We Pray Because of the Battle — Carol McLeod Ministries
A Note from Carol: Every so often, I love to have friends and colleagues share their hearts on the Joy for the Journey blog. My sweet friend, Tami Hulse, shared this devotional with our Warrior Moms group last week, and I believe it’s going to encourage you today. In the days since she shared this powerful devotional with our group, her precious husband has gone home to be with the Lord. I ask that as you read this, you say a prayer of comfort and peace for my dear friend. She is truly a woman after God's own heart.
“When we pray, we are not trying to persuade God to join us in our service for Him; prayer is the activity of joining God in His ministry.”
I was reminded of this quote one recent morning, taken from Neil T. Anderson’s book, “The Bondage Breaker,” as I was praying for my husband who has been battling some health issues. I began to realize as I pray for his healing that I am not trying to persuade God to heal Him. Why? His word already declares that He WANTS to heal people. Jesus already paid the price to heal people (Is. 53:4-6, Matt. 8:17). In the same way, as we pray for our wandering children, we are not praying to try and persuade our heavenly Father to bring them back into the fold because His Word already tells us He wants to bring them home to Him.
We discover, through reading the bible, that God, who is our heavenly Father, is also called Creator, Savior, Healer, Deliverer, Comforter, Counselor, Helper, Restorer, Prodigal Father…these are just a few of His names that define who He is. His names serve to underscore His character, as well as His mission to humanity. Our heavenly Father wants to save people, heal people, deliver people, comfort, counsel, help, and restore people, and bring our prodigals home. It is who He is.
As I reflected on all of this, 3 points emerged relating to prayer:
Our personal involvement in an unseen spiritual battle,
Our position as we pray,
Our role as we intercede.
In the account in the book of Daniel 10:12-13, Daniel had been praying for twenty-one days. An angel arrived twenty-one days later to inform Daniel that God had heard his prayer on the first day he’d begun praying; however, the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia had resisted him for twenty-one days.
Though Daniel’s prayer had been heard on the first day and though the angel had been sent in answer to his prayer that first day, nevertheless, it took twenty-one days for the angel to arrive because, as this passage reveals to us, he had encountered resistance in the spiritual, unseen realm. Therefore, the angel had been delayed.
This passage of scripture helps us better understand that there truly is an ongoing war between God and Satan being fought in an invisible, spiritual realm. Satan and the powers of darkness are actively resisting God’s will on the earth, and we are involved in this ongoing spiritual battle.
Along with understanding our involvement in this spiritual war, God’s Word also tells us where we are positioned, or seated, in this ongoing spiritual warfare as we pray, and this IS SO IMPORTANT FOR US.
As His children, we are already positionally seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. This means that, as we pray, we are praying FROM this place of victory already secured for us! We are not praying FOR a place of victory because it has already been won for us.
For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. Eph. 2:6
What role do we play as His children in this ongoing spiritual battle? We pray! We pray BECAUSE there is this battle; the vivid word illustration provided for us in the book of Daniel allows us to peer behind the curtain. As we pray, we are, in essence, stepping into the middle of this ongoing battle between God and Satan.
We call this type of prayer intercession. This root word, “inter,” means between. Therefore, as we pray for our prodigals and other people, places, situations, etc., we are effectively stepping between Satan and the powers of darkness (whose end goal is to kill, steal, and destroy humankind) and that for which we pray. We are stepping between through intercessory prayer and, therefore, we are effectively interfering with Satan’s evil plans.
As we begin to comprehend this ongoing, unseen war of evil resistance occurring all around us, we now better grasp why it’s imperative we must pray, but not lose heart. We cannot just pray once and then forget it!
1. We partner with God by praying according to His Will, which means we pray in agreement with God’s Word as it is revealed to us in the Bible.
2. Then we “set up camp” right there on His revealed Will written down in the Bible for us.
3. And then we drive our stakes deep into the rich soil of the truth of God’s Word.
Simply stated: We pray and refuse to be moved - we don’t lose heart and we don’t give up! As we pray in agreement with God’s Word (His Will), we just continue to pray, waiting in expectation for God’s Will to become manifest on Earth, just like Daniel did, and we don’t tear down our camp sight until we see God’s Will become manifest.
I want to pause here and talk about “choosing a campsite.” As intercessors, we simply need to find God’s Will on matters as it has been revealed in the scriptures. This is our ministry of JOINING GOD IN HIS MINISTRY TO HUMANKIND. We pray in agreement with His revealed Will. As we are “camping” (waiting), we also must resist fear, worry, and not overly concern ourselves with what we can’t see. These are the campsites we look for.
Let’s go back to Daniel’s campsite: He’d been “camping” 21 days:
And let’s, for a moment, think about what could possibly have happened in our MINDS in those 21 days of waiting:
Well, I prayed and nothing has happened. It just must not be God’s will to answer my prayer!”
“Sure enough, God just doesn’t hear my prayers!”
“God doesn’t care about me or my life!”
“I give up! Why even pray! Nothing ever happens or changes!”
“You know what? Whatever happens is just going to happen-prayer doesn’t change one thing!”
“I’m so mad at you, God! Do you EVER hear me when I cry out to you?!”
And all those rogue thoughts that could have barraged us IN THE WAITING have these destructive goals:
To stop us from continuing to pray.
To stop us from trusting God.
To cause us to believe LIES about God’s character and the truth of His Word!
With this in mind, after having set up camp on the truth of God’s revealed Will, we must be vigilant to resist those thoughts that would tempt us to pull up our stakes and move our campsite, just because we haven’t SEEN the manifestation of God’s Will yet.
Jesus taught us in the gospels that we, as God’s children, are to always come to our heavenly Father like a little child. A little child has no idea what their parents go through so that their belly gets filled when they become hungry, nor do they have any idea about all that transpires so they always have clothes to wear and shoes on their feet, nor does a little child comprehend all that went on “behind the scenes” so that when they asked for a bicycle for Christmas, there it was parked under the tree on Christmas morning!
All a loved and well-cared-for little child knows is that they have always been taken care of and they always will be. A little child does not worry about what their parents must go through so that their needs are met. In fact, they would be unable to understand those dynamics at that stage of their lives anyway. They simply know they are taken care of and they have perfect peace.
In this same way, we pray and then wait! And though we realize there is an unseen battle raging, we simply pray and trust Him like a little child, knowing all our needs will be provided in agreement with His Will.
“When we pray, we are not trying to persuade God to join us in our service for Him; prayer is the activity of joining God in His ministry.” (Neil T. Anderson, “The Bondage Breaker”)
Significant Women Podcast
Join Carol McLeod on today’s episode for an encouraging conversation with prolific and talented author Shelley Shepard Gray! Shelley is a NY Times best-selling author of over 100 books, many of them falling into the category of ‘Amish Fiction’. Listen in to learn more about Shelley’s life, why she ended up writing about the Amish, and the joys of being a grandmother.
Connect with Shelley and order her books at https://shelleyshepardgray.com/
