21 Days of Deep LivingSample

Sleeping Policemen

Some people find prayer to be a daunting and mundane task due to a lack of understanding of what prayer is and its importance for our daily existence.

The most important and refreshing conversation you can have in your day is the conversation you have with the Lord. However, we have an enemy who is fully aware of this and so will try everything in his power to block us from engaging in conversation with God to slow us down.

It’s essential for us as believers to know and understand the role of the Holy Spirit in our faith journey and how He helps us in our weakness, especially in prayer. Jesus outlines this to us in John 14:16. He explains that the Holy Spirit is our Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor, Counselor, Strengthener, and Standby. He continues further by referring to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth who would be with us forever. Evidently, we can see that we are at an advantage by having the Holy Spirit in our lives however, there are many blockers that stop us from connecting through prayer.

Blockers of prayer slow us down in our spiritual growth and may come from within. A weak flesh can block us from going deeper or even stop us from praying altogether. This is what the disciples experienced in Matthew 26:40-41 where Jesus required them to stand with Him in prayer at His Darkest Moment, but they were overcome by fatigue which resulted in spiritual weakness. Sometimes fatigue or even laziness and procrastination block us from having the most important conversation of our day with the Holy Spirit. Our spirit is willing, however our flesh is weak.

Another blocker is unbelief. We sometimes are weary in our faith because of disappointment, rejection, and setbacks that we feel God is responsible for. Subsequently, we stop praying to avoid disappointment and our doubt prohibits us from receiving anything from God. Yet the Bible says that we should come to God knowing that He is God and thus is able.

Other blockers to prayer could be satanic influences. Daniel 10:12-14 reveals to us that spiritual warfare is necessary and should be part of our prayer life. Daniel in the Old Testament, experienced a delay to his answers from God. He was told by the Angel of the Lord that his prayer had in fact been answered but there were demonic influences that held and frustrated the Angel of the Lord to deliver the answers.

We must have discernment and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit to know when we have been engaged in spiritual warfare. We should develop a closeness to the Holy Spirit to know when demonic forces are operating to frustrate and delay our prayers. As we stay in constant communication with the Holy Spirit we acknowledge that we have been given power and authority to eliminate these forces from blocking our prayers.

If you are tired of being blocked in your prayer life then make the intentional decision today to discipline your spirit man and go deeper in prayer. Shake off tiredness and weariness and press in. Get closer to the Holy Spirit so that you can remove all barriers to answered prayer, whether demonic forces are to blame or your own flesh!