"All we can do is pray." "I wish I could do more, but I am praying." "Our prayers are not enough."
Have you ever said or heard someone say phrases like these?
I was listening to a podcast I love this morning and as it sometimes happens, I felt like the Holy Spirit was giving me more to say about the topic spoken of. Other teachings I had learned so much from in the past were brought to mind, and I felt like I had to share what came on my heart.
So here I am, in the midst of breakfast dishes and piles of laundry needing put away, the Wonder Pets on full blast in the background, sharing why prayer is more powerful than we give it credit for and why the Bible says we need to do it constantly.
The podcast I mentioned was from Nicki Koziarz, Lessons from the Farm, and it was entitled, "But are we even praying?"
She put it out in response to what she had been seeing on social media from people who with good reason want to see justice and action to prevent more tragedy after the school shooting in Texas. To sum it up, religious leaders have even said "our prayers are not enough."
She questioned how ours souls have gotten to a place of seeing prayer as something small that doesn't make a real difference, but also questioned whether we even pray enough to see the real power in it.
Nicki admitted to not praying enough over her city, the country, and the leadership of the country, and I admit the same. As much as I love God, truth be told, I often forget to even say a simple prayer before I eat!
As she said she did, I have also prayed over the families who lost someone in such a tragic way. But she reminded us that prayer gives us the power to drive out the forces of evil in this world and to spark revival. Yes, it really does! And if we spent enough time in prayer as a whole, meaning every follower of Christ was united in prayer for this world, we would see a difference! That is the part I wanted to expand on and back up with scripture, so I will do my best.
Another ministry that has become dear to my heart has shown me a lot about the truth of the following scripture, and the importance of constant prayer.
It was Because of Jesus Ministries and Connie Witter who taught me that any thought we have that does not line up with what God thinks, whether that's a negative opinion of ourselves, or looking at the negative around us thinking all is hopeless, that thought is a lie from hell. The only way the devil has to influence us is through our thoughts. He doesn't have the power to hurt anyone in any other way because Jesus already defeated him when he died on the cross and rose up from the dead. But he uses what Jesus called his native language, LIES, to influence our thinking. All the evil that happens in the world is because Satan influences the minds of people to believe his lies, and to act out of darkness instead of light. When people allow the dark influence over them to continue, it's because they don't know their real identity, who God made them to be. They have believed the lies of the enemy and acted out of that dark place because they were not able to see the truth, or maybe nobody ever shared the real Truth with them. But just because Satan sends us negative thoughts or wrong thoughts, we do not have to keep those thoughts and we do not have to believe them.
I believe the reason these two scriptures are included in the Bible is so that we can know that it's imperative to let God be the one in charge of what we think....to allow him to renew our mind every day, every moment! I am living proof of how a collection of wrong thoughts, circulated in the brain repeatedly over time, can take a person down. In my own life, the way Satan has tried to eliminate me working out my full potential on God's behalf is through depression. It started out when I was only 13, and that was probably my rock bottom with it, because without mature understanding of God's love for me or how circumstances change, I wanted to end my life, and I thought about it frequently. See how that worked? I THOUGHT. I thought my family would be better off without me and I thought I didn't have anything good to offer in the world because I believed every bad thing that any other person had ever said about me. I thought I was stupid, so I started getting bad grades that year. I thought nobody was ever going to love me for me. But someone gifted by God with the ability to show a young girl the truth helped me instead believe the what was true about me, that I was made by God on purpose and for a purpose. But the devil wasn't about to be done with using negative thinking against me. Depression would come back, and I would beat it, and then something else would happen in my life that was hard, and it would come again. When I had a special needs child, it came back, along with the worst anxiety, when he was going to kindergarten as a non-verbal little boy. Because he had one preschool teacher who was abusive towards children who didn't come to school with their own aid, like mine did, I was terrified that someone could hurt my baby and I may never know. That was the first time I accepted prescription drugs from my doctor to help me get the swirling emotions and panic attacks under control. Now, having two boys that don't say much, I can see how far God has brought me along in my thinking. Whenever my boys are not with me, I have come to understand that God is with them. Yes, bad things happen in this world, as we have just been reminded. And I know that it's because of human free will and them allowing the devil to make them THINK what is not true and it all comes from the depths of hell. I can't begin to understand why some tragedies are divinely prevented, when others are not, but this circles me back to the importance of prayer. I just pray over my babies, and I know God loves them even more than I do, and I have to trust Him for my families provision of what we need from Him day by day. God has shown me that living in worry or fear of other people, of illness, or any other of the million possibilities that CAN go wrong, will not help my children or me.
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
Luke 12:25-26
I know we won't always be free of worries, but that is when we need to PRAY. Again, back to why prayer is not the passive action that we may have come to think of it being.
Remember how evil works against us by influencing the minds of people? Making them believe things that are not in alignment with the will of God? This is what Connie Witter and her colleagues spoke about in a Bible study that made me see why it is so important to pray, especially for the leaders whose actions and decisions disagree with what we believe is right based on scripture. Throughout Biblical history, people changed the outcome of things through prayer, and it very much still happens today. The ladies in Because of Jesus Ministries said how the apostle Paul, who previously was Saul, changed from a killer of Christians to one of the greatest messengers of the Gospel because the church prayed about him! They said the church prayed so hard about what he was doing, Jesus himself had to show up to personally stop him on the way to persecute Christians, and he changed his name and gave him a completely different calling. Saul had been doing what he was doing because he THOUGHT it was right. He thought that Jesus was not the messiah and that anyone who believed he was should be done away with. When he met Jesus, he knew he thought wrong, and he himself went to prison for spreading that news everywhere, and was able to write letters about being joyful in all circumstances while he was chained up in a dark dungeon. THAT is the kind of power prayer has.
That is why the Bible says to pray without ceasing, and because of what Jesus did for us, we have direct access to the throne of grace at ALL times. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, so God is even closer than the whisper of His name. Always. And we are told that when we pray anything according to His will, He hears us, and so we can know that we will receive what we are asking for.
Friends, it is the will of God that the forces of darkness are stopped. And that's why the most powerful thing we can do is pray. We can pray that God will intervene in the thoughts of anyone being influenced by evil, that he will renew the minds of those who have not yet believed or who have gone away from the truth they once knew. We can pray together even when we are not together, that the people in this world who have believed the lies of the devil will believe them no longer, and that they will clearly see the truth. We need to pray it over all leadership that they will make choices that do line up with God's will. We need to pray it about everyone our children will come in contact with that day, and over each family member and friend. We need to pray it over church leadership in every denomination, that they will stay in line with God's will and not act in sin because of the enemy's influence in their thoughts. We need to pray this over anyone and everyone we can. And yes, it is enough. When we can do other things to help, like provide a need, or send a letter, or share the truth through love in actions, we should. But for the rest of the time, when it seems like there is nothing that can be done, we can pray. So, let's pray.
