prayer really is. It’s time to move from the obstacle course to the rage room and start breaking all of the misconceptions about prayer that we hold on to.
1 – It’s not about you! When we pray, the emphasis should be on God’s will, not our own. We should not demand things from God when we communicate with Him. Instead, we should discuss with Him what it is that He wants for us. But Melanie, the Bible tells me that if I delight myself in the Lord, He will give me the desires of my heart (Psalm 37:4). It also tells me that He hears me when I ask anything according to His will (1 John 5:14). Yes, it does, but you cannot ignore the conditions attached to those verses.
Yes, He will give us the desires of our hearts WHEN WE DELIGHT IN HIM. When we love God above all else, our desires become whatever He desires for us. Then our greatest longing will be to conform our lives to His will for us, and when our hearts desire is that His will be done in our lives and that becomes what we ask for in prayer, then yes, He is happy to give it to us.
Yes, He will hear us when we ask anything, ACCORDING TO HIS WILL. When we align our prayers to His will, He listens, and when we know He listens, we know that He will give us a definite answer. Does this mean that He closes His ears to our misguided requests? Well, yes, sometimes He does ignore those prayers that are contrary to His will for us because He has something that is better than anything we could ever imagine planned for us. Is that a hard truth to swallow? Of course, it is.
Those of you that are parents have experienced this with your own kids. You have something so much bigger and better than what they are expecting and asking for, so you tell them no to the thing that they are asking for because what you have for them is so much better. Are they mad? Yes. Do they understand at that moment? No. Is it better for them in the end? Yes.
Don’t let a no from God or silence from God become an obstacle in your prayer life. Jesus promises insight and direction from the Holy Spirit when we pray; He does not promise that we will get what we think we need. When we let the Spirit direct our hearts, we begin to desire those things that benefit us spiritually (Luke 11:9-13). I know it is frustrating and confusing when we get a no or silence from God, but instead of letting it become an obstacle, stop, take a step back, and focus on intentionally realigning your heart with God’s will and recentering your life in the Holy Spirit and in His love. Then pick up that misconception you’ve been carrying around and shatter it against the wall.
2 – Take the fig leaf off already! You cannot “fake it till you make it” when it comes to prayer. Prayer is nothing more than a conversation between two people…a real and authentic conversation. Don’t let prayer become some meaningless ritual. Sheer repetition can do that to us, and Matthew 15:8-9 warns against this. True prayer is when you pray from your heart, not by your heart.
Real prayer happens when we get real with God. No hiding. No pretending. No acting. It happens when we let our guard down and get fearlessly vulnerable with God. Here’s the thing, prayer was never intended to inform God of something He doesn’t already know. If you’re mad, tell Him. If you’re confused, tell Him. If you screwed up again, tell Him. If you need to yell, yell at Him. If you need to cry, cry with Him. If you need to collapse, collapse in His arms. He knows how you are feeling and exactly what you need, but He desperately wants you to come to Him and tell Him about it.
Our God is deeply relational and the only way to strengthen a relationship is to build trust. The only way to build trust is to be real and authentic and vulnerable with each other. You have never become best friends with someone by pretending to be something that you’re not or from hiding behind a fig leaf. Real relationships are formed when you allow yourself to be exposed to someone else. The strongest relationships are the ones where there is no shame. When we remove shame, we feel comfortable and protected and safe, and that is when real relationships form.
The neighbor in Luke 11:5-10 was not only persistent, but he was also shameless. He knew that he had a friend that he could go to at all hours. He already had a relationship with his neighbor. He had already built trust with his neighbor. We must be shameless in our prayers just like Abraham, Jacob, and Daniel, and the only way to be shameless in our prayers is to trust in the God that we are praying to. So take the fig leaf off and run it through the shredder. You don’t need it anymore.
3 – God is not a Port-A-John! The purpose of prayer is not to just go before God and dump everything out on Him and leave. Empty your heart in prayer to God, yes, but don’t stop there. Leave space for God to refill your now empty heart from His big heart. When your heart is empty, you will go looking for something to fill it back up. The enemy loves for us to go and empty out our hearts to God and then walk away with that heart of ours still empty. It creates the perfect space for him to fill it with the things of this world, leaving no room for God and His truth. When we allow God to refill our empty hearts with His truth and light and love, we walk away with a peace that passes all understanding. We walk away with confident hope. We walk away with joyful expectancy. We walk away with clarity and truth.
Allowing God to fill our hearts back up from His heart changes our prayer life. We begin to pray with clarity and expectant hope when we pray from a heart that has been filled with the depth and strength of God’s heart. And when we begin to pray with the clarity that comes from allowing our hearts to be filled from God’s heart, we get answers, and even if they are not the answers we hoped for, we can still have expectant hope in what God is up to in our lives. Being filled with expectant, confident hope equips us to take a sledgehammer to the enemy when he comes at us with his lies. Now doesn’t that sound like fun?
RESOURCES:
The Circle Maker By Mark Batterson
Ferocious Warrior By Cora Jakes Coleman