Prayer Busters

We've been studying through Bill Hybel's book Too Busy Not to Pray and here's some notes on common prayer busters.

What do we do when Matthew 7:7-8 doesn't seem to be working? Matthew 7:7-8 says "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door with be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." What what about when you've been asking, seeking and knocking to no avail?

If you got in your car on day and it didn't start you would try to identify the problem. First you might check the battery. Second, you might test the alternator. Third, you might test the fuses. Usually, the problem is one of those three things. Similarly, when our prayers don't seem to be heard or answered, we want to identify the problem. Here's some common reasons our prayers go unanswered.

1. Wrong Requests

In Matthew 20:20-23 James and John ask Jesus for the best seats in his Kingdom. Jesus denies their request because their request was selfish. In Luke 9:51 after the Samaritans deny Jesus and his disciples passage through Samaria James and John ask if Jesus wants them to call down fire from heaven to the destroy the village. Jesus both denied their request and rebuked them for asking such a thing. You see, sometimes God denies our request because we ask wrong. God loves us too much to grant wrong requests. In order to avoid asking wrong, here's some questions to ask of yourself before you ask God for what you want: 1. If God granted this request, would it bring glory to him? 2. Would it advance his kingdom? 3. Would it help people? 4. Would it help me grow spiritually? By asking these questions of ourselves we can filter out wrong requests.

2. Wrong Time

Kids hate hearing the words "not yet". You start off on a long journey and your kid asks "Are we there yet?" to which you respond "not yet". Your kids wanted to open their presents before Christmas to which you respond "not yet". Your daughter wants to start wearing making up and shave her legs at four years of age, to which you respond "not yet". Well, inside each one of us is a kid who hates hearing "not yet" from God. But in the same way that parents know best, so God knows best. We might not understand his reasons, but its then that we should remember Isaiah 55:8-9, "My thoughts are not your thoughts says the Lord, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." We are creatures, and God is the Creator. Only He knows what timing is best.

3. Something could be wrong in our lives.

Pretend you left for a two week vacation and forgot to ask someone to mow your lawn while you were gone and that when you returned, you realized your little lawnmower wasn't powerful enough to cut your grass, which is now nine inches tall! It's then that you remember your neighbor has offered for you to borrow his industrial strength John Deere riding lawnmower anytime you want. You decide to take him up on his offer. Walking over to his house his dog run ups and start barking and nipping at your ankles (like he always does). Getting frustrated and nearly tripping over the dog you finally decide to give it a swift kick...That's when you look up to see your neighbor standing at his front door (he saw you coming and came out to welcome you home from your trip). He's not happy. Now let me ask you something...Is this a good time to make requests and ask favors of your neighbor? Or is there something you need to do first (i.e. like ask forgiveness!)?

In the same way, when we have offended God by sinning or doing something we know we shouldn't, it will hinder our prayers. This leads me to prayer buster number one.

1. Unconfessed Sin

Unconfessed sin cuts off our communication with God. Isaiah 59:2, Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. If you have unconfessed sin in your life, don't waste your breath praying unless it's a prayer of confession.

2. Prayerlessness

A second common prayer buster is prayerlessness. Some people have the motto: "When all else fails, pray." That's a terrible motto to have! When we work, we work; when we pray, God works. Don't substitute prayer for worry. Don't neglect prayer and instead try and work yourself to death to solve the problem apart from God. Don't decide to just go without instead of praying! James says "you have not because you ask not."

3. Unresolved relational conflict

There's no point in praying if we're engaged in ongoing conflict with a family member, coworker, neighbor or friend. Matthew 5:23-24 says, "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift." This concept of our prayers being hindered by relational conflict is also taught in I Peter 3:7 which says: "Husbands are to be considerate and respectful to thier wives so that nothing will hinder their prayers."

What do I do if I've tried to resolve the conflict but the other person won't make peace? Then you're off the hook! Romans 12:18 says, "If it is possible, as far as depends on you, live at peace with everyone." It says "If it is possible..." which means that sometimes it is not. All we can do is try our best to resolve the conflict. As long as do our part, our prayers won't be hindered.

