May 29, 2023 • 18 mins
Why is it such a problem to pray? Is prayer about praying or about relationship building? Do I pray in faith or in doubt?
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(00:01):
Do you know that one of thebiggest problems with prayer is praying? You
heard me. One of the biggestproblems with prayer is praying. I'm Donna.
This is a woman's place, girl, get up, let's talk about
(00:23):
it. Yep. One of thebiggest problems with prayer is praying. There
(01:00):
are so many distractions, so manytime consumers, so many things that get
in the way of our taking timeto pray. All we have our crisis
prayers. You know, there's somethingon the horizon, a challenge, a
loss, a huge need, andwe pray. But once that prayer is
(01:22):
answered, we're back to our regularroutine of thinking about praying, but not
really praying. And when we pray, it's always about us. Oh.
We may acknowledge that God is Godand he's a good God, but we
don't take time to talk with himand to say, Father, just let
(01:53):
me know what you would like.I need to hear from you. I
want to hear from you. Yep. One of the biggest problems with prayer
is praying because I believe even aswe pray, there is some doubt in
(02:13):
the back of our mind about whetheror not God will answer. Is God
listening to me specifically, am Ipraying in his will? Those little nagging
things in the back of our mindas we're praying. Think of the passage
where Peter is in jail and theangel comes and delivers him at midnight and
(02:38):
there's a group of people praying forPeter that he would be freed. Peter
is freed, and he goes tothe door and he knocks where these people
are praying, and young girl answersthe door and she sees that it is
Peter and the people are in theback praying. Can't you imagine the prayer
service that is going on there.Just think of what prayer meetings look like
(03:00):
for you, whatever your culture mightbe your prayer culture. And she goes
to tell them Peter's at the door, and they in the midst of prayer,
going, girl, you crazy.This is the Donnar paraphrase, Girl,
you crazy. We're praying for Peterright now, you're talking about he's
at the door. She goes backto the door and yeah, Peter is
(03:25):
still there, and she goes backto let them know, and they finally
get up and guess what, Peter'sat the door. So when we pray,
I also wonder if we pray indoubt? Do we pray in doubt?
Lord? If it's your will,well, why don't I know?
(03:46):
If it's his will, he revealsto us who he is. He reveals
to us what he's about. Hereveals to us his expectations for us.
Why am I having an issue aboutpraying in God will? If you ask
anything according to his will, hehears us. Delight yourself and the Lord,
(04:08):
and he will give you the desiresof your heart. Yeah. The
problem with prayer is praying on ourpart, taking the time to spend time
in the presence of the Lord,to not just go through the template acts
(04:29):
adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Oh that's a good model for us,
and not for Heaven's sakes, notdoing the model prayer another template that
God left for us, that Jesusleft for us. As we think about
the components of prayer, sometimes it'sjust a prayer of adoration, nothing more
(04:51):
than just telling God how great heis. Maybe a prayer of confession or
contrition. Oh, yes, Lord, I did that. I know it
goes against everything you expected me.I have to agree with you, Father
that what I did was definitely noteven a will, but Thanksgiving. Sometimes
(05:14):
it's just a prayer of thanksgiving,thanking God just for being gracious and giving
and providing and protecting. Let mestircle back to adoration. Adoration is not
thanksgiving because that's synonymous with thanksgiving.Adoration is about telling God how great he
is. And if you run outof words to declare how great God he
(05:38):
is beyond hallelujah, then perhaps youneed to go back to the Bible to
check out who God says he isand to stand in awe of his magnificence.
Then their supplication. Then we petitionnot only for ourselves but for others.
(05:59):
We become intercessors. We must practiceprayer. A prayer is not about
praying, although it is about praying, but prayers about building a relationship with
God. Prayer is building a relationshipwith God. The more you spend time
with Him in prayer, the moreyou understand who He is, the more
(06:27):
you understand his will for us,and the more you will take time to
just be still in his presence andto hear what He has to say.
That's not really where I wanted togo today, but I was going through
some of my writings. I havean Amazon a book I pray today,
(06:51):
prayers for my sisters. I praytoday, and the more like poetry,
the prayers that may seem a littlepoetic instructure. But if you get a
chance, go to Amazon. Ipray today, prayers for my sisters,
Donna M. Williams. And ifyou feel so led, by one for
(07:15):
yourself, by one for your sister, by one for your friend, by
one for your colleague. Because theseprayers came out of my heart for women.
