Have you ever finished your prayers and felt like when you finished your prayers didn’t make it past the ceiling? As if there’s no way God heard it? Like it was a waste of time? Maybe he wouldn’t answer it anyway?
There are countless reasons you may feel like this, and I can definitely relate to the feeling.
After learning more about prayer and what God wants from us when we pray, I have discovered four reasons that my prayers probably didn’t make it past the ceiling.
Please note: I am not an expert on prayer, this post is based on my own personal experience because I think there are many out there who can relate.
Scroll on!
1) I wasn’t willing to do my part
In college, I was stuck in habitual lust, and I felt as though I would never be able to get out of it. I would beg God to help me and never felt like I was getting anywhere, and he wasn’t hearing me. Years later, I figured out why.
Romans 13:14 states, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.” When I was in college making those choices, I MADE EVERY PROVISION FOR THE FLESH. God’s word explicitly had an answer, and I even though I didn’t know the verse then, I knew I should be putting up safeguards, but I just didn’t want too.
I was unwilling to do my part to stay away from sin; I basically rolled out the welcome mat. Sometimes, I think my prayers didn’t get “past the ceiling” because I refused to do my part.
2) I was harboring unforgiveness
When in comes to forgiveness, the Bible has plenty to say about it. For this post, we are going to focus on the following verse.
Mark 11:25 states, “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”
In other words, if you are praying, and you realize you are harboring unforgiveness against another person, you are to forgive them right then. If you don’t, you’re right back at what I mentioned in #1, you’re deliberately refusing to do what God has asked you to.
As a personal story to this, I harbored major unforgiveness in high school (which you can learn about here). It went on for over six months and during that entire time, I never felt like my prayers were “getting past the ceiling.” I believe its because I refused to forgive when I knew I should have and this verse from Mark made this clear to me.
3) I didn’t really believe God could do it
I feel like many Christians get to this point at times in their lives. Sometimes things in life seem so insurmountable, we think, “God, can you really do it?” There have been many times I finished praying only to be plagued by doubt and wonder.
However, the Bible states this in Mark 11:22-24:
“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
I have realized that praying and thinking God can’t do what you are asking for is not a recipe for success. We have to pray knowing he can. Ultimately, we must pray that his will be done, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pray knowing he CAN do it.
4) I wasn’t praying for God’s will to be done
As mentioned above, we must ultimately pray for God’s will. Jesus prayed before he was arrested in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Ultimately, Jesus prayed for God’s will to be done, and he meant it. Unfortunately, there have been times in my life, I would say to God for his will to be done, but I didn’t really mean it.
For example, I really wanted to marry my high school sweetheart. When I would pray about our relationship, I didn’t really want God’s will to be done because I didn’t want us not to end up together.
I felt like God wasn’t really hearing me, and now I know it was because I didn’t really want his will above all else. However, now I have realized that he really does know best, and I should have meant it when I prayed.
In closing
I hope this post was able to help you if you find yourself in any of these situations. I have realized places where my attitude and heart were wrong when it came to prayer, and I want you to learn from my mistakes.
Prayer is an amazing gift, and I do not want you to feel discouraged when it comes to this area. Again, I hope it was able to help. 🙂
Love from here,
-Sarah
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