Most people I know believe intensely in prayer. Even those who would not consider them selves Christians, actually believe in prayer – especially in times of trouble, trauma and tribulation. Yet, even with this strong belief in prayer there is still a great deal of frustration concerning how it operates and what we need to do to see our prayers answered. We have off on this frustration at the lack of answers to our prayers to be real and at times confusing.
Some, in an attempt to put a positive spin on the whole issue of God’s response to it, has said that God answers our prayers. Sometimes his answer is yes, and we get what we are petitioning him for. Sometimes his answer is no, because he knows better than we do what we need. At other times, his answer is weight, because it is a timing issue. As much as I believe that this is at times correct, I believe it to be to trite and simple an answer. I watch people pray prayers that I knew were in agreement with God’s will, heart and timing, and yet their desired answer did not come. I watch these unanswered prayers result in relationships being destroyed, businesses going under and even premature deaths occurring. Devastating consequences took place because there appeared to be no answer from heaven.
So what is the problem, or better yet what is the solution? Why does heaven sometimes remain silent when we pray from the earnestness of our hearts? I believe that the Lord has unveiled, at the very least, a partial answer to this dilemma. The answer is found in where the spiritual activity called prayer is actually taking place.
Prayer, at its very core, is where we insert ourselves into a spiritual conflict. Prayer is not just an asking or petitioning of God for some things. When we pray, we engaged the Lord himself, but we are also engaging in powers of darkness that want to resist us in our prayer activity. We see this in the book of Daniel. Daniel is interceding, asking God for understanding regarding the Scriptures. Satan does not want his knowledge release to Daniel and high powers of darkness seek to stop him receiving the answer to his prayers. After 21 days, Daniel finally receives the answer to his prayer and also gains understanding of why the answer took so long to come through.
Daniel 10:12 – then he said to me, do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and a humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I’ve come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision refers to many days yet to come.
Daniel’s prayer engage God but also engaged the devil and his forces. My point is simply that prayer is almost always about a conflict. Daniel’s words stirred heaven, but also stirred up hell. When we pray we are entering a conflict. We are moving the powers of heaven for God’s kingdom will to be done, but we are also engaging the forces of darkness that are resisting that will from being done. This is the power of our words that are directed towards the Lord.
The apostle Paul talks about this conflict in many of his writings. In first Corinthians 9:26 Paul speaks of one who beats the air doesn’t land the blows.
One Corinthians 9:26 – therefore I run DOS: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: God is one who beats the air.
Paul says he doesn’t run with uncertainty, yet we certainly have. We participate in spiritual activities wondering if any of it is doing anything in the unseen realm. He then goes on to say that he doesn’t fight as one who beats the air. This is a reference to shadowboxing. Shadowboxing is a training method to build stamina and perfect the art of punching. Shadowboxing is further Jim, for training. It is not something you do in the ring with a real opponent opposite you! When there is a real opponent, real blows need to be landed and damage done to the adversary that is trying to knock you out. If you shadowboxing a real match, you will simply wear yourself out and not do any real damage to your opponent. You can be sure he will take advantage of your we can position, knock you out when the match.
I speak about this from experience. I was a junior high student in Texas, and our PE teacher decided that we would have a boxing lesson. I remember the Mets being put down in each student taking his turn against an opponent on the mats. I found myself matched up against one of the worst athletes in the school. I was an average athlete, definitely better than my opponent.(That’s my assessment of it anyway and I’m sticking to it.) We took our position on the mats, facing each other with our gloves in the right position, as we had been instructed, and we began to punch. I don’t really remember what happened, other than as I punch, I threw a wild haymaker of the punch that left my jaw completely exposed. My opponent(the non-athlete) saw it and delivered a left hook that landed perfectly. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back with all the other guys commenting very vocally and what had just happened to me ( the better athlete). I was extremely embarrassed and ashamed. This happened because I was wild in my boxing approach and I didn’t know how to land my blows.
This is what many Christians are experiencing. They are throwing punch after punch at an unseen opponent, but landing none of them. The problem is that we are discouraged, fainthearted and would like to just quit. We are wearing ourselves out. But please don’t quit. There are answers to the whole realm of unanswered prayers. Let me give you a clue concerning this mystery before we move on in this book.
If we are to get unanswered prayers answered, we must first rightly discern where the conflict is in which we find ourselves. Most teachers on prayer and spiritual warfare teach that we are on a battlefield. I’ve come to believe deeply that, at the least, initially our prayers are in the courtroom of heaven and we need to learn how to operate there if we are to get answers released an unlocked.
The protocol of a battlefield will not work in the courtroom and neither will the protocol of a courtroom work on a battlefield. These are two different arenas and we must discover where we are in prayer if we are to be effective. When we come off the battlefield and get into the courtroom and learn to function there, verdicts come out of the realms of God’s throne to put in place the cry of our hearts. We must know how to be a part of the legal process of heaven that grants God the legal right to fulfill his passion on our behalf and in years. This is what this book is about. Don’t be fainthearted, answers are on the way!