And so as we ponder prayer,as we ponder the predicament, the
problem of praying not only God's part, on our part, the relationship building
(07:46):
two we have in prayer and inthe Word of God, getting to know
Him as he reveals himself through hisword. Yeah, the problem with prayer
is praying. So that's part ofthe reason why I wrote the book,
because I wanted to give some prayerswhere people can begin and then build on
(08:09):
it. So I'm going to readsome. I think two or three of
the prayers that I just pulled atrandom. They aren't named in my folder.
They have numbers. I'm not surewhy. So I just pulled at
random, Lord Foot prayers do youwant me to share today? So here's
(08:30):
one. I pray today for thewoman who is alone, who feels she's
been set adrift in a sea ofpeople, drowning in isolation, days filled
with raw loneliness, nights of frigidemptiness, sees only the emptiness of her
existence. I pray today for womento come alongside, to open the circle
(08:52):
of their arms, to draw herin, to wrap her in love and
laughter, invite her to dance barefootaround an open fire of kindred spirit,
to sing of God's unfailing truth,never forgotten, never forsaken, never alone.
I don't know what part of theworld you may find yourself. I
(09:15):
don't know where you live. Buttoday is Memorial Day here in the United
States and US, a day ofremembrance for those who have given their lives
to protect the freedom of our country. But it can also be a lonely
day for many people. For womenwho are grieving, for women who don't
(09:39):
have a tribe, don't have aposse, For women who are introverts and
really find it hard to get outthere to mix and mingle. For women
who are divorced and family has scattered, For women who are just alone.
And so this prayer is prayer forwomen as the women to come alongside and
(10:03):
to open up their arms and todeclare to this woman, we see you.
Not only do we see you,we invite you in join us.
It's easy enough for just my podcastit's called Girl Get Up. It's easy
enough to say, girl get up. But sometimes that that energy is not
(10:24):
there, that that strength to justtake that step is not there. Sometimes
we need the help of others toget up. So if you are that
one that is surrounded by friends,that is never alone, you're that extrovert
(10:46):
that's always out there, look aroundyou and see if you can spot that
woman who, while longing to bea part of something, is not sure
how to become a part of it. Pay attention to her and welcome her
with open arms. This is anotherof the prayers I pray today because I
(11:15):
can do no less. I cando no more than pray for a broken
world, broken minds, broken hearts. And isn't that the truth when we
look at the world in which wefind ourselves. We live in a broken
world. We were born into abroken world. We've been impacted by the
brokenness of others, and the brokennessof others have broken us and we do
(11:39):
our best to rally, to pressour way forward, to become that which
we desire to be, to stepinto that place that we long to hold.
We have to pray them. Wehave to pray for our selves.
(12:00):
We have to pray for the peoplearound us. We have to pray for
the world in which we live.We're surrounded by brokenness. There are people
who don't look broken, but theirdreams lie broken at their feet, shattered,
the hopes they had broken, theworld they envisioned for themselves broken,
the relationship's broken, family's broken.And so we pray because we can do
(12:26):
no more, We can do noless than pray. We must pray for
the broken world, beginning with ourown brokenness. God is Jehovah Rapha,
the Lord, our healer, andhe can mend our brokenness. Lest the
Lord, oh my soul, andall that is within me. Bless his
(12:50):
holy name. Best the Lord,oh my soul, and forget not all
his benefits, who healeth my soulfrom diseases. Yeah, God is there
to heal our brokenness, no matterwhat the world looks like, no matter
what scars we may have on oursoul. I like to say, celebrate
(13:11):
the scars, because scars are anindication of healing. Yes, it is
a remnant of something that happened tous, but it is no longer painful,
and you should no longer be apainful reminder, but should be a
joyful reminder to celebrate the fact thatwe are healed and to move forward in
(13:31):
that healing. One more prayer foryou. I pray today for faith,
substance of hope, evidence of belief, things unseen but still seen, Faith
in spite of and because I likethat faith in spight up, and because
(13:52):
faith in spite of what's going onaround me, and because God says he
can do exceeding abundantly above all thatwe might even ask or think that we're
thinking translate imagic. And I don'tknow about you, but I have this
imagination and I'm believing God for thegreat and mighty things Jeremiah spoke of.
(14:22):
I know Jeremiah was speaking of thisparticular time to a particular group of people.
