The Struggle of Prayer
Trusting God in Every Moment
Pretty special to see God's hand in things. And this morning's another one of those times that kids talk just ties in so, much with what I believe God's wanted me to share. Sorry that I do get a little bit like this, but the reality of Jesus Christ in our life is just phenomenal to me. I don't mean to be a wussy if you'll excuse my expression. That's not what I am, but I mean, yeah, hey, it's just God touches our hearts. Thanks for that. um Can I also say that this morning's been a little bit of a chaos. um Janet was down to lead, she um called not long before church and something really important has come up, so she wasn't able to do what she had to do, so I think she had to get another singer and then Rodney stepped up and sort of done the worship leading instead of her. So there's a few things crazy and then I had everything written out from a message last night. And it just wasn't feeling 100 % and I got up really early this morning and went through it again and it just didn't feel right. Do you know what I mean? just sort of, and so probably from seven o'clock to nine o'clock I was rewriting my message and that was just God's hand in it. And can I say that I was struggling because every time I hit something on the computer there's these silly advertising things that come up and they don't just have the little cross in the corner that that's about all I know how to get rid of those things. And so... Just one thing, I just said, Lord, just get Satan away from me. And sometimes I get frustrated because of Satan's presence. And he's got no power over our Lord. None whatsoever. But by gee whiz, he tries a lot. This morning I want to talk on the struggle of prayer. We're starting a series of about five different messages. So I'm just sort of starting out on that one. And so I'll go through some things in a little bit, but because of how the morning's been, and can I say I got up from my computer at nine o'clock and I was excited because of what God had done. So I just pray that it's nothing of me, but that the Holy Spirit will speak through me, give me every word, and that He will then in turn speak to each one of you, or the scriptures that we share will speak to each one of you. But can I just ask? Because of the chaos that we've had today, I'd just like to just for maybe 30 seconds or a minute have everybody just pray that God will be strong, that his spirit will just speak through me this morning, please, if you could. Thanks. God take me this morning, use me, speak through me, not my words but yours. I just pray Lord that the emotion that's attached to what I share will be um held back so that I'm able to speak clearly. We ask in your precious name now. Amen. So the struggle of prayer, as I thought this through and I thought, okay, what sort of struggles do we have in life? And with our prayer life, and I thought, okay, there's a few different ones. So I wrote them down, I'll just read through them and then I'll attack each one just a little bit separately if that's okay. I felt that we, sometimes we struggle to pray, we'll struggle to pray soon enough. um Sometimes we struggle to hear the answers to our prayers. We struggle to follow the answers to our prayers sometimes because they're not quite what we think they should be. And then there's always the struggle to remain faithful through air praise. And sometimes we even struggle to find words or know what to pray. And in all honesty, I think if you thought on each one of those things, I probably don't have to say any more. We could probably go home. But I'd like to just share some scriptures attached to these different things and just some thoughts. I've got some personal testimonies that I'll just share along the way, just some of our experience as well. So I'm not here to talk about Norm Hopper or his family, but... Probably the best things that we can relate to when we want to share experiences are ones that we've had ourselves and not somebody else's. So bear with me through a few of them if that's okay. So just the first one, we struggle to pray, or struggle to pray soon enough. I know in my life there's been so many times when I'm busy doing something, you might be fixing something, repairing something, or just in everyday life, and you wonder why you're having these battles, and I will try and try and try again to just get it right, and then suddenly I'll think, hey, maybe I should pray about this. And a lot of times it makes a big difference. Even pray for the little things. It's not just the big things. The little things. Can I share with you the last week I was coming back through on my bike from, had to go and pick it up at the Gold Coast and I got to Derby and it was pretty dark and I'd wanted to change my helmet so I even thought about bringing the helmets in just to show you but I think that would detract a little bit from where we're going but open face helmet, right, you can imagine just down each side nothing across the front so when you've got glasses that's not an issue you just pop the helmet on over your head. But because of bugs, cetera, I sort of thought, look, I'll put the full face helmet on, which just has the opening around your eyes, and then you've got the part of the helmet comes around in front of your chin. And this visor comes down over that. I put the helmet on at the BP service station in Dalby. And obviously, you can't pull one of those helmets down over your glasses. So take the glasses off, helmet on, put the glasses on. So if you can get a little bit of an idea what happened, this side. just popped straight in above that ear, just nicely, with all the padding that's on the sides of the helmet. This side here stuck out about that far, and no matter what I did, it would not go into place. And I was getting frustrated. I'd done it dozens and dozens of times. And I just said, Lord, why have I got to go through such a stupid little thing, please? And I took the glasses off and I was having a bit of a complaint to the Lord. And I can't even remember now whether I took the helmet off or not or whether I just gave it a shake. And before I put them on again I said, Lord, I need your help. How crazy is it to pray that God will help you put a pair of glasses on? And can I say to you, this is what happened. I am not kidding. I am not kidding. God cares about the little things. Sometimes we struggle to pray soon enough. Car parks. I'll be driving up the street. I need a car park. And there's many times that I've prayed that the Lord will provide a car park. Usually, I'll always say, unless someone else needs it more than I do, And many, many times it's happened. Can I just encourage you? Talk to God. about anything and everything. 