Latest / Grace for My Home | Christian Women, Growing in Faith / When Prayer Feels Hard
Transcript
- 1:14Audrey: Hello friend.
- 1:15Audrey: Welcome back to Grace for My Home.
- 1:18Audrey: I am Audrey McCracken and I'm delighted to be back with you again this week.
- 1:22Audrey: I hope that you're doing well.
- 1:24Audrey: Today I am sitting in my kitchen at my kitchen table looking out of the window as I record this.
- 1:32Audrey: And the leaves are starting to turn.
- 1:35Audrey: It just looks so nice outside.
- 1:37Audrey: When I go for my morning walk, the air is a little crisp, and I just I'm so excited about what's coming.
- 1:44Audrey: You know, fall is in the air.
- 1:47Audrey: Our coffee shop has started the their seasonal drinks, of course, the pumpkin spice, but so many other good ones also.
- 1:55Audrey: And I'm just I'm excited about what's right around the corner.
- 1:59Audrey: You know, Thanksgiving is around the corner, and then Christmas.
- 2:02Audrey: And do you know it's less than a hundred days until the first of 2027?
- 2:07Audrey: Isn't that crazy?
- 2:08Audrey: So it's it's coming, and I'm looking forward to it.
- 2:12Audrey: I'm looking forward to this fall and then the winter and you know what God has in the new year.
- 2:19Audrey: Today I want to talk with you about a subject that I talk about a lot.
- 2:22Audrey: Hope you don't get tired of it.
- 2:24Audrey: I want to talk to you today about prayer.
- 2:26Audrey: But I want to I want to talk about this the side of prayer that we don't often mention.
- 2:32Audrey: You know, I've written a book on prayer.
- 2:34Audrey: I wrote a book of prayers for moms to pray over their children, over themselves.
- 2:40Audrey: I also I've done a devotional guide to help people start having quiet times, devotional times with the Lord.
- 2:48Audrey: And sometimes, you know, when we talk about prayer and we we tell other people about prayer, we talk about prayer like it is just the easiest, the best thing on earth.
- 3:00Audrey: You know, it's like we're just sitting down with Jesus in our Bible and He's gonna talk to us and we're gonna talk to Him.
- 3:06Audrey: And I have had many really sweet times of prayer.
- 3:11Audrey: I would not take anything for those times, for those times where I know God has spoken to my heart, I know He's brought peace to my troubled heart.
- 3:21Audrey: There are some wonderful times that I can think back, and I'm so thankful for those times.
- 3:28Audrey: But for certain seasons and in certain times, but for many, many times when I've gone to the Lord in prayer, it has not been pretty.
- 3:37Audrey: It has not been like that.
- 3:39Audrey: You know, I I didn't get a word from the Lord, or you know, I carried a burden in, and it seemed like I carried it back out with me when I left prayer.
- 3:48Audrey: And I want to talk with you about this because I I don't think we talk about it enough.
- 3:53Audrey: I think, you know, we we we set prayer up and devote when I say prayer, I mean time with the Lord, whether that's time, you know, reading your Bible or just talking to Him or on your knees.
- 4:05Audrey: You know, sometimes we we make it sound like if we don't have this experience with God, then we're doing it all wrong.
- 4:13Audrey: And I just want to be honest with you.
- 4:15Audrey: I kind of want to pull back the veil today and talk with you about the hard side of prayer and that it is perfectly normal when prayer is hard.
- 4:27Audrey: And I think of it as like Jacob wrestling with God, he wouldn't let go of God, and God honored him, and that's how it feels sometimes in prayer, especially through seasons when things are happening around us that we don't like, that we wish were different, that we don't understand.
- 4:50Audrey: Those are times when it's very tempting to be offended at the Lord, it's very tempting to stop praying because you know if if prayer's hard and we don't enjoy it, and it forces us to think about things that we don't like or see things in ourselves that we wish weren't there, it's really easy to avoid those things by avoiding prayer, because prayer is like going before the Lord and having a light shine on our hearts.
- 5:18Audrey: And you know, if if we're struggling, sometimes that's the last thing we want to do is feel exposed.
