Speaker 1: Life Audio.
Speaker 2: Teach Us to Pray is brought to you by Life
Speaker 2: Audio and is a part of our Faith Toolkit series.
Speaker 2: For more inspirational faith affirming podcasts, visit lifeaudio dot com.
Speaker 1: Are you tired of trying to figure out everything on
Speaker 1: your own? Are you weary from trying to fight the
Speaker 1: same battles over and over again? In today's episode, I
Speaker 1: want to teach you how to fight the battles of
Speaker 1: a life with the power of prayer. Welcome back, friend.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Teach Us to Pray podcast,
Speaker 1: where we teach believers practical and real life tips on
Speaker 1: how to grow your faith and relationship with God through
Speaker 1: the power of prayer. I'm Christina Patterson, host of the
Speaker 1: Teachers to Pray podcast and founder of the Loved Women,
Speaker 1: where I have the honor to encourage, equip and empower
Speaker 1: women in the love of Jesus Christ and the truth
Speaker 1: of God's Word. Have you ever felt like the entire
Speaker 1: world was coming against you. Everything that you wanted to
Speaker 1: happen wasn't happening, and things were just not going your way.
Speaker 1: You're having issues in your relationships and there are just
Speaker 1: so many elements out of your control. In these types
Speaker 1: of seasons, it's easy to want to become defensive, put
Speaker 1: our guard up, and fight. But you know what, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this the other day in a conversation
Speaker 1: with a friend, which I'll tell you a little bit
Speaker 1: more about later, But God reminded me that we cannot
Speaker 1: forget that He is actively involved in our lives, even
Speaker 1: in our fights, I would say a special in our fights.
Speaker 1: When we feel like our back is up against the wall,
Speaker 1: our natural response is to want to handle it ourselves,
Speaker 1: is to want to take things into our own hands.
Speaker 1: And it's easy then to forget that we have a
Speaker 1: God that fights for us. In fact, when we are
Speaker 1: in a battle, God tells us to be still. Psalm
Speaker 1: forty six, Verse ten says, be still and know that
Speaker 1: I am God. I will be exalted among the nations,
Speaker 1: I will be exalted in the earth. God's reputation is
Speaker 1: attached to your victory in this battle, and he will
Speaker 1: fight for you. He tells us that we only need
Speaker 1: to be still and know that it is he that
Speaker 1: is God. Now that doesn't mean that we don't do anything.
Speaker 1: It just means that instead of trying to operate in
Speaker 1: our own strength, we operate in a trust that God
Speaker 1: has our backs. It's interesting because this morning I was
Speaker 1: doing my devotional and as I write in my journal,
Speaker 1: I always write out a scripture of the day, and
Speaker 1: it's just a scripture that I feel like relates to
Speaker 1: my current season in life and what I'm about to
Speaker 1: pray about, and it just reminds me of God's truth
Speaker 1: before I go into prayer. Today, my scripture was Proverbs three,
Speaker 1: verse five that says trust in the Lord with all
Speaker 1: your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. You know,
Speaker 1: our understanding says I need to fight this out, I
Speaker 1: need to get in this person's face, I need to
Speaker 1: do all these things. In fact, I need to do
Speaker 1: more and more and more. That's what we think, But
Speaker 1: the Bible tells us that we need to instead trust
Speaker 1: in the Lord with all our heart. See put our
Speaker 1: trust in our actions. We put our trust in what
Speaker 1: we can do, and it never fails that that does
Speaker 1: not lead to the victory that we desire. But when
Speaker 1: we truly trust God, it helps us to be victorious
Speaker 1: in the battles that we will face in life. Let
Speaker 1: me explain what that means. Also, in my devotional time,
Speaker 1: I came across this quote from Marshawn Evans Daniels, and
Speaker 1: she was talking about the difference between faith and trust.
Speaker 1: Faith is believing in God, but trust is actually acting
Speaker 1: like God has your back. This is what she said.
