One of the great promises in the Word is that whatever we ask, according to God’s will, it shall be done ( 1 Jn.5:14-15). Knowing God’s will then is essential. Part of our prayer life must  involve not only speaking to God but hearing him as well. There are times we will have a burden on our heart and know that it reflects the heart and purposes of God as revealed in scripture. We should pray. But there are other times when we should ask what the Father wants us to pray about a given situation. As his representatives on the earth, we want to pray as he would pray.  To do so, we may need some more information which will come to us by his Spirit if we ask and listen. There is tremendous value in hearing God and praying according to his specific will about a situation. Let me share an illustration about this principle from Graham Cooke.

“My friend John had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, which had grown from the size of a pea to almost the size of a tennis ball…When I heard about the situation, I drove a hundred miles to see him. That night there was prayer meeting for him at his church. I walked in and slammed in to a wall of unbelief. There were more than 200 people in this prayer meeting, but no unity. Some were binding and casting this thing out, others were cursing it, and some were praying. ‘If it be Your will, do something.’ There was every shade of prayer that one could imagine. ‘Father, what on earth is going on here?’ I asked God. ‘They don’t know what I want to do,’ He answered. “Well,’ I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ ‘I want you to walk around and just find out right now, just in your spirit, just discern those who are waiting and listening, by faith,’ He said.

I walked around the room and found thirty-five people who were just being still. I called John and told him that we needed to have a prayer meeting , with these people, in his house the next evening…The group gathered the next evening and I explained that we needed to do nothing but worship God in order to change the atmosphere in John’s house. ‘We’re going to come to a place where God will tell us what he wants to do for John and his tumor.’ We worshipped for more than two hours that night, starting with thanking God, moving into praising Him, and eventually stepping into a place of ministering to God. ‘Let’s meet again tomorrow night,’ I said.

Again, we met and began worshipping God. After an hour, I stood up and handed everyone a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Find yourself a quiet place in the house or the gardens and so on, and just sit still before the Lord and ask him what he wants to do for John,’ I said, givng everyone half an hour. ‘When you’re learning how to hear the Lord, He doesn’t speak to you in whole sentences but in key words and phrases. Just be still before the Lord and let God breathe on you. Whatever comes into your conscious mind, write it down.

When everyone came back, we went around the room and wrote the key words and phrases on a flip chart. As words were repeated, I put a checkmark beside them. By the end of it, some of them had as many as twenty-five ticks. Taking those oft-repeated words and writing them down again, I asked the intercessors to go back to their quiet place, meditate on the words, and form them into a prayer. An hour later, the group came back together, full of excitement and confidence. They marched in like an army, eyes bright, with faces smiling broadly…we wrote out a prayer and came to an agreement that this is what we would pray. This is very important: there is one thing to pray – and one thing only. What happens with most of us is that we start off praying in our fear and panic and we give God so many choices that the situation overwhelms us. We end up losing heart and quit praying at all. That night at John’s house we prayed the prayer once – just to keep people from exploding – and set another prayer meeting for the next evening” (Graham Cooke, Crafted Prayer. Brilliant Book House, p.49-52).

As Cooke continues the story, the group met and prayed the same prayer with faith throughout the evening. As they prayed, the atmosphere in the home continued to grow in peace and expectation. Faith arose because they knew they were praying God’s specific will for John. Their faith grew and John’s did as well. The day that his surgery was scheduled, he insisted on another CAT scan. The doctors reluctantly allowed it, but no tumor appeared on the screen. Believing that their CAT scan was faulty or that the machine was broken, they sent him across town to another hospital for another scan. It, too, indicated no tumor at all. John was healed.

This account illustrates the power and the need to hear from God about specific circumstances so that we can more precisely pray his will. So why didn’t God just heal John when everyone was crying out for it the first night since he was willing to heal him all along? Because he has appointed his people to release his will on the earth.

Your words have great authority whether you know it or not or whether you want the responsibility or not. God honors your authority for good or for bad. He is not a micromanager. Once he has given you the responsibility he does not keep taking it from you. He leaves it in your hands to release his will or not. He is anxious to run the race and, if he runs, he will win. But he waits on you to fire the starting pistol with your prayers. I believe if we understood our position of authority and influence in the kingdom of God, we would see prayer as a privilege and an adventure in which we get to partner with the Creator of the Universe (our dad) to change history and eternity. We need to see prayer as a pivotal ingredient in moments that have changed history and lives and will continue to do so.

