Ep 18, Misconceptions About Prayer

Many people have misconceptions about prayer. We take on 7 of them to help bring more clarity and encourage others.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Lafayette Prayer Room Podcast. We're located in Lafayette, Louisiana. And today we're talking about misconceptions about prayer.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Yeah, a lot of people have come to us through the years with different questions or concerns. So a couple of the typical questions we've heard is that people feel intimidated by prayer. Why do I feel so intimidated by prayer? Or have you ever felt like you're doing prayer wrong? Um, and not that we have all the answers. This is not an exhaustive discussion, but we do have a lot of years in prayer. So if some of our experience can help other people, we just wanted to throw it out there.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

And as we're talking about um people feeling intimidated by prayer, that they do it wrong, it made me think of a quote by theologian A.W. Tozer that said, What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. And so if I, when I close my eyes, if I picture the Lord and I see him as angry with me or always upset or um ready to punish, like looking for what I've done wrong, I don't want to go to him in prayer. I want to back away. But if I see him as he is, Lord merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abound me in love, that's a God I want to go to in prayer. So what I think about God either accelerates my prayer life or hinders it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah. Sometimes I feel like he sees me through the lens I see myself through. So that he is sometimes uh aggravated. Um, he's disappointed in me when I have failed again or I'm still struggling in an area. I assume that he feels the emotions about me that I feel about myself, which is not true. He has constant emotions of love and affirmation, and uh he sees in us where we're going and who we are gonna be, not just the momentary struggle. I view myself a lot of times through my present weakness, the area I'm struggling in right now, or my recent past performance, like whatever I didn't do right recently. So I'm evaluating myself through that lens, but he's not, he sees where I'm gonna end up, and he views me through the truth of that as opposed to my recent performance. And so if I know that's how he's viewing me, that pulls me to him, to want to talk to him and be with him, as opposed to a very wrong view of God. A lot of people think God's He's a He's a grumpy God or He's a mad God or He's always sad at how pathetic we are. Like we have just these misconceptions, deceptions that the enemy has lied to us about who God is, which greatly affect number one, if I even go to him, but number two, how I interact with him when I'm there. If I feel like I just have to grovel all the time, then that doesn't make me want to number one want to come and my heart be open once I'm there. But if I do believe, oh, he's already leaning in, longing to connect with me. Well, that makes me lean in. So it matters what I think of God. And if if people are wondering, like, well, I you know, I think I think God's good, like just in one second, when I say, when you think of God right now looking at you, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Don't go to, I know God loves me, I know Jesus died for me. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? And that's kind of a telltale sign to know.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And I mean, God does, he loves us, but he likes us, you know, like it's even more than that. And you're talking about how he sees us um not just as we are, but as like what's gonna be finished. But for most of our time, the billions of years, you know, in eternity from after this life in resurrected bodies, we're gonna be loving him fully. Like, so for billions of years we're gonna love him perfectly. Like, so it's okay. I mean, you don't want to stay in a struggle, obviously. We want to keep getting back up, but it's okay. The process, he's okay with the process. Yes, he he enjoys the process, just like we enjoy the process of watching our children grow up. So does the father. He looks at you with delight.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, and I feel like I know I do. I always come from the point of I should be further along, I should be doing better, I shouldn't still be struggling with this. And so I I'm aggravated with myself and assume that this perfect holy God who's given me everything I need for life and godliness, surely is like, why can't she get it together? And that's such a lie, the enemy that he uses. But the more time I spend in prayer, um meditating on the word about who he really is, then then I believe it more. Because it has to be more than just, yes, I know he loves me. Yes, I know he wants to spend time with me. It has to be more than just a mental clocking, it has to be, I believe that he has emotion behind that. Because that to me is what shifts when it goes from the head, yes, I know that, to the heart. That's when I move towards him in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