But God then is God now,And so I am going to borrow
from Jeremiah. And here God sayto Dinah, call unto me, and
(14:43):
I will answer. You show yougreat and mighty things that you know not
of beyond all that I might askor even imagine, that kind of faith
that gets up in the morning expectingthe best, looking forward to the best,
praying without the doubt, kicking thosethoughts to the curb when I am
(15:09):
in prayer, refusing to be distracted, building that relationship through prayer, moving
forward. So as I grow inthe knowledge of God and who he is.
As I grow in this relationship whereit's not just about what I want,
but it's about God, who isstill able to do that great and
(15:33):
mighty thing, then prayer will becomea welcome retreat into the presence of God.
There will no longer be the problemof praying. I will no longer
(15:54):
be plagued by the fact that Ican't pray like brother X or sister.
Why, Because I'm talking to myfather and we have this communication thing going
on. And so I will pray. I will begin where I am,
and I will pray, and itwill become a part of me every day,
(16:18):
spending time in the presence of myFather, who loves me beyond my
wildest imaginations. So wherever you are, don't beat yourself up about how you
are not praying. Don't beat yourselfup that you're not spending an hour in
prayer. You've already set yourself upfor defeat by declaring I will spend thirty
(16:42):
minutes in prayer when you have justbarely made it to five or ten minutes.
So begin at the beginning the fiveminutes, then be old to the
ten minutes, be old to thetwenty minutes. But begin because you no
longer want praying to be a problemof prayer. I just wanted to talk
(17:04):
about prayer today and to be gratefulthat we have a father who cares,
who knows about what's going on inour lives before we even talk to him
about it, before we even know. But he's waiting to hear call unto
(17:25):
me, and I will answer youshow you great and mighty things thou knowest
not all right. So that's itfor today. I hope that you've been
encouraged to pray, and remember mybook is on Amazon. I pray today
prayers for my sisters. Donna,I am Williams. This is a woman's
(17:47):
place, girl, Get up,and you know a woman's place is in
the will of God until the nexttime. The Lord bless you and keep
you. The Lord make his faceto shine upon you and be gracious unto
you. The Lord left his countenanceupon you and give you peace. This
is my prayer for you and whateverpart of the world you may find yourself,
(18:08):
in the name of Jesus. Amen, Amen and Amen. Until next
time, God bless
Do you know that one of thebiggest problems with prayer is praying? You
heard me. One of the biggestproblems with prayer is praying. I'm Donna.
This is a woman's place, girl, get up, let's talk about
(00:23):
it. Yep. One of thebiggest problems with prayer is praying. There
(01:00):
are so many distractions, so manytime consumers, so many things that get
in the way of our taking timeto pray. All we have our crisis
prayers. You know, there's somethingon the horizon, a challenge, a
loss, a huge need, andwe pray. But once that prayer is
(01:22):
answered, we're back to our regularroutine of thinking about praying, but not
really praying. And when we pray, it's always about us. Oh.
We may acknowledge that God is Godand he's a good God, but we
don't take time to talk with himand to say, Father, just let
(01:53):
me know what you would like.I need to hear from you. I
want to hear from you. Yep. One of the biggest problems with prayer
is praying because I believe even aswe pray, there is some doubt in
(02:13):
the back of our mind about whetheror not God will answer. Is God
listening to me specifically, am Ipraying in his will? Those little nagging
things in the back of our mindas we're praying. Think of the passage
where Peter is in jail and theangel comes and delivers him at midnight and
(02:38):
there's a group of people praying forPeter that he would be freed. Peter
is freed, and he goes tothe door and he knocks where these people
are praying, and young girl answersthe door and she sees that it is
Peter and the people are in theback praying. Can't you imagine the prayer
service that is going on there.Just think of what prayer meetings look like
(03:00):
for you, whatever your culture mightbe your prayer culture. And she goes
to tell them Peter's at the door, and they in the midst of prayer,
going, girl, you crazy.This is the Donnar paraphrase, Girl,
you crazy. We're praying for Peterright now, you're talking about he's
at the door. She goes backto the door and yeah, Peter is
(03:25):
still there, and she goes backto let them know, and they finally
get up and guess what, Peter'sat the door. So when we pray,
I also wonder if we pray indoubt? Do we pray in doubt?
Lord? If it's your will,well, why don't I know?
(03:46):
If it's his will, he revealsto us who he is. He reveals
to us what he's about. Hereveals to us his expectations for us.