If you believe in the gifts of the Spirit and the full ministry of the Holy Spirit, then you must believe in our capacity as Christians to hear the voice or receive the leading of God. For you that leading may come primarily from the Father, from Jesus, or from the Spirit. It doesn’t matter because each one is God and will give you the same direction and reveal the same heart.

When we start to hear God, we are also responsible for testing the spirits to see if what we are hearing or seeing is from God or another source. John is very clear about our responsibility when he says, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:1-3). To our and detriment and their’s, most believers don’t practice testing enough. Too often we hear a voice or sense a leading and because it feels good we take off on it without questioning its authenticity.

Brad Jersak tells a story in his book ( Canyouhereme?) that is instructive. “On another occasion, a young man came to me voluntarily to test whether he was hearing God accurately. He felt that the Lord was telling him to sleep with his girlfriend. The voice had even used scriptures to justify this direction. He asked me how he could know whether or not this was the voice of God. I felt like arguing with him, but I have learned the hard way how ineffective this is. So, I suggested we test the source directly.

I spoke out, ‘We take up God’s invitation and our authority in Christ to directly test the source of this revelation. If it is the Holy Spirit, we welcome you. If it is another spirit, we summon you to present yourself before the Lord Jesus for testing.’ The young man answered, ‘I see a large dark cloud with lightening crackling around it, and the voice is coming from there.’ In my mind, I thought it might represent the power and the glory of God (/Ezekiel 1) or else the darkness might be our hint. But before I could ask another question, this fellow jumped in his seat. ‘I just heard a voice from behind me say, ‘Nice try,’ and then Jesus stepped up and blew the cloud away, There’s just a little gremlin-looking thing where the cloud was … ‘and who are you?’ we asked. It shrugged in defeat, ‘The spirit of the world.’ This was the messenger who had tried to masquerade as the Lord.”

If Brad had not pursued this testing, the young man could have assumed that the voice was from God. After all, he quoted scripture and appeared as an Old Testament image of God. I’m confident that the young man had invited this spirit by nurturing his fleshly desire to sleep with his girlfriend, otherwise he would have dismissed the voice immediately because it was clearly contrary to God’s word. Even when listening for God’s voice, we must be careful not to simply hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest. When I was involved in campus ministry years ago, it was remarkable how many young men in our college group had received a “word from the Lord” that they were to marry the same girl in our college group – perhaps, because she was the prettiest.

In testing the spirits, we should not be paranoid but should be careful or at least give due diligence in confirming that something is from God. Paul warned the church at Corinth. “And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:14-15). These “disguised ministers of righteousness” can work through flesh and blood as they speak through misguided teachers, counselors, divisive church members, false prophets, or mistaken prophets. They can also masquerade as the voice of God as we hear them in our thoughts or see them in our imaginations.

There are several guidelines for testing spirits. Does the spirit or voice reflect the character of Christ and the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5)? Is it consistent with the Word of God – the whole counsel of God and not just a proof text here or there? Does it draw us to Jesus and point is to holiness and integrity? Does it display love and build us up rather than tearing us down? Does it create peace in our hearts?

One of the best tests is to simply and directly ask Jesus if the word we heard was from him or a source other than God, just as Brad did. We can ask the Spirit to judge the voice by giving us peace in our hearts or by troubling us about it. It is also a great idea to ask a mature believer, who has heard from God for years, if it sounds like God to them. If we are concerned that God might be offended if we question “the voice” or the “prophecy,” remember that he is the one who told us to do so. When we ask, we’re not doubting him or his character, we are simply being careful with our own discernment. It’s a good practice to develop and a good practice to teach young believers.

Some of the newest brain research that has caught my attention lately is simply revealing the reasons behind what God has told us to do for millennia. All of us who have raised children experienced a moment of frustration when we told our kids, “Because I said so!” We uttered that final word when our kids kept asking us why. Sometimes our response was a rebuke to their little rebellious hearts, but that other times we said it because we thought they wouldn’t understand our reasoning, even if we told them. Perhaps, this is a time that God has chosen to reveal some of the “whys” behind his commands. The “why” and the “how” of the brain are calling us away from cultural norms in a culture that has forsaken God and, often, plain old common sense.   Let me share some of Caroline Leaf’s thoughts on our culture of busy-ness. I think it may help us.

In her book, How to Switch on Your Brain, she says, “One of the plagues of modern existence is multitasking, which leads to the further plagues of “hurry sickness” and obsessive time management. The truth about multitasking is that it is a persistent myth. What we really do is shift our attention rapidly from task to task, resulting in two bad things: (1) We don’t devote as much focused attention as we should to a specific activity, task, or piece of information, and (2) we sacrifice the quality of our attention. I call this milkshake-multitasking.