1 Peter 5.7 says, Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. was getting pretty anxious with those glasses, let me tell you. 1 Thessalonians 5.16-18, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Jeremiah 29, 12 and 13. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Don't ever forget to pray. Don't ever forget to talk to God. The second one was the struggle to hear the answer to our prayers. We've got a few verses I'll share in a sec. But guess just a personal testimony, years ago I was, and this isn't all about bike riding, please understand that, but years ago I was coming in from Darwin and I was heading into, I think it was Mount Isa at the time, on this road bike and night time fell. And I was really worried about, I'd ridden past these two great giant Gantic water buffaloes, or know, Northern Territory buffaloes with these big horns and there was one, two and a big truck had obviously come through and hit the both of them and they were just dead side by side and I thought, oh, I better be careful, let alone ruse, et cetera. And so said, Lord, I need some lights. Yes, I had lights, but hey, I needed something that was going to give me bit more vision. And so kept riding up. I wasn't going real fast, but I kept riding along. And then I came up behind this, in all honesty, was an old EH Holden. and it had a trailer on behind it, was putting along the road, it probably, look I'm only guessing, but it might have been trotting along there at maybe 70 kilometres an hour or something. And I came along, straight out around this EH hold and kept going up the road. And probably three or five minutes later, I said, Lord, I did ask for some lights. Could you please provide some lights? Yeah, God just said, hey mate, I gave you those lights. And it hit me like a smack on the side of the head. And I just slowed right down. I said, thank you, Lord. And I slowed right down. until that car caught up to me. And then I tucked in behind him, chuffing along the road, at probably 70 kilometres an hour, which isn't quite a pace that I would normally ride at. And so I was content. God had answered my prayer. I had struggled to hear the answer of my prayer. So many times we do that in life. We just don't accept that answer because It's not what we think it should be. And sometimes God has a whole different picture. Little bit up the road, I'm truffing along behind this old holden and I saw this massive set of lights come up behind me. And this guy in this Ford F-truck, whatever it was, it was just one of those types of vehicles. He had more lights than they've got in a light factory. And he just went, boom, just wound us up like we weren't even moving. And I just said, thank you, Lord, cracked the throttle open and tucked in behind him. Can I say sometimes we have to accept God's answer before he really gives us what he wants to give us? And I really ask that you hang on to that story because there's so much truth in it, you know, everyday wool. Psalm 46 10, be still and know that I am God. Romans 12 12, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer. We need to be faithful and know that God's going to answer, whether it's what we think, God will always answer. Isaiah 55, eight and nine, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. Exactly what I've just been talking about. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord. So the third one was to the struggle to follow the answer to our prayers, which ties in a little bit with the other one of sort of hearing the answers to our prayers. especially when God says wait, and a lot of times God says wait. A lot of times God says wait because it's actually not going to happen. A lot of times God leaves it to the last minute. Years ago we were at Bible College in Bourke and we had a house in Dalby that we'd moved away from and we didn't rent it because we were just going to sell it and that's what we wanted to do. And we prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed that God would sell that house so that we could stay at Bible College. And can I say to you that it got to the, as they say, the 11th hour. We probably had to leave Bible College at the end of the month. if we hadn't sold the house. And God chose to leave it right till the last, just to say, hey, don't be worrying, trust me, I got control of this. And he sold that house. But our thoughts were, hey, we can't stay here because obviously we weren't earning, we couldn't afford to keep making payments. so God has all those things in his hand. Are you really doing? Living or following what God has told you to do. Are you really doing, living or following what God has told you to do? The next verse I've never ever read before in my life, I don't think. And I found it and it actually blew me away in Proverbs 28, 9. This is how serious it is not to follow. God's instruction or the answers to our prayer. Proverbs 28 and 29, if anyone turns a deaf ear to my instruction, even their prayers are detestable. That's pretty serious stuff, isn't it? God hates it. It's detestable if we won't listen to what he's telling us to do, if we won't act on those things that he's telling us to do. I guess he can't really work with us until we correct those sort of things. The struggle, I think this is the fourth one, but anyway, the next one on the list, struggled to remain faithful through our prayers. This is a big one, I think, for a lot of us. A lot of times we'll pray a prayer, but a lot of times we're not really being faithful. We're not really trusting God to do what we need to do. Just some thoughts, do you give things to God and then take them back again? Take back the worry, etc? Hands up if you've ever done that. Come on, be honest. Yeah, I would have thought so. I don't think I'm alone as much as I trust and love my Heavenly Father. There's too many times in life that I do give things over to Him, but then do take them back. Can I share a couple of personal things? Christy, our daughter, when she was just a little tacker, she had lots of little struggles and we just trusted God with the