- 5:25Audrey: But I'm here to tell you today that that is perfectly normal to not want to pray or to struggle in prayer, and I I just want to share a little bit about that today, to kind of you know set the record straight.
- 5:41Audrey: You know, me and myself, I've encouraged you guys to daily find time with the Lord because that's how we grow.
- 5:50Audrey: How do we get to know him unless we spend time with him?
- 5:53Audrey: How do we expect him to meet our needs and answer our prayers if we don't pray?
- 5:58Audrey: You know, prayer is very important.
- 6:01Audrey: Uh last week I actually spoke about my grandmother and her friends and the time, the precious time that I was able to spend with them, and they taught me many things.
- 6:10Audrey: These ladies were as old as my grandmother, some of them older.
- 6:15Audrey: And they just poured into me when I first became a Christian so many wonderful things.
- 6:21Audrey: But one of the things that they instilled in me very early in my walk with the Lord is the need for prayer, and that prayer is not optional, it is essential in our walk with the Lord.
- 6:34Audrey: And they encouraged me, pray every day, you know, find a time, don't make it, you know, make it and non-negotiable.
- 6:42Audrey: This is what I do, this is what I do.
- 6:44Audrey: As a Christian, I pray.
- 6:47Audrey: And so thankfully, not just those ladies, but other Christians, you know, they took time with me and they showed me how they prayed and what they did during their time of prayer.
- 6:57Audrey: And that I've tried during these 30, 31 years that I've been serving the Lord to maintain a prayer life.
- 7:06Audrey: And guys, it is our life in Christ, it is how we stay connected to God, but it is not easy.
- 7:15Audrey: Like I said, especially during hard times.
- 7:19Audrey: And we, me, I have personally been going through a rather difficult time.
- 7:26Audrey: Now, I'm not gonna go into all of it because you don't need to hear my problems, you got your own.
- 7:32Audrey: And but I know God's with me.
- 7:34Audrey: And there is a temptation, you know, there's a temptation to kind of back off on the prayer because, like I said, you know, when you go to the Lord and and these things pop up, you know, if you're not ready to deal with them, then you will make all kinds of excuses not to pray, not to come to the Lord, because you know he's gonna bring them up.
- 7:56Audrey: And when God brings things up, he always gives us the grace to deal with them.
- 8:04Audrey: Now, when I wrote my book on prayer, one of the reasons I wrote the book the way I did is because when when my boys were young, when they were little, and the Lord put on my heart that as a mom, it was one of my responsibilities to pray for them, that they needed my prayers, that nobody's gonna pray for my children the way that I can, because nobody loves them in the way that I love them.
- 8:27Audrey: And that God had given me that assignment to pray for my children.
- 8:30Audrey: But as I brought them to the Lord in prayer and prayed for them, I was so hit in the face by my own issues.
- 8:39Audrey: You know, I would come to the Lord and pray to him that he would change their heart.
- 8:45Audrey: Well, I had issues in my own heart.
- 8:48Audrey: You know, I would ask the Lord to help them to forgive their brother or somebody who had done them wrong when I was dealing with the same things just on an adult level.
- 8:59Audrey: And so as every time I come to the Lord in prayer for my children, I was faced with my own issues.
- 9:07Audrey: And I and the the voice that kept coming to my mind is who are you to pray for these very things that you're not walking out yourself?
- 9:17Audrey: And so I started praying for myself and my children at the same time, and that seemed to help, you know, because they don't have another mother.
- 9:27Audrey: I'm the only mother that they have, and they need a praying mom.
- 9:31Audrey: And so since I can't be, I'm not gonna be perfect and change overnight, I said, you know what, I'll pray for me and for them at the same time.
- 9:39Audrey: And then God sees at least that I'm trying.
- 9:41Audrey: I know I don't have it together, Lord, but you see I'm trying.
- 9:44Audrey: And so as you work in their life, I give you permission to work in my life too.
- 9:49Audrey: And that helped me.
- 9:50Audrey: And that's why I wrote covered in prayer, 31 prayers to cover you and your children in the grace of God.
- 9:56Audrey: That's why I wrote it the way I did.
