It’s 11:30 at night and God asked me to pray with one of my friends on the squad before the day was over, so I go to her room to pray, but it’s a fight to even get the words out. My voice is gone all of a sudden and my brain has gone blank and I’m like a car that can’t start. I get a few words out and then nothing.
Over and over again, I push out fragmented requests to the Lord and at this point, I feel vulnerable and inadequate and I’m pretty sure that I should be receiving prayer instead of praying myself, but I keep pushing. Fragment here, another fragment there until I am able to string some words together in a cracked, hoarse voice to the Lord. After about two or three minutes on the struggle bus, I say “amen” and “good night” and leave the room.
What in the world?
I literally can’t even pray anymore.
***
Earlier this month, my squadmate Ashley wrote this blog about spiritual warfare here in Romania and although I agreed with the blog, at that point, I hadn’t experienced the effects too much (to my knowledge). However, today was very different.
Yesterday, our good friend and squadmate, Kat, left the Race due to her injury and we had a worship and prayer send off for her yesterday morning and that night we had a worship night at the church and both sessions were absolutely incredible.
I went to bed knowing that that type of freedom and encounter would not go unnoticed by the enemy and he would not sit by silently. I was right.
***
I could not sleep through the night and even though I was exhausted, I woke up spiritually alert and was grateful when one of my friends on the squad prayed over us. Despite my alertness and her prayer, I still didn’t want to go to Worship and Intercessory Prayer for the first time and considered taking a long time so that I would get left behind, but my spirit prodded me to go.
I went to prayer and I didn’t want to lead worship. Then after worship, I didn’t want to do anything except sleep, but as I laid down to sleep, I could not sleep. And so I began to pray. I began to pray for the Spirit to come and fill my soul, I prayed for the Spirit to change my attitude, I prayed for the Spirit to give me joy because I could not find any and over the next hour and a half, I could feel my spirit rising and my outlook shifting.
But within an hour, I was praying the same prayer again. I was asking for more joy and more patience and a better perspective. I did not have anything nice to say, so I was silent during ministry and when I got home to the mission house, I found myself getting agitated at the smallest things. So off I went to read and to pray again.
This happened a few more times throughout the night as I found myself overly annoyed at squadmates watching a show in our room, when I couldn’t connect to the Internet, when the flies kept swarming around the cabinet, when I had to get my computer for team time. Over and over again, I would have to go off and pray.
Everytime I would be dumbfounded at my agitation, fully aware that none of it was a big deal and my bad attitude was unwarranted, but for some reason I was unwilling to label any of them spiritual warfare until I got to the end of the night when I could barely pray anymore.
***
The ugly truth is that Satan hates us and he especially hates when we press into prayer and worship because in them we become more like Christ and he hates Christ. In worship, our hearts are humbled, our minds are renewed, and seeds of freedom are planted and Satan will try to snatch as many of those seeds as possible.
I am aware of this, yet I found myself amazed at how persistent the enemy was in his attacks today to the point where I wanted to stop mid-prayer and call it a day.
But along the way, I stopped caring about how I sounded and I stopped caring about how inadequate and frustrated I was in that moment and I just kept praying and that’s what we have to do.
Ephesians 6:13 says when you’ve done everything you can do, then stand.
Stand and pray. (Another World Racer, Brian Corder, says it well in his blog, I Will Fight.)
***
We are weak. We are broken. We are needy. But even when our flesh may fail, our God never will and so we must keep pressing. I guess there’s a reason that Paul says to pray without ceasing 🙂
Please pray for my squad as we enter Month 11 and continue to push back the darkness.
Do not diminish the power of prayer. Prayer really does change things.
