Understanding the Purpose and Power of PrayerSýnishorn

Hurdles to Answered Prayer

Prayer is the greatest opportunity and privilege offered to a person in Christ. Yet because of the power of prayer, the enemy makes it his business to see that the prayers of individuals and churches are ineffective. Therefore, he will use misconceptions about prayer to thwart our prayer potential. These misconceptions are hurdles to overcome as we address the problems that lead to unanswered prayer.

Some of these hurdles may be familiar friends to you if you have accepted them and lived with them for any length of time. This can make them hard to recognize—and even harder to set aside. I want to clearly delineate a number of mistaken beliefs about prayer so you can see how they differ from the definition of prayer that is based on the Word of God. Rising above these hurdles through God’s grace will enable you to truly understand the purpose and power of prayer.

Learning About Prayer, but Not Practicing It

The first hurdle is a desire to just read about the Bible and prayer rather than to study the Word itself and equip oneself for prayer. We often have the erroneous idea that if we know a great deal about prayer, somehow we have prayed. We gain a false sense of satisfaction when we learn about something but don’t actually do it. We think it’s a part of our lives, but it hasn’t made it from our heads to our hearts, from theory to practice. Therefore, a major cause of unanswered prayer is our becoming experts in the knowledge of prayer but not masters in the practice of praying. The best approach to prayer is to pray.

Mental Assent Rather Than Faith and Action

Mental assent looks so much like faith that many people cannot see the difference between the two. It means intellectually accepting the Word as true—admiring it and agreeing with it—but not allowing it to have an impact on you. In essence, mental assent agrees with God but does not believe God.

The mental assentor affirms that the entire Bible is God’s revelation and that every word of it is true. When a crisis comes, however, they say, “Yes, I believe the Bible is true, but it doesn’t work for me.” The only way God’s promises will become a reality in your life is for you to act on them—and you can’t act on them without faith. Every time you read the Word or hear good teaching and put it into practice, your spiritual life is strengthened a little more. 

Hearing the Word, but Not Absorbing It

A similar hurdle to answered prayer is hearing the Word but not absorbing it into one’s life. Skipping that step is detrimental to our spiritual health because we must internalize the Word if it is going to have an effect on our lives. When we don’t absorb the Word, it often goes in one ear and out the other. Satan steals it away so that it can’t have an impact on our relationship with God. Jesus said, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart” (Matthew 13:19).

Even as you are reading this devotional, the enemy is trying to steal God’s truth from you. That is why the critical juncture for you, in terms of benefit to your spiritual life, is not so much while you are reading this devotional as it is when you are about to return to other activities. If you don’t consciously apply these truths to your life, the enemy will try to make you forget what you’ve just read. 

Stay focused after you’ve heard or read the Word, and let it truly sink into your spirit. The Bible calls this process meditation. Meditation was an important and valued spiritual exercise in both the Old and New Testaments. Biblical meditation is not a mindless process of chanting but of using your mind—turning something over and over in your mind in order to understand all its truths and implications—and then embracing those truths by applying them to your whole life.

Hoping Rather Than Having Faith

Another hurdle that blocks many people’s prayers is “hoping” rather than having faith. Hoping is when we say: “I hope this happens.” “I hope this works.” “I hope God hears my prayers.”

Wishful thinking is a destructive element in the present-tense life and practice of prayer. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” As we learned earlier, we receive what God has promised us when we pray. Having faith means speaking and affirming this fact until the answer manifests. God’s blessings have already been accomplished in the spiritual realm. He is waiting for a human being to believe Him so He can release them. 

Many of us wish and wait. When we don’t receive what we asked for, we wonder if God’s Word is true. The problem is not with God’s Word, but with us. He has already accomplished what we have requested, but we have not been expecting what we asked for. We are not acting as if we have it; therefore, God cannot give it. We’re holding Him up. 

Praying for Faith

Luke 17:5 says, “The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’” Have you ever prayed a prayer like that? You are in good company. The disciples lived with Jesus for over three years. They saw Him cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead, yet they still asked Him, “Increase our faith!” His answer is wonderful: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” (verse 6).

When I was in Israel, I was shown a mustard tree. It was massive. Then I was shown a mustard seed. It’s hard to imagine that such an immense tree can come from such a tiny seed. Jesus was telling His disciples, “You don’t need any more faith; just a small amount will move mountains. The little you have can do much, but you aren’t using it.”

When you pray for faith, you are praying to believe. I don’t think you can pray to believe. Either you believe or you don’t believe. Such a prayer is really based on unbelief, and therefore it will not be answered. I have never heard of anyone having his faith increased by praying for it. Faith comes and increases as we hear and believe the Word and put it into practice. If you want to increase your faith, increase your intake of the Word of God. 

Neglecting Prayer

There is one last hurdle I want to mention: neglecting prayer altogether, either through sheer laziness or because of life’s busyness and distractions. 

In the parable of the sower, Jesus said, “The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22). When a person doesn’t want to bother with prayer because they feel they have more important things to do, or when they allow the many concerns of this life to crowd out the practice of prayer, then whatever they do know about prayer will not bear any fruit in their life.

We must be careful not to become complacent in our knowledge of the Word and neglect to nurture it. However, when we hear, absorb, and apply the Word, we will bear the fruit of much spiritual growth and answered prayer. We will see God’s original purposes for blessing the earth fulfilled through our very lives.