That leads perfectly into what I believe is the one of the misconceptions that prayer is just about asking for things. Um, so like in our prayer room, we always start in when we have times of intercession, we always start with worship because it's first about connection with the Lord. Um, we've talked, you know, a whole podcast about intimacy. And so it's from that place that prayer comes. If your prayer life is just about asking for that list, I remember one time the Lord kind of early on in my prayer walk, the Lord being like, I'm not a genie in a bottle. Like, you don't get to like rub the magic lamp and ask your three wishes. Like, that's not what God is. But we often, even if we don't want to say it that way because that sounds horrible, that is how we that's how I treated God for a long time. Like, I I need this, this, and this done, you know, here. Here's my wish list, you know. But it's about connection with the Father first, always. First commandment, always first. Um, and so it's not just about coming with a list of I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this. Oh, we do bring our request to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah, I've said it for years. I feel like sometimes like a broken record, but just in in casting vision of what we do when we come, just saying we come mostly for him. We show up at the prayer room mostly for him, then to pray for needs. I'm coming with my own heart. Like, show me yourself, reveal yourself to me. I want to know you more, I want to know your heart more, because that directly impacts how I pray. That carries over into intercession, and it's why it's a value to spend time and intimacy for us in the prayer room, because that has weight and impact. There's an anointing that flows out of intimacy with the Lord. In intercession, it's like oil, like it just everything works better when it's well oiled. So we see intimacy as going hand in hand with intercession, not either this or that. Like they they are intertwined at every level. So we do go in and seek Him first, and more than just like, okay, we do our worship songs, check, now we're gonna pray, check, like it's they are intertwined all throughout. Because I believe that worship is intercession, like those songs, you take them away from music and they're prayers, like a lot of them, not everyone, but a lot of them are so literally, even in the worship, I am praying, I'm singing that prayer to God. And then we do it, of course, in our prophetic flow for worship with the word. We're still singing our prayers to God. So that's all part of one swirl.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yes, prayer is more than request. I think um those two words become synonymous, at least in American culture, but it's not the same. Prayer is all the things, worship is prayer, thanksgiving, sitting and listening, that's part of prayer. Because if it's a dialogue between me and the father, I don't want it to be just one-sided. In fact, it's way better if I hear from him. His word to me is way more powerful than my words to him. I mean, it's both, but confession, you know, all of those things, intercession, of course, is prayer, but it's all those things together that make up prayer.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, because I know people are like, you know, what do y'all do? Because they associate prayer to whatever their history, we all do it to whatever our history of a prayer meeting is or people gathering to pray. So for some people, that look like for them, um, you get some prayer cards that have needs on them, and that's what intercession looks like. Or um they have a list of people's needs that they know about or have called in, and so now we're gonna pray about these. And we do some of that sometimes, but that is not our main mode of intercession when we do actually go into intercession. And we've talked about it. There's an episode, an intercession episode, where we kind of go in the focuses of how we break them down in intercession, but they're broad focuses, so we could pull in a range of things within each, like we pray for for families on Monday nights. Well, that's a wide open target. So you can literally come and pray in tunnels. You can pray for mothers, you can pray for dads, you can pray for marriages, you can pray for kids, you can pray for peace in the homes. Like there's a a lot you could pray for under that umbrella. So that leaves it wide open.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, we're not just coming for other people's needs, and even I mean, people will we'll we'll pray for the needs in the room sometime for sure. We don't take up a lot, but we I would love for people to know that their prayers for their family, their children are way more powerful than my prayers for their it's not like oh they go to the prayer room there, therefore their prayers matter more. It doesn't. What moves the heart and not is when you're praying in agreement with him or his will or it's moving in you. It's like I'm gonna pray for my kids. I mean, of course, if something's happening, oh I'd like hey, y'all lift up my family or whatever, but I'm gonna be praying for my kids. Like your prayers are so powerful for your family. You don't you don't need to get some special person to pray for them. You are a special person praying for them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah, because sometimes we'll get people, you know, often pray for this for my child, and we do, but we are the same Holy Spirit innocent as the mom, the dad, you have more authority in your prayers over your child than someone else does. Like you carry the most authority in the spirit, so your prayers are the most impactful. It is great to have other people help, but like you said, I'm gonna cover my kids because I know I carry the most authority as a parent, uh, a husband and wife, you carry more authority in prayer. What you pray over them is more powerful than just someone else who is not part of this relationship. Everybody has the same access and authority on their prayers for what's the Lord has given in their sphere of influence.