Have you been asking God for something and feel like he isn't listening to you or doesn't care?
Have you stopped praying for something because you thought it would never happen?
Are you tired of constantly praying for the same thing and nothing happening?
If you said "yes" to any of the questions above, trust me I get it. I've been there. Even though it can be frustrating, we need to stay persistent in our prayers.
In today's episode, we're going to go into the importance of being persistent in our prayers. I will be pairing this with some stories in the Bible from people that we see that were persistent in their prayers.
First, I want to say a quick prayer: "LORD, I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. LORD, you are the Almighty, you're the most powerful, the most wonderful, and you can do all things. I am so grateful for you, for all the prayers that you've answered in my life, and also for the unanswered prayers that weren't good for me. I pray that whatever each person is supposed to receive from this episode, that they receive it and they implement it in their daily lives, and that they come out of this knowing how important it is to be persistent in their prayers. I love You with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen."
Now let's get into some scripture:
1 "There was a man from Ramathaim-zophim in the hill country of Ephraim. His name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2 He had two wives, the first named Hannah and the second Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah was childless. 3 This man would go up from his town every year to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of Armies at Shiloh, where Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were the Lord’s priests. 4 Whenever Elkanah offered a sacrifice, he always gave portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to each of her sons and daughters. 5 But he gave a double portion to Hannah, for he loved her even though the Lord had kept her from conceiving. 6 Her rival would taunt her severely just to provoke her, because the Lord had kept Hannah from conceiving. 7 Year after year, when she went up to the Lord’s house, her rival taunted her in this way. Hannah would weep and would not eat. 8 “Hannah, why are you crying?” her husband, Elkanah, would ask. “Why won’t you eat? Why are you troubled? Am I not better to you than ten sons? 9 On one occasion, Hannah got up after they ate and drank at Shiloh. The priest Eli was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s temple. 10 Deeply hurt, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears. 11 Making a vow, she pleaded, “Lord of Armies, if you will take notice of your servant’s affliction, remember and not forget me, and give your servant a son, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut.” 12 While she continued praying in the Lord’s presence, Eli watched her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying silently, and though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, “How long are you going to be drunk? Get rid of your wine!” 15 “No, my lord,” Hannah replied. “I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord. 16 Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment.” 17 Eli responded, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request you’ve made of him.” 18 “May your servant find favor with you,” she replied. Then Hannah went on her way; she ate and no longer looked despondent. 19 The next morning Elkanah and Hannah got up early to worship before the Lord. Afterward, they returned home to Ramah. Then Elkanah was intimate with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, because she said, “I requested him from the Lord.” -1 Samuel 1:1-20
In these verses here we can see that Hannah went every year and they offered sacrifices to the Lord and she prayed to the Lord for a child. Even though she was being taunted by her husband's other wife, she was persistent in her prayers and she didn't let up. In this last prayer, before she conceived her son, she was crying out to the Lord with resentment and anguish and just pleading with the Lord. Eli had come up to her, and at first he thought she was drunk. Then he said, "May the God of Israel grant your request." The next morning the Lord remembered her and she conceived a son named Samuel.
If you've read the books of First and Second Samuel and also First and Second Kings, then you know that Samuel was a prophet and he appointed Saul the first King, and he also appointed David as king. I highly recommend if you haven't gone and read the books of First and Second Samuel and also First and Second Kings, that you go in and you dive deep into those books and study those because those are great books to study. Also, they just point to Jesus in the books of first and second Kings, whenever we see King David. Then we also see the other ancestors of David and the other kings. Jesus Was in The lineage of David. So when we see in first and second kings about King David and his lineage, we see all the other kings from his ancestry, that lineage is just leading us toward Jesus.