Why am I having an issue aboutpraying in God will? If you ask
anything according to his will, hehears us. Delight yourself and the Lord,
(04:08):
and he will give you the desiresof your heart. Yeah. The
problem with prayer is praying on ourpart, taking the time to spend time
in the presence of the Lord,to not just go through the template acts
(04:29):
adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Oh that's a good model for us,
and not for Heaven's sakes, notdoing the model prayer another template that
God left for us, that Jesusleft for us. As we think about
the components of prayer, sometimes it'sjust a prayer of adoration, nothing more
(04:51):
than just telling God how great heis. Maybe a prayer of confession or
contrition. Oh, yes, Lord, I did that. I know it
goes against everything you expected me.I have to agree with you, Father
that what I did was definitely noteven a will, but Thanksgiving. Sometimes
(05:14):
it's just a prayer of thanksgiving,thanking God just for being gracious and giving
and providing and protecting. Let mestircle back to adoration. Adoration is not
thanksgiving because that's synonymous with thanksgiving.Adoration is about telling God how great he
is. And if you run outof words to declare how great God he
(05:38):
is beyond hallelujah, then perhaps youneed to go back to the Bible to
check out who God says he isand to stand in awe of his magnificence.
Then their supplication. Then we petitionnot only for ourselves but for others.
(05:59):
We become intercessors. We must practiceprayer. A prayer is not about
praying, although it is about praying, but prayers about building a relationship with
God. Prayer is building a relationshipwith God. The more you spend time
with Him in prayer, the moreyou understand who He is, the more
(06:27):
you understand his will for us,and the more you will take time to
just be still in his presence andto hear what He has to say.
That's not really where I wanted togo today, but I was going through
some of my writings. I havean Amazon a book I pray today,
(06:51):
prayers for my sisters. I praytoday, and the more like poetry,
the prayers that may seem a littlepoetic instructure. But if you get a
chance, go to Amazon. Ipray today, prayers for my sisters,
Donna M. Williams. And ifyou feel so led, by one for
(07:15):
yourself, by one for your sister, by one for your friend, by
one for your colleague. Because theseprayers came out of my heart for women.
And so as we ponder prayer,as we ponder the predicament, the
problem of praying not only God's part, on our part, the relationship building
(07:46):
two we have in prayer and inthe Word of God, getting to know
Him as he reveals himself through hisword. Yeah, the problem with prayer
is praying. So that's part ofthe reason why I wrote the book,
because I wanted to give some prayerswhere people can begin and then build on
(08:09):
it. So I'm going to readsome. I think two or three of
the prayers that I just pulled atrandom. They aren't named in my folder.
They have numbers. I'm not surewhy. So I just pulled at
random, Lord Foot prayers do youwant me to share today? So here's
(08:30):
one. I pray today for thewoman who is alone, who feels she's
been set adrift in a sea ofpeople, drowning in isolation, days filled
with raw loneliness, nights of frigidemptiness, sees only the emptiness of her
existence. I pray today for womento come alongside, to open the circle
(08:52):
of their arms, to draw herin, to wrap her in love and
laughter, invite her to dance barefootaround an open fire of kindred spirit,
to sing of God's unfailing truth,never forgotten, never forsaken, never alone.
I don't know what part of theworld you may find yourself. I
(09:15):
don't know where you live. Buttoday is Memorial Day here in the United
States and US, a day ofremembrance for those who have given their lives
to protect the freedom of our country. But it can also be a lonely
day for many people. For womenwho are grieving, for women who don't
(09:39):
have a tribe, don't have aposse, For women who are introverts and
really find it hard to get outthere to mix and mingle. For women
who are divorced and family has scattered, For women who are just alone.
And so this prayer is prayer forwomen as the women to come alongside and
(10:03):
to open up their arms and todeclare to this woman, we see you.
Not only do we see you,we invite you in join us.
It's easy enough for just my podcastit's called Girl Get Up. It's easy
enough to say, girl get up. But sometimes that that energy is not
(10:24):
there, that that strength to justtake that step is not there. Sometimes
we need the help of others toget up. So if you are that
one that is surrounded by friends,that is never alone, you're that extrovert
(10:46):
that's always out there, look aroundyou and see if you can spot that
woman who, while longing to bea part of something, is not sure
how to become a part of it. Pay attention to her and welcome her
with open arms. This is anotherof the prayers I pray today because I
(11:15):
can do no less. I cando no more than pray for a broken
world, broken minds, broken hearts. And isn't that the truth when we
look at the world in which wefind ourselves. We live in a broken
world. We were born into abroken world. We've been impacted by the
brokenness of others, and the brokennessof others have broken us and we do
(11:39):
our best to rally, to pressour way forward, to become that which
we desire to be, to stepinto that place that we long to hold.
