The Battlefield of Prayer

Have you ever given much thought to the dynamics of prayer?  On one level, prayer is pretty straight-forward; I petition God, who hearing my request, answers it.   Seems simple enough except that it not all there is to prayer.

Prayer is not done in a vacuum where there is nothing to impact it.  For instance, there is sin, which can cause a break in our communion with God, "Your iniquities have separated you from you God, your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear" (Isa 59:2).

A break in our relationship with others can cause a breakdown in our relationship with God in prayer: "Husbands...be considerate as you live with your wives, and treatt them with respect...so that nothing will hinder your prayers" (1 Pet 3:7).

Our attitude and self-interest can become a clog in the conduit of prayer: "When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives..." (James 4:3).

And, our prayers are not of interest to ourselves and God alone.  The forces of evil are tuned in to those prayers and seek to interrupt the flow of God's blessings to his children.  "...your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.  But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia" (Dan 10:12-13).

Prayer is a battlefield not a consierge service where we simply make a request and someone fills it regardless of the motive or the fitness of the request.  Prayer is not carried out in a sanitized environment, where no  evil can interfere, but rather in the messy theater of war, where spiritual powers battle against our well-being and the foundation of our faith.

"The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective" (James 5:16b), but it is not always simple and straight-foward.  We may have to wait, we may be denied our request, we may have to hunker down in the trenches of prayer as a warrior in fierce battle.  In prayer we do not only come before the Father, we come out of our own defenses and through emeny territority.  Jus' Sayn.