Many people simply don’t know how to pray. We live in a society where people do a lot of talking about God, but it’s very seldom that you find someone who really knows how to talk to God. Then when the challenges of life come, they don’t know how to deal with them. They cry, weep, complain, murmur, get depressed, blame everybody, get angry, and then they get sick. They do everything but remain constant in prayer.
It’s OK to have people pray for you or to ask somebody to agree with you in prayer, but you should also learn how to pray for yourself. Here is how you do that:
Get around people who know how to pray. Get to a church where Spirit-filled and prophetic prayer and intercession are part of the culture. You can learn to pray or be strengthened in prayer when you see others do it.
Study the Word of God. Learn how to pray according to the Word of God. Much of what led me to write my Prayers for Spiritual Battle series came from the Lord leading me to pray the Scriptures as a means of spiritual warfare.
Be filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. If you don’t know anything else, learn how to pray in the Spirit. Pray in tongues. Pray in the Holy Ghost when you don’t know what to pray for. Romans 8:26 says, “Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
We all go through things in life that demand that we know how to pray without ceasing. This kind of prayer is powerful because it strengthens us in long seasons of desperation.
Times of great testing and tribulation are designed by the enemy to destroy you, break you down and cause you to become so discouraged and depressed that you can’t enjoy life, that you want to give up on life altogether. The fear they bring into your life can paralyze and overwhelm you to the point that you are ineffective in doing what God has called you to do. Testing and trials even affect the way you live, so you can’t even live your life in a consistent way. You can find yourself getting physically sick and emotionally imbalanced, becoming double-minded and confused. You can find yourself battling all kinds of issues and getting angry and upset, withdrawing from life and cutting off relationships with people.
It has never been the will of God for you to be defeated. God’s will for you includes your being strong and stable enough to rise up in prayer when trouble comes. His will for you is to be led by His Spirit to persevere in prayer for as long as the battle wages, day after day, week after week and month after month. He wants you to pray until you break through what the enemy has designed for your life. {eoa}
This article is an excerpt of Desperate Prayers for Desperate Times: Unleash God’s Power in Life’s Darkest Hour (Charisma House, 2018) by Apostle John Eckhardt. Eckhardt is overseer of Crusaders Ministries in Chicago, Illinois. Gifted with a strong apostolic anointing, he has ministered throughout the United States and overseas in more than eighty nations. He is a sought-after international conference speaker and has authored more than 20 books, including Prayers That Rout Demons; Prayers That Break Curses; Prophet, Arise!; and God Still Speaks. Eckhardt resides in the Chicago area with his wife, Wanda.
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