This poor focusing of attention and lack of quality in our thought lives is the complete opposite of how the brain is designed to function and causes a level of brain damage. Every rapid, incomplete, and poor quality shift of thought is like making a milkshake with your brain cells and neurochemicals. This milkshake-multitasking, which is the truth behind multitasking, creates patterns of flightiness and lack of concentration that are unfortunately often erroneously labeled ADD and ADHD and that are too often unnecessarily medicated, adding fuel to the fire. And it’s a rapid downhill slide from there if we don’t get back to our God-design of deep, intellectual attention.

What does deep, focused, intellectual attention look like versus milkshake-multitasking? The answer is modeled in Proverbs 4:20-23. ‘Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune your ears to my voice. Keep my message in plain view at all times. Concentrate! Learn it by heart! Those who discover these words live; really live; body and soul, they are bursting with health. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts’ (The Message).”

Leaf goes on to talk about parts of the brain that decline, which are centers of the brain for health, peace and happiness, if we do spend focused time thinking about deep things – God, life, values, and spend time in prayer as well as healthy introspection. To fail to take bring all thoughts into captivity in Jesus keeps us from achieving the physical, mental, and emotional health for which God has designed us. We are made in God’s image and God is a deep thinker. We need to be as well. When we live on sound bites and spend hours each day scrolling through Facebook or Twitter, we not only become shallow people but unhealthy people – literally.

I remember a line from a book I once read by a Christian author. I don’t remember the book or the author but I remember the line. He said something to the effect that the world does not need more talented people, more gifted people, or more driven people. The world needs deeper people. I agree with him and I believe the same thing can be said of the kingdom of God.

To quote Leaf one more time, she says, “We are told by so-called social media experts that information needs to be in bite-size amounts and in a constant stream of new information before the previous information has even been digested. This is not stimulation; it is bombardment…It is all about balance. Our brain responds with healthy patterns, circuits, and neurochemicals when we think deeply, but not when we skim only the surface of multiple pieces of information…According to the Archives of General Psychiatry, simultaneous exposure to electronic media during the teenage years – such as playing a computer game while watching television – appears to be associated with increased depression and anxiety in young adulthood, especially among men.” She goes on to quote a number of other studies connecting multitasking, fragmented thinking, and a life of sound bites with numerous health and psychiatric issues.

Our Father tells us to be still and know that he is God. Scripture calls us to meditate on his word day and night. He tells us to store up his word up in our hearts (memorize) and to talk about his word when we are on the road. He tells us to choose what we think about and think about godly things on a continual, focused basis. In other words, we need to buck the cultural trend of more is better and believe the biblical injunction that deeper is better. The world says to go faster. God says to go slower. The world says look for more stimulation. God says look for him.

If you, like me, tend to find yourself with less and less quiet time in your life and if you, like me, tend to get hijacked by the busy-ness around us, we need to fight back and we need to keep our children from succumbing to a world of sound bites and information addiction. It goes against out design, our health – both emotional and physical, and against the Word of God. Very often, a believer in Christ must be counter-cultural to be obedient. God has told us for thousands of years what to do to be healthy, peaceful and productive. Now he is showing us why.

Several good models for understanding the nature of emotional and spiritual wounds and their healing are based on the concept of needs and fears. The idea is that, as children, we have legitimate or perceived needs. When those needs go unmet or are perceived to go unmet, then we develop fears around those unmet needs. To protect ourselves, we develop emotional defense mechanisms that we believe will protect us from being hurt again.

For instance, if my need for security went unmet as a child and I experienced uncertainty and chaos in my family, I might develop a high need for control which makes me feel safe because my welfare is never placed in the hands of another. If I was constantly disappointed as a child, I might develop an outlook of hopelessness or cynicism. If I never expect good things to happen, then I won’t be disappointed when good things don’t happen. If I experienced some form of betrayal as a child, then I might develop a mindset of distrust so that I never let anyone get close enough to hurt me or betray me again. Objectively, we can look at these defense mechanisms and see that, ultimately, those mindsets still won’t keep us from being hurt by others but those who maintain them believe that they will.

