Prayers: keys to answered prayers
Prayers: keys to answered prayers
Posted on February 1, 2009 Updated on February 1, 2009
Memorise: “Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken” (1 Samuel 1:13)
Read: Matthew 15:21-28
Apart from faith, giving and praise and worship, you can also get Heaven’s attention through prayer. Not all prayers can get the attention of Heaven. Infact, some prayers are like water on a rock: a problem is refreshed by the offer of such a prayer.
The type that can get God’s attention is the hot, vigorous and effectual Elijahic type. Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not”.
The prayer that gets Heaven’s attention is the persistent, unquenchable type. It is the type Hannah prayed in 1 Samuel 1:9-18. The scripture says she prayed so rigorously that only her lips moved.
Some people believe she prayed silently but I differ. Some years ago, I visited one of my daughters who just had a baby boy. A midwife came to circumcise him so the mother asked me to be praying while the circumcision was in progress. As the baby became uncomfortable, he cried and removed his mouth from the breast he was sucking. When the midwife finished, she put some iodine on the fresh cut: this heightened the pain to the extent that the baby cried, but no sound was heard.
Only his lips moved. That was how Hannah prayed. The anguish, and trauma in her soul was so much that nobody was hearing her voice except Heaven. If you want to get Hannah’s type of answer, pray the way she did. Heaven could not ignore her prayer. How are you praying today?
The situation determines the intensity, gravity and persistence of a prayer mode. In 2 Kings 4:18-37, the rich Shunammite woman prayed for a child but when none came, she left off, consoling herself that afterall, God had blessed her materially.
But after her encounter with the man of God, who spoke prophetically into her life and a baby boy came, she raised him up until he was grown up. Then one day, Satan struck with death. The woman who was initially non-challant about having a child refused to accept the verdict of death. She fought it with all the faith she could muster. She told death, ‘You cannot take this one’. She persisted in her faith until the child came back to life.
Shallow prayers may be sometimes allowed when the situation is not critical, but during urgent and critical moments, only serious, conscientious, persistent, stubborn and hot faith, prayer and worship would do. It is wisdom to know when to go violent or operate on the normal prayer mode.
Determine the issue at stake before selecting the prayer mode. Like the woman in today’s reading, never take ‘No’ for an answer. Persist in prayer.
You can recover everything the devil has stollen. But this calls for violence against forces of darkness. Go ahead, pursue and recover.