We have to pray them. Wehave to pray for our selves.
(12:00):
We have to pray for the peoplearound us. We have to pray for
the world in which we live.We're surrounded by brokenness. There are people
who don't look broken, but theirdreams lie broken at their feet, shattered,
the hopes they had broken, theworld they envisioned for themselves broken,
the relationship's broken, family's broken.And so we pray because we can do
(12:26):
no more, We can do noless than pray. We must pray for
the broken world, beginning with ourown brokenness. God is Jehovah Rapha,
the Lord, our healer, andhe can mend our brokenness. Lest the
Lord, oh my soul, andall that is within me. Bless his
(12:50):
holy name. Best the Lord,oh my soul, and forget not all
his benefits, who healeth my soulfrom diseases. Yeah, God is there
to heal our brokenness, no matterwhat the world looks like, no matter
what scars we may have on oursoul. I like to say, celebrate
(13:11):
the scars, because scars are anindication of healing. Yes, it is
a remnant of something that happened tous, but it is no longer painful,
and you should no longer be apainful reminder, but should be a
joyful reminder to celebrate the fact thatwe are healed and to move forward in
(13:31):
that healing. One more prayer foryou. I pray today for faith,
substance of hope, evidence of belief, things unseen but still seen, Faith
in spite of and because I likethat faith in spight up, and because
(13:52):
faith in spite of what's going onaround me, and because God says he
can do exceeding abundantly above all thatwe might even ask or think that we're
thinking translate imagic. And I don'tknow about you, but I have this
imagination and I'm believing God for thegreat and mighty things Jeremiah spoke of.
(14:22):
I know Jeremiah was speaking of thisparticular time to a particular group of people.
But God then is God now,And so I am going to borrow
from Jeremiah. And here God sayto Dinah, call unto me, and
(14:43):
I will answer. You show yougreat and mighty things that you know not
of beyond all that I might askor even imagine, that kind of faith
that gets up in the morning expectingthe best, looking forward to the best,
praying without the doubt, kicking thosethoughts to the curb when I am
(15:09):
in prayer, refusing to be distracted, building that relationship through prayer, moving
forward. So as I grow inthe knowledge of God and who he is.
As I grow in this relationship whereit's not just about what I want,
but it's about God, who isstill able to do that great and
(15:33):
mighty thing, then prayer will becomea welcome retreat into the presence of God.
There will no longer be the problemof praying. I will no longer
(15:54):
be plagued by the fact that Ican't pray like brother X or sister.
Why, Because I'm talking to myfather and we have this communication thing going
on. And so I will pray. I will begin where I am,
and I will pray, and itwill become a part of me every day,
(16:18):
spending time in the presence of myFather, who loves me beyond my
wildest imaginations. So wherever you are, don't beat yourself up about how you
are not praying. Don't beat yourselfup that you're not spending an hour in
prayer. You've already set yourself upfor defeat by declaring I will spend thirty
(16:42):
minutes in prayer when you have justbarely made it to five or ten minutes.
So begin at the beginning the fiveminutes, then be old to the
ten minutes, be old to thetwenty minutes. But begin because you no
longer want praying to be a problemof prayer. I just wanted to talk
(17:04):
about prayer today and to be gratefulthat we have a father who cares,
who knows about what's going on inour lives before we even talk to him
about it, before we even know. But he's waiting to hear call unto
(17:25):
me, and I will answer youshow you great and mighty things thou knowest
not all right. So that's itfor today. I hope that you've been
encouraged to pray, and remember mybook is on Amazon. I pray today
prayers for my sisters. Donna,I am Williams. This is a woman's
(17:47):
place, girl, Get up,and you know a woman's place is in
the will of God until the nexttime. The Lord bless you and keep
you. The Lord make his faceto shine upon you and be gracious unto
you. The Lord left his countenanceupon you and give you peace. This
is my prayer for you and whateverpart of the world you may find yourself,
(18:08):
in the name of Jesus. Amen, Amen and Amen. Until next
time, God bless
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