Speaker 1: We can believe that God is capable of all things,
Speaker 1: but it's another thing to fully and trust God with
Speaker 1: every area of our lives. By in trust, I mean
Speaker 1: to act as if God has already worked things out,
Speaker 1: versus questioning whether He will come through. And that quote
Speaker 1: really challenged me this morning, and I hope that it
Speaker 1: challenges you to ask yourself the question, how would I
Speaker 1: act if I trusted God in this battle? Would I
Speaker 1: try to be defensive in fight? Would I be operating
Speaker 1: out of anxiety and fear, or would I boldly take
Speaker 1: the next step in faith knowing that God has my back. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you don't do anything, but your actions
Speaker 1: should be rooted in a trust in God, in knowing
Speaker 1: that He is God, as Psalm forty six tells us,
Speaker 1: and not in our own abilities. I think about King David,
Speaker 1: who was the only Israelite that was willing to face
Speaker 1: the giant Goliath when the Israelites were in battle against
Speaker 1: the Philistines. If you remember the Bible story, the Philistines
Speaker 1: were in war against the Israelite and they presented their
Speaker 1: greatest warrior, Goliath, and said, whoever can defeat him will
Speaker 1: win this war. Well, none of the Israelite soldiers were
Speaker 1: willing to combat him and face him one on one
Speaker 1: because they were intimidated by him. Everyone except for David.
Speaker 1: And David wasn't even a warrior. So how could David
Speaker 1: have had such boldness to face Goliath when nobody else would?
Speaker 1: What gave him a trust in God to be able
Speaker 1: to face this battle without fear? I want you to
Speaker 1: listen to what David says before he defeats Goliath in
Speaker 1: First Samuel chapter seventeen Versus forty six or forty seven.
Speaker 1: He says, this day the Lord will deliver you into
Speaker 1: my hand, and I will strike you down and cut
Speaker 1: off your head. I will give the dead bodies of
Speaker 1: the host of the Philistines this day to the birds
Speaker 1: of the air and to the wild beast of the earth,
Speaker 1: that all the earth may know that there is a
Speaker 1: God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know
Speaker 1: that God saves not with sword and spear for the
Speaker 1: battle is the Lord's and he will give you into
Speaker 1: our hands. If we look at David's words here, we
Speaker 1: can see that he's not putting his trust in himself.
Speaker 1: He's not trying to do all these things and get
Speaker 1: a sword and a spear. Actually, we know that he
Speaker 1: fought with a slang shot in some rocks to defeat Goliath,
Speaker 1: and so he wasn't operating in his own strength. He
Speaker 1: knew that God was with him. Now, he didn't do
Speaker 1: nothing because he did face Goliath, but he did so
Speaker 1: with the knowledge of God that gave him the trust
Speaker 1: to do feet his enemy. I was talking to a
Speaker 1: friend the other day and she made such a fascinating
Speaker 1: point that I've shared a little bit here on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but I never thought about it in this particular perspective.
Speaker 1: She was talking about how after the apostle Paul in
Speaker 1: Ephesian six tells us to put on the armor of God,
Speaker 1: he then calls believers to pray. I have an entire
Speaker 1: podcast on that topic called how to Pray Against Spiritual Warfare.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check that out if you have the chance.
Speaker 1: But in it, I talk about how we talk about
Speaker 1: how to have faith and use the word of God
Speaker 1: and all the types of the armor that we are
Speaker 1: told to put on, but then we are to pray.
Speaker 1: My friend made the point that we're putting on all
Speaker 1: this armor not to go to war ourselves, but to
Speaker 1: go to God in prayer. What that means is we
Speaker 1: aren't putting on that armor to go to battle in
Speaker 1: our own strength, but to go to battle in God's strength.
Speaker 1: And how do we go to battle in God's strength?
Speaker 1: We pray, We pray to God. As I was having
Speaker 1: this conversation with my friend, my husband made an excellent point.
Speaker 1: He said, you know a lot of times we want
Speaker 1: to fight, we want to figure things out on our own,
Speaker 1: but we are not warriors. God has angels that he
Speaker 1: sends to fight his battles for him. If you think
Speaker 1: about Daniel and you think about him praying to the God,
Speaker 1: praying to God for understanding of his dream, and angel
Speaker 1: came to him to give him understanding. But the angel said, listen,
Speaker 1: I had some battles that I had to go through
Speaker 1: to get to you before I could give you understanding
Speaker 1: about this vision, this dream that you've had. And so
Speaker 1: we know that God sends his angel to fight for him.