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yes, and I think often um coming just with a checklist, of course, you know, have your prayer list. I'm not at all like saying prayer list or bad or anything that way, but you don't want it to just be that because God is not a checklist. But we I have treated him that way in the past, and I remember the Lord saying, What if you treated your relationship with your husband like that? Like imagine if I woke up in the morning and thought, okay, today I need to talk to Josh for at least five minutes. Okay, I've talked to him for five minutes, check. I've asked him three questions, I've told him three things I need from him today. Check, check, check. I told him I loved him, okay, good, check. I'm done. And when he comes to talk to me, you know, like I checked you off. Like I I did that already and put him aside. That's not a relationship. That would end in divorce really quickly, like there because there's no love there, you know. But God desires actual partnership, not just here's my list for today. Good check, oh, done with that, thank goodness. I don't want to feel that way with the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

And he set it up to partner with us, he set it up to have that interaction because he could have set it up any way he wanted to, he could have set it up to where he just did it all, where he didn't need us to pray to talk to him at all, and he doesn't need it in that he can't do it until we do, but he set it up that he wants us to come and to talk to him about it because he wants the relational exchange, he wants to hear my heart, and then he wants to tell me his. He loves the exchange, that's what he's after because it's real love. He has real love and he wants real love back. He didn't want a robot like that. Here's all this, okay. I love you, okay. Bye. He wants real voluntary love, is what he's after. So he set it up that way, and there are some things in his plan, in his sovereignty, you know, that are gonna happen, regardless of whether we pray it or not. But there are many things I can change and shift if I pray for them, or that will not shift in that way if I don't. So, misconception number two good Christians always feel like praying, which the reality is, is prayer is a choice until it becomes a desire. It's a choice I make. And as I've been an intercessor over 20 years now, there are still times I don't feel like praying. It's never like we we graduate to uh always just want to do that. Uh I still have flesh that wants to do what it wants to do, that is selfish, that you know, in the moment my emotions are somewhere else, my mental uh thoughts are somewhere else. So it's still always a choice. However, the more I do it as a habit, as a routine, a rhythm, the easier it gets, the the more quiet that flesh gets. It's still there. And then the louder my spirit grows, I always say whatever appetite you feed is the appetite that will grow. So if I feed my spirit by meeting with God regularly, then I'm gonna be more hungry for him, and I'm gonna want to talk to him. When I feel his presence, I want to be back in his presence. So it does kind of shift, but it does take time, like it's it's real. You could use the example of our hearts like a frozen pound of ground beef, and you gotta set it in front of the fire, and it takes a while to thaw. So I keep bringing my cold heart before the bonfire of his love, and it thaws more and more and more, you know, and then I do desire to spend time with him. It it does shift, but that takes time, and there are still times I don't feel like it. Like there's that's the reality of it. But to anybody who says they always want to pray and always want to spend time with God, I question if that's honest.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, of course, there's times when you're tired, you're the fill, I mean the list is long of what can make you not feel like going to prayer or having your prayer time, but what and I don't do this perfectly, but what I've come to learn is that I can't rely on my feelings. My feelings don't get to dictate what I do, and I'm not sure why we buy the lie that our feelings can dictate what we do spiritually. Like I don't let my feelings tell me I'm not going to work today. You know, I I go to work because I have to to to think I'd always want to be in my work, even though I do like my job, is crazy. But I go because it's it's my job. I have to. Well, prayer and being with the Lord is something that I'm called to do. So my feelings don't get to dictate what I'm gonna do. And so I'll often when I don't feel like praying, I will tell Jesus, but you are worthy of this time. And it always I hate to use the word always, but I feel like it's true. It always brings me into okay, I actually do want to be here. And there's kind of this this thing, if you don't feel like doing something and you do it for 10 minutes, typically you'll just keep keep doing it. But so if you don't feel like it, just say, Oh, I'm gonna pray for 10 minutes. And then when you're in there, you're gonna keep going, you know. So just just start. Feelings are not the Lord, you know, the Lord is the Lord. So that's why in Psalms it's always like, you know, bless the Lord, oh my soul. I mean, I'll I'll open with those sometimes, but today I'm gonna bless the Lord. I don't feelings don't get to determine what I do day to day. Not sometimes they do, sometimes they win. But as a whole, they're not gonna drive my my life.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

