Thursday

Prayer From a Poverty Spirit

I felt Father saying recently that one reason that some of our prayers aren't answered is because they're asked too early in the process, and thus, they’re not an expression of faith, but an expression of lack of faith.

Sometimes we are facing a journey, an obstacle, and we ask for help overcoming the obstacle BEFORE we start the process of overcoming it. We ask for help overcoming an enemy, a habit, a temptation, a struggle, but we ask before we've started to fight, before we’ve started the struggle (Heb 12:4), which means we don’t need that answer yet.

Sometimes, we feel the need to understand the process BEFORE starting the process; we want help in the warfare BEFORE we’ve engaged in the warfare. In other words, before we need the help.

Sometimes we feel the need to ask in advance because we don’t trust that Father will provide for us IN the process. We ask BEFORE we need because we don’t trust Father to provide IN our need.

Functionally, this is the expression of a poverty spirit: a lack of confidence that Father will be a good father to us; a lack of confidence in our place as favored son or daughter.

If we understand before we start, then the process, the journey, is not a journey of faith, it's a journey of knowledge. And suddenly, verses like Rom 14:23, 1Cor 8:1, and Gen 2:9 come into play:

[Romans 14:23b] "for whatever is not from faith is sin."

[1 Corinthians 8:1b] "Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies."

[Genesis 2:9b] "The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

When we’re asking for God to give us NOW what we don’t yet need, we are not walking in faith, in trust. Or rather, we’re not trusting in him; we’re trusting in what we have, what we know, our own strength. That is a prayer that Father, because of his great love for us, cannot answer.

Having said that, it’s very appropriate to ask NOW for provision once we engage in the battle. I refer to these as time-warp prayers. “I expect to be engaged in this battle soon, Father, and I’m asking, now, that you’ll put into my hand the weapons that I need, when I need them.”

I believe that a good part of the solution to this is to change our trust from trusting the provision, to trusting our Provider. In application, this means more time in prayer knowing Him, and less time asking him for stuff; more time on the couch next to Him, and less time across the desk from him; more time in relational prayer, less time in business prayer.


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