How to Fight with Prayer

the power of prayer. I'm Christina Patterson, host of the Teachers to Pray podcast and founder of the Loved Women, where I have the honor to encourage, equip and empower women in the love of Jesus Christ and the truth of God's Word. Have you ever felt like the entire world was coming against you. Everything that you wanted to happen wasn't happening, and things were just not going your way. You're having issues in your relationships and there are just

so many elements out of your control. In these types of seasons, it's easy to want to become defensive, put our guard up, and fight. But you know what, I was thinking about this the other day in a conversation with a friend, which I'll tell you a little bit more about later, But God reminded me that we cannot forget that He is actively involved in our lives, even in our fights, I would say a special in our fights.

When we feel like our back is up against the wall, our natural response is to want to handle it ourselves, is to want to take things into our own hands. And it's easy then to forget that we have a God that fights for us. In fact, when we are in a battle, God tells us to be still. Psalm forty six, Verse ten says, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. God's reputation is attached to your victory in this battle, and he will

fight for you. He tells us that we only need to be still and know that it is he that is God. Now that doesn't mean that we don't do anything. It just means that instead of trying to operate in our own strength, we operate in a trust that God

has our backs. It's interesting because this morning I was doing my devotional and as I write in my journal, I always write out a scripture of the day, and it's just a scripture that I feel like relates to my current season in life and what I'm about to pray about, and it just reminds me of God's truth before I go into prayer. Today, my scripture was Proverbs three, verse five that says trust in the Lord with all

your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. You know, our understanding says I need to fight this out, I need to get in this person's face, I need to do all these things. In fact, I need to do more and more and more. That's what we think, But the Bible tells us that we need to instead trust in the Lord with all our heart. See put our trust in our actions. We put our trust in what we can do, and it never fails that that does

not lead to the victory that we desire. But when we truly trust God, it helps us to be victorious in the battles that we will face in life. Let me explain what that means. Also, in my devotional time, I came across this quote from Marshawn Evans Daniels, and she was talking about the difference between faith and trust. Faith is believing in God, but trust is actually acting like God has your back. This is what she said.

We can believe that God is capable of all things, but it's another thing to fully and trust God with every area of our lives. By in trust, I mean to act as if God has already worked things out, versus questioning whether He will come through. And that quote really challenged me this morning, and I hope that it challenges you to ask yourself the question, how would I act if I trusted God in this battle? Would I

try to be defensive in fight? Would I be operating out of anxiety and fear, or would I boldly take the next step in faith knowing that God has my back. Again, I'm not saying you don't do anything, but your actions should be rooted in a trust in God, in knowing that He is God, as Psalm forty six tells us, and not in our own abilities. I think about King David, who was the only Israelite that was willing to face the giant Goliath when the Israelites were in battle against

the Philistines. If you remember the Bible story, the Philistines were in war against the Israelite and they presented their greatest warrior, Goliath, and said, whoever can defeat him will win this war. Well, none of the Israelite soldiers were willing to combat him and face him one on one because they were intimidated by him. Everyone except for David. And David wasn't even a warrior. So how could David have had such boldness to face Goliath when nobody else would?

What gave him a trust in God to be able to face this battle without fear? I want you to listen to what David says before he defeats Goliath in First Samuel chapter seventeen Versus forty six or forty seven. He says, this day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut

off your head. I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beast of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that God saves not with sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. If we look at David's words here, we can see that he's not putting his trust in himself. He's not trying to do all these things and get

a sword and a spear. Actually, we know that he fought with a slang shot in some rocks to defeat Goliath, and so he wasn't operating in his own strength. He knew that God was with him. Now, he didn't do nothing because he did face Goliath, but he did so with the knowledge of God that gave him the trust

to do feet his enemy. I was talking to a friend the other day and she made such a fascinating point that I've shared a little bit here on the podcast, but I never thought about it in this particular perspective. She was talking about how after the apostle Paul in Ephesian six tells us to put on the armor of God, he then calls believers to pray. I have an entire podcast on that topic called how to Pray Against Spiritual Warfare. Be sure to check that out if you have the chance.