And Psalm 34 is a great psalm. If you're struggling to get into worship or a prayer, just pray that psalm. And it activates because it's about a willful choice. It is, I am gonna praise the Lord. If you're struggling, just let that be a default. We're gonna engage, but also sometimes it feels dry, sometimes you know, I'm tired, or or I come in really struggling or broken even sometimes. That still counts when I come in and feel really weak, and I just almost start by going through the motions, that still counts as obedience. He counts it as love, not just like, well, that wasn't great today, so that doesn't even count. Like he doesn't look at it like that. He counts it as love, even when I show up half of the person I normally am, it counts.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, when you're sitting down to your quiet time, and maybe today you're not feeling like reading the word. Of course, I think again, we don't let feelings dictate, but what if right now I just really feel like worshiping? Well, I'm gonna do that. Like it doesn't have to be this set, I'm gonna do that. Again, he's not a checklist. Uh you need to spend time in the word, you need to read the word. But if your heart is leaning into worship, by all means, worship. Maybe that is what the Lord's desiring right now. We don't know. He just wants worship or um, but I know for me, prayer got really enjoyable when I started reading the Bible and praying about what I was reading, and it started with literally a daily reading, you know, just this is my reading for today, and opening it up, but instead of just reading through it, I would read it and I would stop and I'd ask him questions and I would journal it. And I have so many notebooks of just journals, but I remember the first time feeling a response, and that changed everything for me. So it's like, wait, you're gonna answer me in real, like you're gonna talk to me today, right now. That's the most fun, that's the most enjoyable thing. And prayer became something I desired to do when I started slowing down in the word and journaling and talking to him and knowing he talks back to me. Like the God of Genesis 1, Holy Spirit living inside of me will talk to me. That's amazing, that's enjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I think that is a great point about if you're feeling like worshiping, um, do that, like you're feeling like drawn to the word, do that. And I know for me, um, there are seasons where most of my prayer time was worship, and I was finding him there. And then in another season, I just could not get enough of the word. I wanted to journal it, I wanted to pray it, I wanted to deep dive Bible study it. Like I just could not consume enough of it, which I which we know that's the Holy Spirit drawing us. And there's another season where intercession was where I spent the bulk of my time with the Lord. Like it was, you know, he just had me on one thing long and then the next thing, and or then he just expanded into deeper and further than I thought it would was gonna go. So the more I'm with him, the more sensitive I am to the leading of the Holy Spirit. So, I mean, the Bible's not bad. If something's drawing me to the Bible, it's gonna be the Holy Spirit. Like people who are like, I don't know if I should read this chapter today or this chapter. Like, there's not a wrong chapter, it's the word, like wherever the Lord leads you, it will be profitable. So, but it also makes it um fun. Our time with the Lord, because it's not so rigid, like the checkbox that it has to be this formula all the time. I have a go-to when I'm with him that if I don't feel led to do one or the other, I know I'm gonna do this, but it's always open to where he wants to leave me, and usually there's some fluidity to it.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah, I'm thinking of uh a girl I heard tell a story about her time in the prayer room, and I think it was a vision she had, but it may have been a dream, I can't remember. But anyway, she's walking down a hole and it was like framed pictures all down the hall, and so she's looking at the pictures and she realizes this is all my favorite times with the Lord, and they were photographed and like framed and hung up on display. And she's like, I remember that time we did this, he touched me, you know what it was all her favorite times, and then the Lord said, Would you like to see my favorite times with you? Of course. So then she looks on the other side of the wall, and there's all these framed pictures, and it's the Lord's. Favorite time with her, but it wouldn't have been the one she picked. Like, she was like, No, I was I didn't even feel like going that day, or I was really sad here. Like it was, it was not powerful times in her mind. And the Lord said, My favorite times are when you chose me when it was hard. Like when you did it when you didn't want to, or you were hurting and you came anyway, or there were a hundred options and you chose me. Those are my favorite times. Just he evaluates so differently than we do. And it's also triggering me to remember. Um one of the guys I know that is in the prayer room said he was telling the Lord, like, I can't do what people in third world countries do for you. Like, I I'm not persecuted, I'm not like I feel like I can't offer love in that way. And the Lord was like, Yeah, but you live in a world with endless options, and then you choose me. And that is beautiful, like that's love, that's how you can love me in America. You know, you have we have endless opportunities before us, and to say no, no, no, and yes to the Lord is is He esteems it.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

So good. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

