Title: Ep 09 | “Why arent my prayers working?”
Plot: An explanation that will end your frustration
Notes:
Listen to "Ep 09 | "Why arent my prayers working?"" on Spreaker.
Full Transcript
Hey, welcome back!
I heard a story about a little girl who wrote a letter to God. It said, "Dear God, Today I learned that you love everyone in the whole world! I have four brothers and I could never do it!"
I bet you've looked into the question of why aren't my prayers working? before. Maybe so many times in fact that some of you are giving me ten seconds to prove this won't be like all the other messages. It won't be! If you want new life, a new spring in your step, a new world experience, then all your seeking has finally paid off! Because it turns out your prayers were always working, but the devil figured out how to spoil them! And no one explained that to you.
The Bible says he is here to steal, kill and destroy. And sadly our churches have failed us miserably. The typical church pastor will tell you that if you aren't getting praryer results, it's because you're doing something wrong. And while that could be right, you are about to see what a terrible inadequate answer that is. Because there is a foundational truth about prayer that everyone should know. One that I have never heard explained before, but is self-evident.
I was never satisfied with making excuses for God. From my perspective, if the God I was praying to, didn't answer prayer, then it was because he wasn't real. And even with that mindset, I still felt my prayer results were lackluster most of my life. And so now we return to the question you might be asking yourselves: "Why aren't my prayers working?"
I'll begin with a story you can relate to because it might be your story, too. And the purpose of this story is to strengthen my case in such a way that by the time you finish this podcast, you will be absolutely convinced you were on the receiving end of a demonic conspiracy to torpedo your prayer life. To give you results so horrible you would give up on prayer.
The story begins with my membership in a false church. It seemed like a real church, they preached from the Bible. It was filled with beautiful people, but I could not get over the onslaught of resistance I encountered, when I told them I wrote my prayers. One member after another approached me and non-challantly let me straight into a conversation about prayer, tempting me to tell them about my written prayers. And if I did, then they worked tirelessly to tell me that writing my prayers was wrong and insincere and I should stop; because God didn't want to hear me repeat myself day after day.
Initially my response was to say: "when I don't write my prayers, I repeat myself in the same prayer. I babel, lose focus and nod off. Is that really better?"
I added that I constantly updated my written prayer. That sometimes when I compare the prayer I wrote in April to the updated version I was praying in May, there were massive overhauls producing wildly different prayers that were almost nothing alike. But that didn't seem to satisfy them. They wanted me to stop and pray the way they prayed. And at one point I did back down. But over the years I kept returning to the practice like a magnetic force was drawing me to it.
In the beginning I wasn't sure if it was working. And all the opinions I kept hearing, undermined my confidence and made me worry I was displeasing God. But after seven years of writing my prayers, I've written books on prayer and as a result, I can teach you things that have indisputable value. I learned things I would never have known otherwise.
At this point you might be thinking, "Okay, so this podcast is a commercial for written prayers." Although that would be of great value, that's not what this podcast is about. Rather it's to warn you that whether you write your prayers or not, I am convinced the kingdom of darkness records your prayers. And I'll tell you why: it's because of what I call the prayer interception. Remember that the devil is the great accuser. He is here to steal, kill and destroy. And he is a blessing stealer. Allow me to explain the mechanics of how that works:
Imagine you pray to God. "Dear God, give me a creative idea that will revolutionize the computer industry!" And that's a great prayer! Most people would offer that prayer and be done with it. But when you have written prayers, and when you go back and re-read them, the Holy Spirit is able to give gentle nudges that help you improve those prayers for greater success. Imagine this scenario:
Imagine that the devil upon hearing your prayer becomes very concerned and so he calls a meeting to brainstorm how they can stop you. Because he knows you're a Christian and God wants to bless you. And he also knows that if you become famous and influential, you will amass followers who will emulate you, and you will lead them to a belief in his enemy. And so he works tirelessly to ensure that people in positions of power and authority exclusively work for him. That way he can lead the masses astray and influence the world to worship him through them. By creating the perception that success is linked to misbehaviors like lying and stealing and dominating other people. Meaning, he implies that success comes from emulating famous people and authority figures.
And so he calls this brainstorming meeting and says, "We have a problem! This Christian figured out that he or she should pray a powerful prayer. Listen to what she requested! She said, "Dear God, give me a creative idea that will revolutionize the computer industry!" And God's angels have gone to work on delivering that revolutionary idea. And so what that tells me is that an idea is coming that will revolutionize the computer industry. So how can we intercept it?
One devil responds: we could cause her to forget the idea. Another says, we can cause her to implement it wrong. But a third says, what if we get her to blurt out her idea on the phone with one of our faithful servants in order to transfer the idea from the kindom of light into the kingdom of darkness? And then what if we block the influential decision maker authority from attending that phone call. And we have them instead reach out to our agent who heard the idea so he can steal it and deliver it for promotion?
I would be willing to bet you can relate to this. If you're like me, you have had brilliant ideas enter your mind and maybe you prayed to get them or maybe you didn't. But what you failed to do was to pray for the divine connection you needed to deliver them to receive the blessing and promotion God has for you. And furthermore to block the enemy from steeling it and taking credit.