But in it, I talk about how we talk about how to have faith and use the word of God and all the types of the armor that we are told to put on, but then we are to pray. My friend made the point that we're putting on all this armor not to go to war ourselves, but to go to God in prayer. What that means is we aren't putting on that armor to go to battle in our own strength, but to go to battle in God's strength. And how do we go to battle in God's strength?

We pray, We pray to God. As I was having this conversation with my friend, my husband made an excellent point. He said, you know a lot of times we want to fight, we want to figure things out on our own, but we are not warriors. God has angels that he sends to fight his battles for him. If you think about Daniel and you think about him praying to the God, praying to God for understanding of his dream, and angel

came to him to give him understanding. But the angel said, listen, I had some battles that I had to go through to get to you before I could give you understanding about this vision, this dream that you've had. And so we know that God sends his angel to fight for him. My husband made the point that even Jesus in the garden of Gaycimite when he was being arrested, Peter wanted

to fight. What did he do? He pulled out his sword and he cut off one of the people ears that was trying to arrest Jesus, and Jesus miraculously healed the man's ear and said, no, do you not understand. I could send angels to come down and fight this battle for me if I wanted to. He was saying, Peter, this is not your battle to fight. The battle is the lord's. So if the angels are God's messengers and they are his fighters, who are we? But hus have

made it clear we are God's children. We are God's children. Now don't take that lightly, because a child has tremendous influence in the life of their family. If we are God's children, how much more will he answer our prayers when we are in battle. The Bible tells us that we serve a good father who will not withhold good things from his children. And just that conversation and that revelation really just fired me up and was like, I need to pray even more because I am a child

of God. And when I pray, it releases God to fight on my behalf, and I know that he will because I am his child. So I want to encourage you today, as you are facing your battles, to pray for God's will, pray for his desired outcome and that your heart will be aligned with his, and then trust that whatever that is, it will be for your good and God's glory. I want you to pray for God's protection and his peace as you endure as you wait for him. Then I want you to pray for God's

strength to wait. Isaiah forty tells us that those who wait on the Lord will be strengthened, not those who get ahead of him and try to fight the battle without him, but those who wait will be strengthened. Dear Heavenly Father, I just pray for all of my listeners today that might be facing battles that seem overwhelming and daunting and they don't know what to do. Lord, I pray you will help us to resist the urge to fight in our own strength God and our own understanding,

and to truly trust you God. Trust you to take our worries to you. Trust you to take our cares to you. Trust you to let you fight for us, show us what next steps to take, and let us take them boldly, God, knowing that you will give us your victory and Jesus Christ name I pray Amen. It is my hope that today's episode has provided you with

insightful and helpful tips on how you can pray. As a gift to you, be sure to download my free five day Prayer guide and take my Prayer Personality quiz to learn how you best hear and connect with God. Find all links in today's show notes. We have so much more to talk about when it comes to prayer, so I hope that if you were encouraged by today's episode, you will share it with the friend and subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes of the Teach Us

to Pray Podcast where we will continue to learn. I'll just like breathing, prayer can become a natural, consistent, and life giving part of our everyday lives. Until then, be sure to connect with me at Belovedwomen dot org and join me on the Beloved Women App for unlimited videos to grow your faith, learn God's word, and encourage your soul. The app. The Beloved Woman App is available now in the Apple and Google play stores or at Belovewomen dot tv.

Thank you so much for taking time to listen today. God bless you, and I'll talk to you in the next episode. Teach Us to Pray is a production of Life Audio and Salem Media. If you like what you heard today, please take a second to rate and review this podcast in your favorite podcast staff so that more listeners like you can find the show. For more faith filled inspirational podcasts, visit us at lifaudio dot com.