So misconception number three would be if God doesn't answer immediately, He's not listening. So of course we don't try to manipulate the Lord, like I don't come to prayer and have the outcome already in my mind. Sometimes you you have the outcome you want, but we don't get to control it. His time, his way, his. We just offer him the prayers and then he does his will on the earth. His silence is not absent. Like we can't believe that lie, or his silence doesn't mean he's far off. Like all those accusations the enemy wants to throw when he's silent. I don't know what's working, what he's doing, what I don't know why. It's not my job to know. I don't have to know. I just have to keep doing what I'm called to do. I know Daniel prayed and there was no change 21 days, and the angel comes and was like, I was held up. You know, like we don't know what's going on in the spiritual sense, we don't know what the Lord's doing. Um, and so silence doesn't mean he's not listening, and it doesn't mean I should quit.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

And we should not take that silence or what seems like inactivity as God's passivity, or he doesn't impact my daily world anyway. He just cares about the big things we hear people say that too, you know, like he doesn't care about my little world, my little need. He he's got bigger things. No, he does, and because I don't see him um move on the thing I just prayed for soon does not mean that he's not moving and working. We don't know how many variables go into each thing we're asking him about. So let's say I'm praying about one of my kids. Well, there's free will involved, there is outside influences involved, there are there's emotional demands that I don't know are going on inside of them. It there is uh enemy oppression and trying to trip like there's so many things. There's timing, like it's not the best timing for a list of reasons that I don't know and understand. There are so many variables into everything that I have to decide to trust him when I don't see him do what I want him to do when I want him to do it. It's a matter of me having faith and trusting that it's best in his timing, if it happens at all. Sometimes, you know, we hold it loosely, like we say it, and I say it all the time, you know, like God, this is what I'm asking you to do. But if it's not your will, um, I want you to do your will over what I want to happen. And almost, almost a hundred percent of the time, however, I am asking him to do something is not how he does it. He may answer, but it's not gonna look like I thought. It is never the timing I wanted. So once you get a little bit of that under your belt, you kind of start to learn, okay, Lord, this is you are working. I don't see it, or I don't see it yet. Or if it's not supposed to happen, I trust that you know what's best. Because it's like it's like um there's a parade, but I can I'm behind a fence and I can only see through a knothole in the fence, and I'm saying, do this thing right now, and it and he's from eternity can see the whole thing from the beginning to the end, and he knows what needs to happen. So I'm not gonna, from my little knothole in the fence, think that I know best or that I'm more loving than God, and if he's not doing what I asked, then he doesn't care as much as me. That's an accusation and a lie of the enemy that I am not gonna have in my mouth or in my heart against the Lord. I know he's good, I know his nature, he is for me and the things that I the ones that I love, he's for them too. So I trust that if I'm talking to him about it, he's gonna do his will in his timing. Until he takes me off of that, or if he wants me to do it till he comes, I'm locked in on that. Because there has been times, um, I remember one time our kids were little, little, and I remember praying for some specific things. Um, because all of our other friends, you know, had this scenario or things, and I remember him saying one day to me, like, you have a higher calling. Not a higher calling than them. I had a higher calling than I was walking in at that time, and for whatever reason, he didn't want my eyes on those things for me to go to where I needed to go. He's like, We're gonna come this way, not that way. And it was another time I was asking him for something more situational, and he said, I can give it to you, I can give you this, or I can do a thorough work in your heart because you will draw validation from this thing working out. There's things that that that's gonna satisfy in you that I want to validate. Only I want to be the source of what you draw on in that area, and I just immediately backed off and I was like, no, I want the thorough work, I want the thorough work done in my heart. You know better than I. Don't give me what I think I want if it's not the best of what you have for me. Waiting seasons are normal, like delays are normal, and I think if we go in with the American instant gratification um way of thinking into prayer, it doesn't work. The Bible shows us all through the Bible there are delays, there are seasons of waiting uh for many reasons, again, many variables that go into play into how it needs to unfold. So if I know that going into prayer, there's waiting seasons. It may be years, I may not see the answer in my lifetime, but what God accomplished was accomplished, and I just don't know it yet. I won't know it till I cross over and he's like, look at this, this, this. You know, that's just something I imagine he'll show us all the things we didn't get to see on this side, like, oh, but these prayers accomplished this. You didn't know, but it was impacting here.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah, and God is in the waiting, you know, he's there, and that's where we're gonna grow. You know, it's not what we want to hear, we would like to just be, you know, grow. But it's in those hard times and the waiting, it's in the the talking with the Lord through the waiting. That's when your growth, your perseverance, all of those different things mature a little, little by little in those waiting seasons.