4. Inadequate faith

When we pray we need to ask in faith. James 1:5-8 says, "If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be give to you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like the wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord." When you pray you need to truly believe that God is willing to hear and help you, and able to do anything, change anyone and intervene in any circumstance. So what do you do if you don't have adequate faith? You read the Scriptures! Romans 10:17 says "Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of the God." Before you pray it might be helpful to review the passages of Scripture where God parts the Red Sea, helps the Israel's break down the walls of Jericho, helps David defeat Goliath, helps Gideon defeat an army of 132,000 with only 300 men, etc. As you read how God is willing and capable of doing the impossible, your faith will grow. And you'll believe God for whatever it is you're praying about.

Pray Like Jesus

I've been reading a great book by Bill Hybel's called Too Busy Not to Pray and here's some thoughts I wanted to pass along on prayer.

Says the doctor to his overweight patient: "What fits your busy schedule better, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?" Prayer, like being healthy, requires a price to pay. Our spirit, like our boy, has requirements for health and growth. Some people don't want to pay the price of developing good physical habits so they end up paying the much higher price of disease or death. The same is true spiritually. When we don't pay the price of taking time to pray, we end up paying the much higher price of spiritual disease or spiritual death.

So it's important that we learn to pray. As air is to our physical body, so prayer is to our spirit. So how then do we pray? Jesus disciples asked the same question about 2,000 years ago. Jesus' disciples asked him "Would you teach us to pray?" (Luke 11:1). And in response Jesus said:

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicy on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. When you pray, don't babble on and on as the people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! (Matthew 6:5-8)

[Instead] Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:9-13)

In these passages we learn from Jesus how to pray.

1. We're to pray regularly. Jesus said, "When you pray...," not "If you pray..." (Matthew 6:5). Many Christians claim they don't have time to pray but it's amazing to see what things they DO make time for (i.e. watching TV for hours a day). If it's important to you, you'll make time for it. People who are serious about something always make room for it in their schedules.

2. We're to pray privately. God isn't impressed with public displays of piety and he doesn't want us to be distracted. That's why Jesus instructs us "When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private" (Matthew 6:5).

3. We're to pray sincerely. God isn't interested in formulas. He wants to hear what's on our hearts. Matthew 6:7, "...don't babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again." The danger is citing formula prayers is that we remove our mind from the prayer. God wants our minds engaged. If our minds aren't engaged, it's not sincere.

4. We're to pray specifically. Jesus gave us what we call The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) to use as a model.

As we pray we want to make sure our prayers are balanced. A body building is careful to work out all 13 major muscle groups. And in the same way, we need to be careful to balance our prayers. Here's an acronymn you can use to help you balance your prayers. If you aren't intentional about balancing your prayers, then about 99% will be shopping list requests. And as we're about to learn "requests" are only 1 of 4 parts to balanced prayer.

A.C.T.S. Acronymn

"A" stands for ADORATION. Matthew 6:9, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We ought to start our prayers with adoration. Why? Because when we praise God we shift our focus from the mountain of a problem in front of us to the Mountain Mover.

"C" stands for CONFESSION. Matthew 6:12, Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. We ought to spend a part of our prayer time confessing our sins. Get specific with God. Tell him exactly what you've done. This will sting a little (but it's supposed to). This "sting" of confession will help us to avoid sin in the future.

"T" stands for THANKSGIVING. I Thessalonians 5:18, Give thanks always for this is God's will for you. Just as a parent enjoys hearing one of his children say "thanks", so our heavenly Father enjoys hearing us say "thanks." God expects an attitude of gratitude from us. He has blessed us with salvation, as well as many other blessings. And we should thank Him regularly for his blessings, as well as for answered prayer.

"S" stands for SUPPLICATION (a fancy word for "requests"). Matthew 6:11, Give us today our daily bread. While this traditionally makes us 99% of most peoples prayers, it should only be ONE PART of your prayer time. This is where we ask God for the things we need and the things we're concerned about. You may even want to create categories to pray about (i.e. family, church family, lost people, yourself).

Mountain Moving Prayer

Here's an excerpt from Bill Hybel's book Too Busy Not to Pray that I really liked and wanted to pass along.

How do you pray a prayer so filled with faith that it can move a mountain? By shifting your focus from the size of your mountain to the sufficiency of the Mountain Mover and then stepping forward in obedience.

While the Israelites were on the edge of the Promised Land, twleve spies go out to survey it. Numbers 13 tells us that ten come back saying, "You wouldn't believe the size of the cities, the armies, the giants! We'd better look somewhere else." Two come back saying, "The God who is faithful promised he would give us the land, so let's go in his strength." Ten looked at the size of the mountain and fell back; only two looked at the sufficiency of the Mountain Mover and wanted to move forward.