Prayer interceptions are perpetrated by committed followers of the kingdom of darkness. People who remain close to you and befriend you and pump you for your best ideas so they can use them themselves. That's called sucking on your anointing. And it's a function of two critical behavioral issues that we all must control: one is our tongue (blurting out our great ideas to the wrong listeners). And the other is sloppy prayers.
Even if you fail to write your prayers down, you should expect the devil and his agents are vigorously taking notes. And so prayer number one is: God, let all prayers past, present and future uttered by me (to you) be private. Let copies of any kind, written, memorized, or recorded in the possession of the kingdom of darkness be destroyed utterly to the uttermost.
Be careful about praying with your Christian friends because temptation might overtake them and they might intercept blessings God intended for you. They could be wolves in sheeps clothing brought into your life to undermine your success. The devil sends his followers to disrupt spoil and split churches and they will even go to prayer meetings with you. It is not good to come into agreement with the kingdom of darkness. First because you won't know their real position and second because if you actually do agree with their real position, it's like Adam and Eve entering into agreement with the snake who was in agreement with the devil. That can disrupt your relationship with God. Meaning make sure your friends are real friends and not convincing enemies. People forget that Judas Iscariot was in the inner circle and he didn't betray Jesus with a punch to the nose, he betrayed him with a kiss. He had an army with him, he could've just pointed. The fact that he maintained the illusion to the very end is instructive.
While writing my prayers I stumbled onto a discovery: I was once struggling with a situation and I prayed about it and got immediate success, but shortly thereafter the prayer stopped working. In the past, I would have given up, but on this occasion I considered how the devil might block or intercept my prayer blessing and so I made an adjustment and experienced another immediate success.
What I came to discover was that my enemy was adjusting to my adjustments. And I revised and updated my prayer eight times before I gated all access to my blessing in this case — once and for all wrestling it out of the hands of my enemy. You want to know what that prayer was about? It was about having a restful night of sleep.
Had I not made adjustments, I would never have experienced a peaceful night of sleep, but because I retained my prayer in writing and searched it for loopholes and suffered subsequent attacks. I knew my problem was solved when a peaceful restful sleep finally materialized, which would never have happened, had I kept repeating the same simple prayer indefinitely. My initial prayer was, "dear God give me a restful night of sleep." I kept that and considered what was making it unrestful. I eventually discovered the devil was attacking me in my sleep. When I realized I wasn't just having nightmares I was being attacked in my sleep, I can't describe how violated felt. I started with quiet prayers, and got louder; I started with defensive moves and became offensive.
I dislike being chased in my dreams so I prayed. "Dear God, the next time I'm chased in my dream send holy wild beasts to devour my pursuers." The chasing stopped, but new situations emerged. Next I was robbed, then kidnapped, imprisoned and so on. Meaning that praying against being chased solved my problems with being chased, and so my enemy made an adjustment by robbing me; forcing me to adjust by decreeing a consequence. By the time I finished with my prayer adjustments my dream enemies were eaten, burned alive, evaporated, caged and nuked. Now my sleep is sweet and my nights are restful and as a result I am as rested after four hours of sleep as I used to be after ten. I came to understand I was being attacked in my sleep and so I attacked back.
The devil, also known as the great accuser, looks for prayer loopholes. Don't give him any! He is a vicious and determined attacker of our prayer lives, because prayer is our power source. It is the way we defeat him and he hates to lose. So while you pray for blessings, don't be surprised if he takes notes and searches for loopholes. The best way to find loopholes is to write your prayers and you will naturally catch yourself changing words, deleting mistakes and adding refinements. That's the Holy Spirit helping you fix your prayers. Meaning if all your prayers are "inspired" as my former church liked to call it, then how will you grow from the benefit of hindsight?
Our prayers shouldn't be haphazzard and sloppy. If we really believe we are approaching the king, then let us not stumble into the throneroom and babble and repeat ourselves forgetting what we asked for after we leave. Instead, let us make our petition known to God in writing so that we ourselves remember what we said. And also so we remember to thank him for answered prayers.
So many times I've been reading a written prayer and realized God responded with blessings for things that I had forgotten about. Meaning I received a blessing without realizing it even as I continued praying for the thing he blessed me with. I can't tell you how many times this has happened.
Yes, there are other things that will cause our prayers to fail, but I believe this one is the primary reason for most of our prayer failures. Not because we're not good enough, not because we didn't believe enough, but because we asked for something like a revolutionary idea that we blurted out to the wrong audience. And they stole our idea, delivered it to the right person and siezed our blessing. Leaving us to pay the full retail value in order to purchase the product that we were supposed to retire on.
So write your prayers. Eliminate your loop holes and when the enemy makes adjustments respond with your own adjustments until you defeat him!
I hope that helped! If it did, be sure to subscribe as a way of saying thanks and so you can continue to receive revelations.
And that's all folks! Thank you for listening! And y'all come back now! Ya hear?
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