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, and and not to imagine spiritually everything's on a pause because something hasn't shifted like you wanted it to. Like, don't don't lose the growth, don't lose him in that waiting. There are parts of him that we cling to in a different way when we are not getting the breakthrough we're asking for. That dependency is slowly continuing to transfer. If I keep clinging to him in that waiting, that unanswered prayer, you know, there's a song that is literally the waiting room of unanswered prayer because you're waiting, but you could be progressing, or you could just be growing anxious or aggravated that it's not happening the way we want. And if our eyes are not on him, if intimacy is not in the in the swirl, then that's easy to do. We're only looking at the circumstance. But if I'm looking at him, then I'm content here, even though the circumstance doesn't change, and I'm on this on a discovery journey with him, so the waiting doesn't even feel like waiting anymore. A lot's been happening in the waiting, yeah. Yeah, and also um, because I've come across this too, um almost like a it's an offense and almost like a anger boiling underneath the surface. Like, why isn't God answering me? Like, God shouldn't be letting this happen. Um and the thing is that's an entitled position. He does not owe me anything, he does not owe me anything, he's already done abundantly extravagant things for me. He does not owe me what I decide he owes me. I ask, he gives, and and I feast on all he has already given, and I come to him on his terms. I don't try to make him come to me on my terms. All right, so misconception number four prayer has to sound impressive, and of course we all know it doesn't, but we all, especially if you're praying in front of other people, um, which is mostly what we do in the prayer room anyway. Um none of us like to sound stupid. None of us like to fumble over our words, though we do. So I think without even trying consciously, we're still trying to sound impressive sometimes. Um but the Lord could care less about that, like just the wrong Lord. He accepts that's that's a good prayer. That's a really good groan, like oh he accepts that counts as prayer. It it does not have to sound a certain way, it doesn't have to sound like wherever you're praying, like because everybody has their own prayer styles. Like, so if you go to a church, you don't have to conform to what you're hearing, like you don't need to come into our prayer room and conform to how we pray. We won't we have some people who pray very different uh than others, and I love that. I love that we don't all sound the same. Um, but just pray simple prayers. Um and shorter, honestly, shorter prayers. Uh don't try to to go so long, be the longest one in the room. Um short, sincere prayers, easy prayers to me are the ones that work best with your heart.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yeah, prayer is not performance. I mean, we it's so easy to slip into performance mode, especially if you're in a prayer room on a microphone, whatever. It's very easy to slip into that. But one way I combat that in my own heart is I'll picture Jesus standing in front of me and I'm just I'm talking to you, Jesus, you know. Um, because it's not about, oh, I felt something when you prayed, or like no, it's just me and the Lord. Um, so it's not performance, and God hears simple, honest prayers you don't have to shout, it doesn't have to be long. Um and look, I'll get excited and start talking louder in the microphone, but it's not about any of those things, just be authentically you talking to the Lord. That is what he's after.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

And when you aren't sure what to pray, just pray scripture like he's given us the dialogue. Um, I don't have to conjure something up. I just take the word and I pray it. I insert my name in it, or I put it towards a situation, the thing I'm praying for. And if if you're just starting to pray and you're like, I don't have language to pray, like I don't know words to say. Scripture to me is one of the greatest teachers of how to pray. Like it gives you language to talk to him with. So, and some will stick with you and and and become how you start to pray. And other things, it's just like that's a weird phrase, but it's here, I'm gonna pray it. You know, that's how it works.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yeah, I love praying scripture. Um, in our prayer room, we use the apostolic prayers, and we actually have a list um on a paper, and I use them every time I'm in prayer, I use them at some point. Um, so I think that is a huge tool, and it's okay if that's what you use every time. Like it's not like you have to reinvent the wheel or come up with something new. I'm not trying to impress the Lord, I'm just trying to talk to him.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yes, and so two things. One, like you said, when we get up there, we're talking to the Lord. We encourage in our prayer room don't pray to the room, don't try to pray information prayers, talk directly to him with your prayers, like just you and him. And then also, so you mentioned that the apostolic prayers. So one that we pray a ton, and I'll just say a portion of it, uh, that the Father of glory may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding, being the being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling. So that's something I can pray over anything, like almost every prayer on the front and back of this page, you could apply to so many things. But literally, that language gives the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We put on everything we pray for, enlighten the eyes of our understanding. You're constantly praying that another part in Ephesians 3 that we pray about um strengthen us by your spirit in our inner mid. Now that's language that we use, but it's because we pray the scripture, so it just helps facilitate prayer. The word helps facilitate prayer.