Prayer
Excerpted from A Praying Time
1. Doubt
2. Delay
3. Devil
One reason is because of doubt. The devil tries to plant the seeds of doubt in our minds about this matter of prayer. He tries to cause doubt in our minds as to whether or not God is even hearing our prayer. He tries to plant doubt in our mind as to whether or not you are even worthy of praying. He tries to plant little doubts in our minds to keep us from praying and sometimes, unfortunately, he succeeds, and we don’t pray as we ought to pray.
A second reason why we faint in prayer is because of delay. We think that God is on our time and that He pays every Friday. But we must remind ourselves that God is on His own time and like the old preachers down in Georgia used to say: “God may not come when you want Him to but He’s always right on time.” Remember, a day is like a thousand years to God and a thousand years is like one day to God.
For those of you who have been saved awhile, we know that time after time God has delivered us—right on time. When things seemed hopeless, God brought us through. He heard our prayer. Bank on it, dear friends, God wants to hear your prayer more than you want to pray. He delights in hearing us pray to Him. He wants to answer our prayers. He wants to bless us. He delights in blessing us. But, most importantly, He wants to hear from us.
Another reason why we faint in prayer is because of the onslaught of the devil. Let me share this testimony with you. When I first got saved, I spent a lot of time studying my Bible and was very excited about that. I was excited about going soul-winning and seeing people saved. But for some reason I did not spend much quality time in prayer as I should have. I don’t know why to this day. I prayed a little bit in the mornings and a little bit at nights and that was it. But then one day, someone gave me a set of books by E. M. Bounds. E. M. Bounds was a praying man. He had tapped into the power one could have through prayer. He spent most of his ministry writing about prayer, teaching about prayer and praying himself. I call him the “prince of prayer.”
God convicted me of my prayer life through this set of books. I determined in my heart and mind that I was going to spend more time in prayer. And do you know that as I began to pray more in the mornings and afternoons, in the late mornings and late evenings, and, of course, at nights, and as I began to pray more and more throughout the day, instead of things immediately getting better things immediately got worse. I couldn’t understand why, back then, but I understand it now. You see, the devil did not want me to pray. He was discouraging me from praying. He was trying to make me faint in prayer. But God gave me the grace to continue in prayer and God, of course, delivered and blessed and answered my prayers.
Be aware, as you make up your mind to pray more, and as you pray more, things are not going to immediately be a bed of roses; your days are not going to be problem-free. Quite the contrary. Why? Because Satan will be there to meet you head-on. He does not want you to pray; he does not want you to tap into your source of strength and power; he does not want you to call upon Jesus. So therefore, he will throw every obstacle your way to prevent you from praying. Satan does not mind you learning about prayer, but he does not want you to get into the habit of praying. Why? Because something happens when a Christian prays; something happens when a Christian communicates with God. Satan does not want the Christian to pray because he knows he will be defeated through prayer.