- 9:58Audrey: Because on day one, I pray for my child's heart.
- 10:01Audrey: On day two, I pray for my heart.
- 10:03Audrey: On day three, I pray for my child's mind.
- 10:06Audrey: On day four, I pray for my mind.
- 10:08Audrey: And I wrote it that way because every time I come to the Lord in prayer, I was faced with my own limitations and my own hypocrisy that I wanted them to be this perfect person, but I sure wasn't this perfect person.
- 10:22Audrey: So I said, we're just gonna have to trust in God's grace for for all of us.
- 10:27Audrey: Because prayer is holy work, but it's hard work too.
- 10:33Audrey: And like I said, when you're going through particularly hard seasons, it can be very tempting to find other things, to get busy so you don't have to pray.
- 10:43Audrey: And and and we can make that really holy, we can make that look really holy.
- 10:47Audrey: We can be very busy doing really good things, but the bottom line is God knows, and you know, that those are things that we are doing just because we don't want it quiet.
- 10:58Audrey: We don't want to get before the Lord because we know that he knows that we're struggling.
- 11:04Audrey: It's kind of like Adam and Eve.
- 11:06Audrey: We talked about that last week too, how you know in the garden when they sinned, the first thing they did was hide from God.
- 11:14Audrey: And God wants us to run to him and not from him.
- 11:18Audrey: And prayer is when we run to him.
- 11:21Audrey: You know, when we talk about prayer, I'll just give you a little rundown.
- 11:25Audrey: And and I did, like I said, I have written a devotional guide, and I'll put a tag to that and a tag to my book on prayer in the show notes.
- 11:34Audrey: But in my devotional guide, I talk about the things I do to help me pray.
- 11:39Audrey: You know, number one, having a specific time and place really helps me.
- 11:45Audrey: You know, if I make it a part of my routine, then it helps me the it the odds of it happening significantly go up.
- 11:54Audrey: If it's part of my everyday, if I go to the same place at the same time.
- 11:58Audrey: And if I have all my stuff there, if I have my Bible and my journal and you know, a pillow for my knees, if I'm gonna get on my knees, those kind of things.
- 12:06Audrey: If I have those things right there, then it's I have less excuses not to pray.
- 12:10Audrey: Now, there are seasons when prayer is a lot harder.
- 12:13Audrey: You know, when I was getting up at 4 30, 5 o'clock in the morning to work at the coffee shop, that's harder.
- 12:19Audrey: You know, I didn't I I prayed on the way.
- 12:22Audrey: My prayer time during that time was the drive there, the 15-20 minutes on the way to work.
- 12:27Audrey: And then I would pray at other times too.
- 12:29Audrey: But for the most part, in my morning, that's when I try to pray.
- 12:35Audrey: When I get up, I find that I have more control of my day in the morning before all of life's demands are pulling at me and the phone is ringing and those kind of things.
- 12:45Audrey: So in the morning, you know, I have my Bible, I have my stuff ready for me, I have my chair, and that's what I do, and I keep a running list of things I want to see God do in my life.
- 12:57Audrey: People I need him to touch and and things that I want him to do, or I'm believing him to do.
- 13:02Audrey: And so when I go to the Lord in prayer, I got my stuff, you know, I'm ready.
- 13:07Audrey: But that still doesn't make it easy.
- 13:10Audrey: And so I will usually start in my Bible, I'll read.
- 13:16Audrey: Right now I'm going through a chapter in the Old Testament, a chapter in the New Testament.
- 13:21Audrey: At other times I've done Bible studies or I've I love a devotional.
- 13:26Audrey: That's why I wrote one, because I love a good devotional, and that devotional is kind of like it gets me going, it gets me started, and I can and it gives me in the word.
- 13:35Audrey: And so I'll I'll I'll do that, I'll meditate on some scripture, I might journal, I might write down what I feel like God is saying.
- 13:42Audrey: Now I have to put my phone away.
- 13:44Audrey: Okay, that's just me.
- 13:46Audrey: I often I used to like to play music on my phone, but I found that if my phone was close by and it and somebody texts me, I'm gonna pick up that phone.
- 13:54Audrey: That's just me.
