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Prayers to Break Strongholds

What seeds have you been planting into the soil of your life? At times I’ve planted the wrong seeds into my heart and allowed woundedness, wrong thinking, bitterness, and even sin to take root, not realizing an unwanted harvest would result. Other times I thought I was planting good into my life, yet I allowed bad things to take root, with not great results. Then there were the times the enemy himself sprinkled seeds of doubt and faithlessness into my seeds of faith, hope, and love. The resulting crop was unexpected, because I hadn’t realized the enemy had been in my garden, and I soon discovered the enemy’s tares were difficult to weed.

Maybe you can relate. As you look at the state of the garden of your heart, maybe you see that unwanted weeds, or strongholds, have taken root. This is not the garden you intended to plant, and now you are at a loss about how to repair your crop. The apostle Paul, in Galatians 6:7–8, talks about this problem. He says, “Make no mistake about this: You can never make a fool out of God. Whatever you plant is what you’ll harvest. If you plant in the soil of your corrupt nature, you will harvest destruction. But if you plant in the soil of your spiritual nature, you will harvest everlasting life.” 

A stronghold is when the enemy’s seeds of anger, self-pity, a poverty mindset, lies, shame, depression, grief, confusion, addiction, lust, laziness, and pride result in a harvest of sin, ineffectiveness, endless struggles, failures, and even fatigue, pain, and illness. Some of these strongholds we planted ourselves through ignorance, bitterness, hate, woundedness, or confusion. Other strongholds have taken root through the work of the enemy, who sowed trauma, difficulties, grief, and wrongs committed against us into our lives.

However these strongholds came to be, we can use prayer to weed them from our hearts. In fact, prayer can act as a sort of spiritual weed killer to poison their very roots. When it comes to our hearts, we must protect the flowers and kill the weeds.

Pray with me: Father, demolish any stronghold that holds captive my heart and mind and place within me the seeds of your choosing. I desire my life to be used to bring forth the goodness and majesty of your Word. In Jesus’s name and through the power of His blood, amen.