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, and you can use scripture in you don't need to be afraid of like misusing the scripture or whatever. If you do, like the Lord, the Holy Spirit's gonna correct it at some point, but typically we're not. And like I said, when we're when I was studying or when I do sit down and read the Bible and I'm journaling, that's where I get a lot of scriptures that I'll end up praying. Like something will really touch me. Like I remember reading through Zachariah and reading about like, who are you, O Mountain, to stand before the Lord? Like today, you're gonna become a plane. And I remember it was probably the first time I had read it, or the first time it grabbed my heart for sure. Coming to you, it was new in my prayer journey, and being like, Hey, I can pray this about a lot of things. I can say, like, no, this mountain, it has to become a plane, and you're like, Yes, Jamie, you can pray that so you can use it for you, like you know. Okay, so misconception number five would be that somebody that has strong faith never has any doubt. And I I don't know if I'm considered somebody with strong faith. I don't consider myself somebody with strong faith, but I can tell you, I don't think any I don't think any one person is like, I have strong faith. Like, I don't imagine people feel that way, but no, as a human, doubts come in, insecurities come in, fear. You never get past the enemy using doubt and fear. He's gonna bring it in. The question is, what do I do with it? And so I think of Psalms where David often he comes into the Lord like with all his doubts, fear he just lays it out before the Lord, but then ends at the end of his psalm with, but I remember you were good, you know, whatever it is. But he always comes back with truth of who the Lord is, so you don't stay in your doubt, but you you bring it to the Lord. You talk to him about it, he knows my doubt, he knows my fears, he knows my insecurities, and they're fixed in his presence. Like he fixes it. I cannot fix my doubt, my insecurity, my fear, my anxiety on my own, and then come to prayer. I would never, I would never be in prayer. He fixes it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yeah, I'm thinking of a uh a chorus we sing sometimes in the prayer room, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Like, yeah, I doubt sometimes. I struggle in certain areas. Sometimes we all do, um, but I want to bring it to him because he he knows what to do with it. Sometimes I'm tripped up by it, but he's like, I can handle it, he's got big shoulders, he can handle doubts, he can handle questions, like I can throw at him the worst, even the question I feel like I can't even say to you. He's like, No, I'm the one to bring it to. I want to talk to you about it, I want to come in and affirm where you're lacking, I want to raise up that low place in your heart, so yeah, he can handle it. Also, I've learned it is way better to be raw with him. Um, because we tend to try to come and bring him our best selves sometimes. Um, but when I'm hurting or I'm offended or I'm mad, like I have learned like let it come out, like not venting, but be honest. They did this. I felt like this. I want to say that this happened or this was injustice. Why did this happen? Be raw, be ugly, let him see how black it is in my heart, like really open my heart because as long as I am keeping it hidden, and I'm just like letting a little bit pop out to tell him, well, he can't heal what I won't give him access to. And I don't want a band-aid, I want him to heal the things in my heart. So, doubts, fears, anxieties, whatever it is, I want to bring it and be completely open and honest with him. Because I found that we don't realize how much we guard ourselves around other people, like just everybody wants to put their best foot forward, and we don't even do it consciously sometimes. Uh, but because we're in that mode normally, we don't know who we trust sometimes, we it carries over into God too, like, and we don't realize it because we don't realize we do it at all, like we have a mask on sometimes. Uh, and then as you become more aware, of course, we don't, we're more of our true authentic selves. But to think that none of us ever do that, I think that's self-delusional. Like, I know this is part of the human framework and the world that we live in, so I want to be careful that I'm not coming to the Lord. I don't want to do it with anybody, but especially in my relationship with the Lord, I don't want to come and be guarded and only giving parts of me. He's the one place that everything can spill out, that nothing has to be hidden. And I know I'm loved regardless, and I know he will help me come forward out of it. I don't stay in there. It's like the Psalms. David did spill it out. He liked, he was just he was at the lowest of low points, but he never stayed there. He didn't wallow in it, get in a rut, let offense become bitterness. He worked through it with the Lord, and if you're talking to him about it, then already you're gonna feel that load lighten. And if you're talking to him, the Holy Spirit's gonna lead you out of it. It's not like I think I'm still in it. No, you talk to him today, you may not be done with it, it's a process, but we keep coming to him with it.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