things that she was going through in her health. And one time I remember really clearly she caught, it's called bronchiolitis. And I'm sure now that they deal with it in lot better ways and it's not such an issue. But back then when she was just a little one, It took a child three days to get it. They had it for three days and then it took them three days to get over it. And in those three days while they had it, you didn't know whether they were going to pull through or not. And Wendy and I just stood beside her hospital bed and prayed. And we weren't praying every minute that was there. But we had to leave her. in God's hand. We had to be faithful through our prayers. You might be praying for your son or your daughter or your brother or uncle, like family members or friends or whatever, for different reasons. You need to remain faithful. Don't keep taking whatever it is. Don't keep taking it back and taking control of it. We need to trust our God. When I was going down to pick that bike up there the other week, Christy actually drove me down. She had to go to Brisbane, so she took me through to the Gold Coast. And we're driving along and she said, Dad. And Christy likes to just sort of on her days off, she does two weeks on, two weeks off, and she likes to travel around a bit and she'll, you know, camp in a car or she'll go hiking up somewhere and she does quite a bit that on her own. And she said, Dad. She said, when I go away, she said, do you and mum lose sleep or really worry about me doing my own thing? And I just said, darling, no, we don't. I said, we just leave you in God's hands. And she just said, oh, good. And she was relieved with that. But can I say to you that that's what we have to do with our daughter? It's not for us to tell her what she can and can't do. But we very faithfully, we don't lose sleep over that. We very faithfully just trust God in that area. And I want to share a couple of things. talked this morning here on Abraham and Isaac, and the Bible reading was on, I'll get to that in a second. But just Daniel in the lines, then we all know the story. And I was listening to some stuff through the week. And... Yeah, Daniel in the lion's den. Daniel was a prayer. He used to pray three times a day and it says that in different passages. But he was thrown into the lion's den as we know. But the Bible says that Daniel slept. Is that not remaining faithful in prayer? It doesn't specifically tell us that he prayed, Lord, please don't let these lines hit me. But he knew that God was in control of his situation. Who, who would not be curled up in the highest corner that they could possibly find and hope like heck that the lines didn't get them. in God's power, God's strength, Daniel's faithfulness, he lay down and slept tonight. with the lions and was not touched by one. That's being faithful in prayer. Abraham, as we read earlier, God had said to him, Abraham, he said, yes Lord. Immediately, he was one of the most faithful men back in that time. Yes Lord, no, what do want now Lord? I want you to take your son, Isaac. and sacrificing. He got up early the next morning, packed everything he needed. I don't need to go through it all with the wood. It doesn't say in that scripture how he prayed or what he prayed. But any man that God says something like that to, I don't care whether it be nowadays or whether it be years ago, would be praying. Lord, please, I'm willing, but please don't let this happen. But he walked the walk right through to the last, bound his son. Lay him on that altar. and was ready to do what God had asked him to do. And God provided a way. God provided a different answer. He had him walking a path, and it says to test his faithfulness. And then at that last second, God said, you are a man of faith. I know. And he provided the lamb in the thicket. What a precious picture. And I'm going to use that to say to be faithful through our prayers. Kept going of what God had told him to do, but knew. and was faithful. Psalm 33 verse 4, for the word of the Lord is right and true. He is faithful in all he does. Psalm 91 verse 4, he will cover you with his, just listen to this one, the picture that this creates please. Psalm 91 verse 4, he will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and protection. What precious words, what a precious picture. Here's God covering us with his wings. He's our shield, our protection. James 1-2, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trials. We've talked about different trials that we can go through. Remains steadfast under trials for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. Abraham stood the test of trials and God honored him for it. And then sometimes we struggle to find words or know what to pray. Sometimes the circumstances around us are that we just really don't know how to pray. Sometimes we have somebody that is... at the last days of their life and we do not know how to pray. Psalm 46, 1. God is our refuge and strength, a present help in trouble. the Lord your God is with you. is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing." Powerful words. then Romans 6 28, in the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness, we do not know what we ought to pray for. but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans." A little bit later on in that chapter it says, I think just from memory, that the Holy Spirit knows what our thoughts are and takes that to God on our behalf, for want of a better way to put it. So even when we don't know how to pray, still pray. Even when we don't want to pray, still pray. Just a little thought just as I close. If you're struggling to pray, Ask God. If you are struggling to pray, maybe pray this prayer. Jesus, thank you. Right now I am weak, too weak to even pray. But I know that it is in moments like right now that your Spirit is interceding on my behalf. How precious is that thought? Let's just close in praying. Dear God, I just thank you so much for your word. I thank you for the joy of what we find in your scriptures. I thank you for today. I thank you, Lord, for what you've done, Lord, just with the music, Lord, just with, yeah, just with scripture that's been shared, just the kids talk, just how you tie things together. I pray that you will let each person here take the reality of Jesus Christ and... what Jesus Christ can do in each of our lives, we pray in your precious name now. Amen.