Prayer in hard times, or even easy times, can just feel like words floating out of my mouth into nothingness. There are no instant results, no special feelings that indicate anything has been done, there’s nothing you and I can see. 

 

In my pain, as I cry out to God, prayer seems like it’s not doing much. It feels cliche. 

 

Prayer, after a while, can feel stale.

 

Yet, when we look into God’s Word, we are reminded that prayer is so much more important and much more powerful than we can see, feel, or touch.

 

God Wants To Us Pray

 

In 1 John, the apostle John is writing to believers to debunk heresies in the church. He says “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” 1 John 5:13‭-‬15 ESV

 

Sometimes we forget the fact that God wants us to pray. And hears us when we  pray! 1 John clearly states that if we pray for His will to be done, if we pray with His glory and will in mind, He hears us!

 

Who God Is

 

I believe that we also forget Who God is. Our God is a good, righteous, almighty God who created this universe.

 

He created everything, without Him, there is no reality (Colossians 1:15-17). It’s amazing that God wants to hear from humble people He created, for “what is man that [God is] mindful of him, and the son of man that [God cares] for him?” (Psalm 8:4). 

 

Not only that, He can and will answer our prayers according to His will, for His glory and our good.

 

Even if God does not answer our prayers according to exactly what we ask, He answers and hears our prayers for our good. In the process of Him glorifying Himself, He gives us good, good gifts and changes our hearts to be in line with His. 

 

The Spirit Intercedes For Us

 

I think sometimes we miss the connection between Romans 8:26 and Romans 8:28.

 

But there is a connection and a verse in between. The whole passage reads, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

 

The Holy Spirit, Himself, intercedes for us, bringing our cries, our prayers, our pain to God. Then, He answers the cries of His people for His glory and our good.

 

If our God can create whole galaxies, He can and will hear and answer the prayers of His people in mighty, awesome ways.

 

Isn’t that amazing?

 

Pray When It Hurts

 

But what about when we’re tired; when we’re weary? When we just don’t feel like we can pray anymore?

 

Well, we can trust that even when we can’t utter words, when all we can do is cry, the Holy Spirit hears us, and takes our groaning to the Father, as indicated by the verses quoted above.

 

Think of Hannah, she stayed faithful in hard, painful prayer. She was “troubled in spirit” and her words were not only spoken out loud, but she “was speaking in her heart” as she “poured out her soul before the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:13-15). But God blessed her faithfulness in prayer. 

 

We see this not only in the life of Hannah, but Abraham, Job, Elizabeth, and so many more. Faithful, obedient prayer is so hard, but the blessings are many.

 

During pain and heartache, pray. When you feel hopeless and don’t know what to do, pray. When life just feels too hard, too painful, pray. And even when you lack faith, when you haven’t come before God in a while, pray. He offers grace and forgiveness, and answers prayers based upon His faithfulness, not ours for His glory and our good. 

 

Prayer is more powerful and important than we realize. It’s harder than we realize too, but our God is faithful and mighty. When we bring our prayers, our cries, and our groanings to Him, He hears us; He can and will answer us according to His will. 

 

A Request

 

I want to ask you, will you be praying for the Diamonds Conference? There are a lot of hardships and pain that go on behind the scenes of this amazing conference. There is Spiritual battle, there are technological problems, there is physical pain, there are a ton of difficulties that happen planning and during the conference.

 

But it’s the work of God and His answering of our prayers that make this happen. He makes it all possible because He hears and answers our prayers.

 

So I want to ask you to join our prayer warriors in prayer for the Diamonds Conference. We cannot make the conference happen without your faithfulness in prayer and God’s faithfulness to us. 

 

Let’s pray, God wants to hear from you.