Speaker 1: My husband made the point that even Jesus in the
Speaker 1: garden of Gaycimite when he was being arrested, Peter wanted
Speaker 1: to fight. What did he do? He pulled out his
Speaker 1: sword and he cut off one of the people ears
Speaker 1: that was trying to arrest Jesus, and Jesus miraculously healed
Speaker 1: the man's ear and said, no, do you not understand.
Speaker 1: I could send angels to come down and fight this
Speaker 1: battle for me if I wanted to. He was saying, Peter,
Speaker 1: this is not your battle to fight. The battle is
Speaker 1: the lord's. So if the angels are God's messengers and
Speaker 1: they are his fighters, who are we? But hus have
Speaker 1: made it clear we are God's children. We are God's children.
Speaker 1: Now don't take that lightly, because a child has tremendous
Speaker 1: influence in the life of their family. If we are
Speaker 1: God's children, how much more will he answer our prayers
Speaker 1: when we are in battle. The Bible tells us that
Speaker 1: we serve a good father who will not withhold good
Speaker 1: things from his children. And just that conversation and that
Speaker 1: revelation really just fired me up and was like, I
Speaker 1: need to pray even more because I am a child
Speaker 1: of God. And when I pray, it releases God to
Speaker 1: fight on my behalf, and I know that he will
Speaker 1: because I am his child. So I want to encourage
Speaker 1: you today, as you are facing your battles, to pray
Speaker 1: for God's will, pray for his desired outcome and that
Speaker 1: your heart will be aligned with his, and then trust
Speaker 1: that whatever that is, it will be for your good
Speaker 1: and God's glory. I want you to pray for God's
Speaker 1: protection and his peace as you endure as you wait
Speaker 1: for him. Then I want you to pray for God's
Speaker 1: strength to wait. Isaiah forty tells us that those who
Speaker 1: wait on the Lord will be strengthened, not those who
Speaker 1: get ahead of him and try to fight the battle
Speaker 1: without him, but those who wait will be strengthened. Dear
Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, I just pray for all of my listeners
Speaker 1: today that might be facing battles that seem overwhelming and
Speaker 1: daunting and they don't know what to do. Lord, I
Speaker 1: pray you will help us to resist the urge to
Speaker 1: fight in our own strength God and our own understanding,
Speaker 1: and to truly trust you God. Trust you to take
Speaker 1: our worries to you. Trust you to take our cares
Speaker 1: to you. Trust you to let you fight for us,
Speaker 1: show us what next steps to take, and let us
Speaker 1: take them boldly, God, knowing that you will give us
Speaker 1: your victory and Jesus Christ name I pray Amen. It
Speaker 1: is my hope that today's episode has provided you with
Speaker 1: insightful and helpful tips on how you can pray. As
Speaker 1: a gift to you, be sure to download my free
Speaker 1: five day Prayer guide and take my Prayer Personality quiz
Speaker 1: to learn how you best hear and connect with God.
Speaker 1: Find all links in today's show notes. We have so
Speaker 1: much more to talk about when it comes to prayer,
Speaker 1: so I hope that if you were encouraged by today's episode,
Speaker 1: you will share it with the friend and subscribe so
Speaker 1: you don't miss any future episodes of the Teach Us
Speaker 1: to Pray Podcast where we will continue to learn. I'll
Speaker 1: just like breathing, prayer can become a natural, consistent, and
Speaker 1: life giving part of our everyday lives. Until then, be
Speaker 1: sure to connect with me at Belovedwomen dot org and
Speaker 1: join me on the Beloved Women App for unlimited videos
Speaker 1: to grow your faith, learn God's word, and encourage your soul.
Speaker 1: The app. The Beloved Woman App is available now in
Speaker 1: the Apple and Google play stores or at Belovewomen dot tv.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking time to listen today.
Speaker 1: God bless you, and I'll talk to you in the
Speaker 1: next episode. Teach Us to Pray is a production of
Speaker 1: Life Audio and Salem Media. If you like what you
Speaker 1: heard today, please take a second to rate and review
Speaker 1: this podcast in your favorite podcast staff so that more
Speaker 1: listeners like you can find the show. For more faith
Speaker 1: filled inspirational podcasts, visit us at lifaudio dot com.