- 13:55Audrey: I have a hard time not seeing who texts me.
- 13:58Audrey: So I have to put my phone and even my watch in another room.
- 14:02Audrey: If it goes off, I've got to see who called or who texts.
- 14:05Audrey: And so I put those in another room, and then when it's time to pray, I usually get on my knees or sometimes I just lay on the floor.
- 14:15Audrey: And the reason I do that is because I have found when I'm sitting up in a chair, I'm distracted.
- 14:21Audrey: And when I get on my knees, it's like a signal in my mind that now is time to pray.
- 14:26Audrey: Now I'm talking to God.
- 14:28Audrey: And everybody's not like that, and that's fine.
- 14:30Audrey: But I found that over the years that's what works for me.
- 14:33Audrey: Now, every prayer time is different, you know, because every day is different.
- 14:38Audrey: And one of the things that the Lord has been reminding me, now I know this, but I need constant reminders.
- 14:45Audrey: One of the things the Lord has been reminding me is that this is a relationship.
- 14:50Audrey: I am in a relationship with God.
- 14:53Audrey: He is my Father.
- 14:55Audrey: Jesus is my savior, the Holy Spirit is my helper.
- 14:59Audrey: You know, when I come to him in prayer, we are talking.
- 15:03Audrey: I can pour out my heart to him.
- 15:06Audrey: I can be honest with him.
- 15:07Audrey: He knows it all anyway.
- 15:08Audrey: Mine is we'll be honest.
- 15:10Audrey: And when I'm frustrated, and even sometimes frustrated at him, yes, I said it.
- 15:15Audrey: Sometimes I'm frustrated with him because he's not doing things the way I want him to, in the timing that I want him to do them.
- 15:24Audrey: And I've found that it's just better to go ahead and get that out and tell him.
- 15:28Audrey: But I try to be honest with the Lord because he knows anyway.
- 15:32Audrey: And when I am praying for something that is weighing on my heart, sometimes I just run out of words.
- 15:42Audrey: Sometimes there are just no words.
- 15:44Audrey: And I have had times in prayer where I just I got up after a long time and thought, I don't even know that my prayer left this ceiling.
- 15:53Audrey: I don't even know that it left this room, but I put it into his hands.
- 15:58Audrey: I have to trust that he hears me, even though I do not feel a release, I do not see the answer, I don't feel any better right now than when I got on my knees.
- 16:07Audrey: But I just have to believe that God hears and he cares, and that he will answer my prayer.
- 16:13Audrey: And that part of the praying process is for me.
- 16:18Audrey: Part of the process of prayer, it does something in me.
- 16:23Audrey: It reminds me that he is in charge.
- 16:25Audrey: It reminds me that I need him.
- 16:28Audrey: So prayer is more than just going to the Lord and getting what we need and giving him our list.
- 16:35Audrey: It is allowing God to do a work in our own heart, even when we would rather not.
- 16:42Audrey: And so prayer is messy, it's a struggle, it's wrestling with God.
- 16:46Audrey: Like I said, there are times when, you know, God speaks in prayer and it's just, oh, that's the answer I needed, Lord.
- 16:53Audrey: But for me, those times seem to be the exception rather than the rule, which is one of the reasons that make those times extra special because it's not the norm.
- 17:04Audrey: It's not that every time I sit down and pray, or every time I sit down with my Bible, that the Holy Spirit reveals something.
- 17:11Audrey: Often I'm doing it by faith.
- 17:14Audrey: You know, we sometimes we confuse faith with belief.
- 17:21Audrey: Now you have to believe to have faith, right?
- 17:24Audrey: Belief is a part of faith, you know, but the Bible even says that the demons believe and they tremble.
- 17:31Audrey: But see, we believe and we trust.
- 17:35Audrey: That is what faith is.
- 17:37Audrey: Faith is not only do I believe there is a God, but I trust him.
- 17:42Audrey: I trust him with these people that I love, I trust him with these things that are troubling my mind.
- 17:48Audrey: I trust that even when I don't understand everything, he still cares.
- 17:55Audrey: See, right now I have some things that weigh on my heart.