So we can see from these verses that it is so important for us to be persistent in prayer. Even though we've been praying for something over and over again for many years when we feel like God hasn't heard us, the Lord will come through in his perfect timing. You may have been praying for things for years. There may be something very specific that you've been praying for and you feel like the Lord has forgotten you or maybe you feel like He's punishing you for something that you've done in the past, or you just don't understand why the things that you're praying for are not happening. There are actually a few different reasons that I want to go through. So the first thing may be that it is not God's timing. His timing is perfect, and the way that He views time and the way that we view time is completely different. To Him, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day, and His timing is perfect. So we have to make sure that we are persistent in prayer, but we're also being patient and waiting for God's perfect timing and knowing that He's going to come through in His perfect timing. Another reason why your prayer may not have been answered yet is because the things that you're praying for aren't in alignment with God's will for your life. So even though it's very important for us to be persistent in our prayers, it's also very important that we ask the Lord for clarity and ask Him if the things we're praying for are in alignment with His will for our life. It's important that we also ask him to match our desires to His desires, because there may be things that you've been praying for in your life that are not good for you, that are not in alignment with God's will. Things that your flesh desires, worldly, materialistic things that may seem like very good things, but they're not what God has planned for you. So it's very important before we have this thing set in our mind that we desire, that we want so badly that we're persistently praying for, we have to first make sure that this is something that God wants for our life.
How do you know if something is God ordained for you? Well, you can go into scripture and see things that are good for us, things that are in alignment with God's will for our lives. We can see that marriage, kids, purity, and different things we can see are good things for our lives. So whenever we are praying for those things, we know that those are good things, but we also have to make sure that we're asking the Lord directly for Him to give us clarity on what He wants for our lives, for Him to make it so clear to us that the things that we're asking for are things from Him, or if the things we're asking for are not in alignment with His will and we will get an answer from Him. His answer may not be direct and it may come in the form of things happening in your life that make it very apparent why you didn't receive the things that you were asking for. Things are going to start happening when you're asking for that clarity, you will receive it in one way or the other.
There are so many things throughout the years that I've asked for that I am so grateful for those unanswered prayers because those things that I asked for were not good for me. They were not in alignment with what God had planned for my life. Even though they were desires of my heart at the time, I'm so grateful that God did not answer those prayers and that He gave me new desires in my heart that are good things, that are in alignment with His will, and that he is answering. I am living answered prayers right now, prayers that I have been praying for so long. I'm living in those prayers at this very moment and I'm just so grateful for those unanswered prayers. I'm also grateful for the waiting period that I had to go through because now I realize that all of this had to happen in God's perfect timing. If I had gotten the things that I wanted back years ago, it wouldn't have worked out because I was trying to rush things. I was trying to do it in my timing. I was trying to do it by my own strength and I wasn't fully giving it all to the Lord.
So when you're thinking of the things that you're praying for and you're wondering why God hasn't answered them, just know that God hasn't forgotten you, that He loves you and He has great plans for your life, but it may not be the timing or the things that you're asking for may not be in alignment with His will. So you want to make sure you get clarity on that. Once you have that clarity and you know for sure that this is from God, this is what he wants from my life, keeping persistent in those prayers, I'm telling you guys, you will receive the things that you're asking for that are in alignment with God's will for your life and His perfect timing. Then you're going to look back once you do receive those things, and you're going to realize why they happened in the time that they did and why they didn't happen in the times that you wanted them to happen.
5 He also said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.’ 7 Then he will answer from inside and say, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs 9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
-Luke 11:5-13
So we can see in these verses here that this friend that went at midnight to his other friend's house had a shameless boldness and the other friend gave him whatever he wanted, not because he was his friend, but because of his shameless boldness. We have to be bold in our request to the Lord and we have to ask, we have to seek and we have to knock. The Lord, our heavenly Father is going to give us the Holy Spirit. Whenever we are saved by Jesus Christ, we have the Holy Spirit within us. We have to make sure we're keeping in step with the Spirit and we have to be persistent and bold in our prayers. Whenever we are keeping in step with the Spirit and we're asking the Holy Spirit to move us to do the will of God the Father, the things that we're going to be asking for are things that are going to be in alignment with what God wants for our lives. Our Father is a good, good father. He wants to give His child good things. He has great plans for our lives. We cannot stop being persistent in our prayers just because we feel like he's forgotten us or we feel like it's redundant to ask for the same thing over and over again because it's never going to happen. God's timing is perfect. He will give us what we are asking for in His perfect timing as long as it's in alignment with what He has planned for us. If it's not, it's because it is in our best interest. He's not going to give us anything that is going to harm us. He's not going to give us anything that is not good for our lives.