Or again...Israel's warriors are standing on a hill overlooking a battlefield, and the Philistine champion Goliath swaggers out to frighten them. First Samuel 17 says that the warriors declare, "We're not going down there to fight him. He's nine feet tall. Look at his armor! Look at his spear! I don't want that thing in my ribs." But the adolescent shepherd David comes out, surveys the field and says, "Look at the size of our God. Let me go!"

We all have our mountains to face. And if we focus on the mountain we will not respond in faith but in fear. However, if we focus on the Mountain Mover we will not respond in fear but in faith. May God help us all do the latter and not the former!

Jump Starting Your Prayer Life

I've been reading a book by Bill Hybels called Too Busy Not to Pray and I want to pass along some of my learnings. There are three truths you need to know in order to jump start your prayer life.

1. Prayer Makes a Tangible Difference

If we don't believe that prayer makes any difference we certainly won't spend time praying. The opposite is also true! In Exodus 17:8-13 Moses learned that prayer makes a difference. In this story the Israelites (the good guys) were fighting the Amalekites (the bad guys). When Moses lifted his hands in prayer to heaven the Israelites would have the upper hand. When he ceased to lift his hands in prayer the Amalekites began to win. So Moses got some help and continued to lift his hands in prayer - and consequently the Israelites won the battle. From this event Moses learned the same thing we need to learn...prayer makes a tangible difference in our lives! It actually changes things! We've got to believe this is we're going to pray.

2. God is Willing to Hear You and Help You

Some people think the biggest challenge in prayer is getting God to listen to them in the first place. Then they mistakenly think the second biggest challenge is getting God to unlock his bag of blessings that he doesn't want to share. Nothing could be further from the truth! God is willing to both hear and help you. How do I know? Because of Luke 18:2-5. In this story there's a widow with no connections appealing to a judge with no convictions (he's corrupt). Since the judge won't grant her justice she comes up with the strategy to annoy him until he gives in. And it works! The judge finally grants her justice. Some people mistakenly think this story is allegory (where the judge stands for God, the widow represent us, and the moral of the story is that God wil help us if we annoy him enough times with our problems). What many people don't understand is that this isn't allegory, it's a study in contrast. Here's the deal. We are not like the widow (we're not abandoned; we are God's adopted children, Jesus' brothers and sisters. We are in God's family and we matter to him). God is not like the judge (the judge was crooked, unfair, disrespectful, uncaring and preoccupied with personal matters - that's the polar opposite of the God we serve!). The point then is that if an egotistical judge was willing to hear from a widow of no status...how much more will our loving heavenly Father listen to his children - who he loved so much that he sent Jesus to die for them? God is willing to hear from you and to help you!

3. God is Able to Do Anything, Change Anyone, Intervene in any circumstance.

Until we believe truth #3 we won't pray about our deepest needs and pressing problems. Fortunately we have the Scriptures which teach us that nothing is to hard for God. He can do anything! In Exodus 14 & Joshua 3 he parted seas and rivers. In Exodus 16 & John 6 God dropped food from heaven and multiplied fish & bread. In Mark 4 Jesus calmed the storm for his disciples at sea. In Joshua 10 God extended the hours of daylight so Israel's troops could be victorious. In Exodus 17 God brought water from a rock! Get the picture yet? God can do anything! He can also change anyone. In Acts 9:1-31 God turned the fanatical persecutor Saul into a globe-trotting apostle. And in Acts 2 we see that Peter, once unable to stand up to a servant girl, bravely confronting thousands of people with the truth of the gospel. You see, God can change anyone! Finally, the Bible also shows us that God can intervene in any circumstance. In Acts 12 the apostle Peter (the guy we just mentioned) was sentenced to be executed (as had James). So the church prayed for God to intervene. And in response to their prayers, God sent an angel to the prison to release Peter. The church was so shocked when Peter arrived at the door of the house they were praying in - that they initially wouldn't let him in because they didn't believe it was him! I guess that even though they were praying for God to intervene they didn't really believe he would! Well through this experience God taught them the same thing he wants to teach us: that He can intervene in any circumstance!

If your prayer life is hanging on by a thread, why not remind yourself of these three truths once a day for a whole week. I'll guarantee it will change your prayer life.