And I've noticed sometimes um doubts will feel real strong until I voice them to the Lord, and then when I hear it, it sounds silly and like, oh, wait, that's what I was afraid of, or that's what I was thinking. Like the minute, because the enemy can make things seem so real in our minds, but we bring them before the Lord, speak them out of our mouths, and sometimes it it is, it's something that the Lord's gonna take a long time to work with you through. But sometimes, a lot of times, my doubt, my insecurity, it's it's silly. It's the enemy in my own mind. But the minute I give it to the Lord, the minute I speak it out, I'm like, wait, that's so against the word, that's so against who you are, God, or whatever it is, like just speaking it out loud sometimes makes it lose its power.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Also, I've had people um before say that they struggle to feel like they can pray over like um other people who are sick or have an illness if they are sick or have an illness, or uh, I don't feel like I can pray about this because I struggle with this, they feel like they are disqualified because they don't have victory in that area, and that's a lie from the enemy. Like, because none of us are completely healed of everything we need to be healed, physical, emotional, whatever that looks like. Um, none of us are victorious in every single area of our life. We're all working on things. So if if you fall into that line of thought of I'm disqualified because, well, then we're all disqualified, and he calls us all to pray, to be priests. So we know that we're gonna pray with some stuff still happening, but we still pray. That that changes nothing about my prayers ascending to the Lord and him moving. So, misconception number six if God knows what I need and his will will prevail, then I don't need to voice my prayers, which is a lie of the enemy, because we mentioned it a little bit earlier. Some things in his sovereign will are gonna unfold regardless. We know he is coming to reign in the new Jerusalem. We know certain things are going to unfold regardless of us, but even those things we do have impact in. We're not going to change, but we can have impact in the unfolding. How much more in our world and the place we live, our city, our state, and our families, we do have dramatic impact in that like the things that we pray for in our prayer room. Um, we pray for the orphans of Louisiana on Fridays. That's one of our focuses. So I believe that we have had direct impact. Some things we've seen because we've seen statistics change uh through the years we've been praying on kids being adopted and things, court cases. But in other ways that I don't see, I believe that more orphans feel the love of God because I have been praying for them to feel the love of God. Like I have direct impact on the things in my family. Like I know I've I've seen many little things answered, some big answered prayer, but I don't know that that would have happened if I wasn't praying. Because we have a real enemy who is fighting for things to go one way. And if someone's cooperating with them, it's gonna go that way. But if someone starts to pray for God's will to be done, for God to intervene, for that heart to turn, well then there is fuel on that fire that changes things that would have gone another way.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

And I mean, Jesus is our great example, and he prayed and he had the most just intimacy with the Father. It said he only did and said what he saw the Father doing and saying. So if Jesus from his mouth prayed to the Father, then we should too. And I think I also think about Genesis 1 in the beginning when God said, like, let there be light, let he said it. He didn't think it, he didn't just hope for it. He said it, and we're created in his image, we're his image bearers. So we're supposed to say things. I mean, death and life and the power of the tongue, not the thoughts. I mean, there's reasons we actually with our mouth say our prayers.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

And I want to be one who has stood with him and has labored with him in prayer. Like I want to cross over to eternity, and his purposes on the earth and my generation. I want to have worked with him to accomplish your will be done, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. For Lafayette, Louisiana in 2026, that's what I'm praying for him to break in. And in the process, I get him. Like the exchanges that I get him, I get to feel his heart, his joy, his pain, which helps direct my prayers. He gives strategy on this, pray this. I remember um when we were praying on Fridays, we pray for on Fridays for those who are in poverty. And I remember one time when he said, declare gratitude, be the portion, declare gratitude. And so he was giving me strategy of what to pray in that season. So if I'm not laboring with him, there's keys he will give to open things up that don't get opened, or he uses someone else. I want to partner with him, I want to have labored with him, I want to have cared about what he cares about and helped it bring it to earth. So I think that wraps up our discussion today on misconceptions about prayer. Hopefully, it was helpful to you guys. It's just about conversation with the Lord, it's the invitation into relationship with him.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

Yeah, we would like to do a podcast that answers your questions, or if you have something you'd like to hear us talk about. So if you could leave a comment down below with your question or um what you would like to hear us talk about, and we'll do that in a future podcast.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

All right. Till next time, guys. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Bye.