So if you're asking the Lord for these things and you never receive them, that is a blessing because the things that you were asking for were not things that were good for you. Even though you don't understand right now why they weren't good for you, you will realize later down the road and you will look back and thank the LORD. There are so many times there are things that I asked for and I'm like, "Lord, thank you so much for not listening. You know way better than I ever could." I'm just so grateful that we have such a good Father who knows us, knows our hearts, and knows what is good for us. He knows the things that we truly need and He knows the things that we don't need and the things that are not good for us. We are never going to be able to understand all the things that He knows. That's why it is so important for us to ask the Holy Spirit to move us to do the will of God the Father.
1 "Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain town who didn’t fear God or respect people. 3 And a widow in that town kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 “For a while he was unwilling, but later he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or respect people, 5 yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice, so that she doesn’t wear me out by her persistent coming.’” 6 Then the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay helping them? 8 I tell you that he will swiftly grant them justice. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” -Luke 18:1-8
So in this parable that Jesus taught, we can see that it's so important for us to pray and to not give up. This widow was so persistent that the judge, even though he was an unjust judge and he didn't fear God, still granted her justice because she kept pestering him. Just like she was persistent, we have to make sure we're being persistent in our prayers to God and we don't ever give up. God is always right here with us, He's listening to us, He loves us, and He has perfect timing. You may be thinking, "Okay, well if God's timing is so perfect, if He's always right here with us and He's always listening to us, then he already knows the prayer that we prayed five years ago. He knows the time that it's going to happen. So why do we have to keep praying over and over again for that same prayer whenever it's just going to happen in God's timing anyway?" The reason why we have to keep being persistent in our prayers even though they're going to just happen in God's timing, there's actually a few different reasons. One reason is knowing that God is the only one that can make those things happen. Not trying to do those on your own, not trying to come up with a plan. Also, if we're not constantly asking the Lord for those things, we ask him for it one time, and then five years down the road, that thing happens, as mere humans, we are not going to remember that five years ago we asked this one simple prayer and God just granted our prayers. It's all about a relationship with Him and about faith. That is a big, big thing. If we don't have faith in God, nothing is possible. When we're praying with faith and we are asking God for these things that we know that He can do, He is going to make it happen if it is in His will and if it's in His perfect timing.
So why should we be persistent in our prayers? We should be persistent in our prayers because that helps us to strengthen our faith. It helps us to strengthen our relationship with God, and it helps us with that dependence. It helps us to realize God is the only way we can receive the things that we're asking for. We need Him every second of every moment of every day. We cannot do this on our own strength, but we can only do it by the strength that God gives us and by His grace and His mercy and in His perfect timing.
So I hope this episode helped you guys to realize the importance of being persistent in our prayers. If you've been praying for something constantly, you've been asking the Lord for something and it's just not happening and you feel like he has not heard you, I hope you realize that He is always right here with you. He hears you, He loves you. He will answer those prayers in His perfect timing if those prayers are in alignment with His will. If you're not sure if they're in alignment with His will, pray and ask Him, He's going to answer you one way or the other. Just make sure that whenever you do ask Him for it, you open up your eyes to see the truth. Sometimes, and this has happened to me, I would ask the Lord for things and then He gives me clear answers based on situations and circumstances that happened in my life. I just think it's a coincidence, or I'm like, "There's no way because that's not what I wanted." We have to make sure that we are opening our eyes to the truth and that we are just asking the Lord for His will to be done no matter what it is, even if it's not what we want. The Lord will always come through for us and fulfill His promises to us and His perfect timing.
I love you guys so much.
Never forget to choose faith over fear.
-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)
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Scripture taken from The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.
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