- 18:02Audrey: I have a neighbor, friend, who is in the hospital with her husband, and we're praying for them, and they don't even have a word for what he is struggling with.
- 18:18Audrey: They've been in the hospital for weeks.
- 18:20Audrey: He's been back and forth out of the hospital, and what he is struggling with is so unique that there's not even a word for it, there's not even a name for it.
- 18:29Audrey: And we're praying for her.
- 18:32Audrey: She is a friend, she's a friend of mine and my mom's, and uh she loves the Lord, and this is such a trial of faith for her and her husband.
- 18:44Audrey: I have another neighbor who is struggling with cancer.
- 18:47Audrey: Her husband has to to be with her 24-7.
- 18:52Audrey: They're in a hard place, and so I'm praying for them.
- 18:55Audrey: You know, I'm I'm believing God to do something in their lives.
- 18:59Audrey: My own children, I have one in particular, he's going through a hard time, and I am believing God to do something in his life.
- 19:10Audrey: And after praying and praying and praying, and you feel like I don't see the answer, it's really tempting to not pray.
- 19:20Audrey: But guys, we that's our job.
- 19:23Audrey: But that's part of faith, is we pray believing.
- 19:27Audrey: But if we forget that prayer is work, that that prayer is not easy and it's not designed to be, that prayer pulls at our own heart strings, then we will be tempted to stop and to give up.
- 19:40Audrey: Prayer is often not pretty and it looks a lot like wrestling and struggling with God.
- 19:47Audrey: I have a listener a few years ago who got in touch with me.
- 19:51Audrey: She has since become a friend, but she was going through a particularly hard time when she found my podcast.
- 19:58Audrey: She and her husband left uh her home country, the United States, went to another country, and while in that country with their children, her husband approached her and told her he wanted a divorce.
- 20:11Audrey: She is in a new place, new church, working in the ministry with her husband.
- 20:18Audrey: And and now her husband wants out.
- 20:22Audrey: She said, I go to the Lord in prayer, and I nothing comes out, but I go.
- 20:28Audrey: She said, I'll just put music on and I'm just there.
- 20:31Audrey: She said, I'm just here, Lord.
- 20:32Audrey: This is my prayer time.
- 20:34Audrey: I do not have words, I'm just here.
- 20:36Audrey: And guys, I believe God accepts that as a prayer.
- 20:39Audrey: I think when we show up, even when we don't have the words, that He accepts that as our prayer.
- 20:46Audrey: Now there are times I've been in prayer for things and the words would not come.
- 20:51Audrey: The tears would flow, but the words wouldn't come.
- 20:55Audrey: That is still a prayer.
- 20:57Audrey: When we go before the Lord, when we lay ourselves before him, even imperfectly, even when we're struggling, he hears and he cares.
- 21:08Audrey: So your prayer time does not have to look like everybody else's prayer time.
- 21:14Audrey: Your prayer time does not have to be neat and cute and all wrapped up with a bow on top.
- 21:18Audrey: It doesn't.
- 21:20Audrey: It can be ugly, it can be different, it can be just you in your car pouring it all out.
- 21:29Audrey: But God hears your prayers.
- 21:31Audrey: Don't stop praying.
- 21:34Audrey: Don't back up.
- 21:35Audrey: Don't busy yourself so you don't have to face the things that you don't want to face.
- 21:41Audrey: That is where change happens.
- 21:44Audrey: That's where growth happens.
- 21:45Audrey: And when God does answer, when you see what he was up to from the beginning, not only will you be thankful that God answered the prayer, that God responded to your prayers, but you'll also be a different person because you allowed him to transform you in the process.
- 22:03Audrey: Recently, my husband and I listened to an audio book together.
- 22:07Audrey: It's called Out of a Far Country by Christopher Yuan.
- 22:12Audrey: This book so encouraged me.
- 22:13Audrey: It was a true story about Christopher and his mom, and Christopher's family were atheist.
- 22:20Audrey: They went through a family crisis while he was in dentistry school.
- 22:26Audrey: And his mom decided she was going to end her life.
- 22:31Audrey: But she wanted to see her son Christopher one last time.
- 22:34Audrey: So she buys a train ticket to go visit her son in another state, and on the way there, God, who she doesn't believe in, speaks to her.
- 22:45Audrey: And through a course of events, she ends up believing in Jesus and becoming a Christian.
- 22:52Audrey: Miracle.
- 22:53Audrey: Just a miracle.
- 22:55Audrey: Well, of course, her family doesn't want anything to do with that, but she is changed and she knows God has saved, literally saved her life and saved her soul.
- 23:07Audrey: So she finds a place in her home that becomes her all.
- 23:12Audrey: altar her prayer closet and she prays and prays and prays and over the next five years God saves her husband, her father, and her son Christopher.
- 23:27Audrey: Now during those five years, Christopher not only does he get kicked out of dentistry school, which doesn't seem like an answer to prayer, right?
- 23:37Audrey: Not only does he get kicked out of ministry school, but Christopher gets addicted to drugs.
- 23:43Audrey: And then he becomes a drug dealer.
- 23:46Audrey: And then he goes to prison.
- 23:49Audrey: So she's praying for her son.
- 23:52Audrey: And on the outside it looks like everything is getting worse.
- 23:55Audrey: Everything's getting worse.
- 23:57Audrey: But God is using it all and he's answering her prayers.
- 24:02Audrey: But when she's praying she doesn't know that.
- 24:05Audrey: When she's praying it feels like God's not even listening.
- 24:09Audrey: I mean it's going from bad to worse.
- 24:11Audrey: But she prayed and she prayed and she prayed until through miraculous circumstances her son in prison becomes a Christian.
- 24:23Audrey: And that book so encouraged me and I encourage you if you need something to build your faith if you need something to give you that extra ump that I'm going to continue believing in prayer and wrestling with God in prayer even though right now I don't feel like doing it.
- 24:39Audrey: Even though I'd like to give up then I encourage you to go find that book it's called Out of a Far Country by Christopher Yuan You Will Be Blessed.
- 24:49Audrey: And like I said I'll put that link in the show notes.
- 24:52Audrey: But I hope that this message today hasn't been too out there hasn't been too chaotic.
- 24:57Audrey: The whole point is your prayer time does not have to look perfect or pretty and it's not going to always feel like heaven come to earth.
- 25:09Audrey: Prayer is work prayer is messy but prayer is good.
- 25:14Audrey: And prayer is where we access the power of God to bring about change in ourselves and in those we love and in the circumstances and situations that are here on earth and it's where we say Lord not my will but your will be done and your kingdom come in Jesus' name.
- 25:33Audrey: And it changes us in the process.
- 25:35Audrey: Now before you go today I want to pray for you I hope that you've been blessed I hope that you've been encouraged and most of all I hope that you pray.
- 25:46Audrey: As I mentioned before I have written a guide to help those who want to start having a daily devotional time a time of prayer with the Lord and I will put that link in the show notes.
- 25:58Audrey: I've also written a book of prayers for moms to pray over their children and themselves.
- 26:05Audrey: And I'll put those links in the show notes.
- 26:07Audrey: Those are just resources to help you because I know God has called you to pray for those that you love and he wants us to help each other.
- 26:15Audrey: That's what it's all about.
- 26:16Audrey: You know I've been through some things that you haven't and you've been through some things I haven't and together we can encourage each other in this walk with the Lord because we are sisters in Christ and we are part of the body and we're building each other up in love.
- 26:30Audrey: Amen before you go let's pray and just believe God to do something in us in prayer through prayer this week.
- 26:41Audrey: Father we thank you that you Lord you see it all God we see this little piece of the puzzle today but you see the big picture and Lord I pray that you would give us faith to pray to believe that you are answering our prayers that we are partnering with you in prayer and that our prayers matter.
- 27:07Audrey: God help us Lord by faith to commit to praying for those that you've placed in our lives God give us that desire to see your kingdom come Lord to believe that Lord our prayers just like Elijah Lord are powerful Lord and that they accomplish much on this earth.
- 27:27Audrey: And Lord we give you the glory we give you the praise in Jesus' name amen.
- 27:33Audrey: God bless.
- 27:34Audrey: Have a great week