On top of that, those defense mechanisms keep us from experiencing love, emotional connection, joy, optimism, adventure, and even faith because we typically extend those defense mechanisms even to our relationship with God. The needs/fears model also suggests that we primarily have our needs met by different positions or roles in the family. We primarily derive our identity, protection, and provision from our father or whoever our father figure is. We derive companionship and heart to heart communication from our siblings or close friends. We get our needs met for comfort, nurture, and teaching from our mothers. According to this model these needs and the family positions we look to for meeting our needs correspond to the Godhead. The father role is Father God. The siblings and friends role reflects Jesus and the mother’s role falls to the Holy Spirit.

If our earthly father failed to meet our needs, then we will probably have difficulty connecting to and trusting our heavenly Father. If we failed to connect with siblings or friends or were betrayed by friends, we may have difficulty connecting with or trusting Jesus. If our mother did not meet the needs that we would primarily derive from her, then we may have difficulty in receiving the love, comfort and leading of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think this is a perfect model because no model is perfect, but I think it offers a lot for us to consider.

Somewhere in the process, the wounded believer must discover the wounds that came from unmet needs, forgive those who did not meet their needs or who wounded them, and discover that the Godhead is not subject to the same failings and weaknesses that our biological families and friends are subject to. If these defense mechanisms are not dealt with, they will eventually be maintained or enforced by demons.  Ultimately, the solution for every problem in life is trust in God. If you think about it, underneath just about every story and miracle in scripture, God is calling out for his people to trust him. Faith is not just a belief that God exists, but that he exists and can also be completely trusted. Think about it. God offers protection, provision, companionship, comfort, healing, teaching, nurture, and heart-to-heart communication – even eternal life. He offers to meet every legitimate need that we have when those who are limited by the flesh fail us.

There are many ministry methodologies to help believers receive inner healing through Jesus. After all, he came to heal the brokenhearted. But we can start that process by beginning to pray for the Spirit to birth trust in us for the Father, Son, and Spirit. That is where the real battle is and where most of us need to give some attention. When we trust God to meet our needs, we no longer have to maintain our walls of protection. When they come down, life gets better, relationships are richer, and the sun shines a little brighter each day. Pray about it.

So why would anyone resist the idea the God still operates through his church with signs and wonders? Why would anyone resist the idea that God still intervenes in the lives of men and women with supernatural intervention? Jesus was known for his miracles. The marks of an apostle were miracles. Men like Phillip and Steven (non-apostles) operated in signs and wonders and the early church was fully gifted to do the same. Jesus clearly declared that those who would have faith in him would do what he had been doing and even more. So why do numerous churches and theologians continue to deny that God still works miracles through his church?

I know there are many reasons that these churches resist. First of all, it is the theology that they were taught and a theology that they have never questioned because they had so much respect for the men who taught them. If you never see miracles in your church, then you need to explain that absence in a way that doesn’t suggest that you are lacking faith or that something is missing in your relationship with God. But…once I “explain” why God no longer does miracles, then I quit asking for miracles and, as a result, will never see one. Once my “explanation” becomes the orthodox view of my slice of Christianity then any attempt to question the status quo smacks of heresy and I begin to view any reports of miracles as misguided emotionalism or fakery on the part of those who would manipulate the desperate for power of money. In essence, the primary argument against miracles in churches that reject them is that miracles are no longer needed. They were initially needed to validate Jesus and his followers, but once they had fulfilled their purpose, God took them off the menu. For these churches, the record of the miracles is enough for people to believe.

We could go on for a long time about why many of the faithful resist the notion of miracles and miraculous gifts in the church today, but lets take a different tact and talk about why miracles are actually necessary for the church to fulfill her commission on the earth. Lets talk about why miracles and miraculous gifts are still needed. There are numerous reasons but let me offer three of the most compelling.

First of all, miracles point us to a greater, unseen reality. We live in a material world. Many people are trained to trust only in what they can see and touch. Scripture asks them to believe in fantastic, unseen realities – a glorious, majestic, all-powerful God sitting on a huge white throne in heaven surrounded by seraphs with six wings declaring his holiness day and night while smoke surrounds him. We are asked to believe in great wars in spiritual realms between angels and demons, the dead being raised, and the blind given sight. We are asked to believe in a God who calls all nations to judgment and a great final resurrection of the dead. To those without faith, those visions seem fictional, like scenes from The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

God created faith throughout scripture by miraculous works. The plagues on Egypt and the Red Sea crossing were not just to subdue the Egyptians but also to build faith in the Hebrews who had never known this God. Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, in which fire fell from heaven, called those Israelites who witnessed it back to faith. Many who saw the miracles of Jesus believed. In a material world and culture, something undeniably inexplicable must occur for people to experience a paradigm shift that allows for the possibility of another realm before they will start to consider biblical truth. When we fail to ask God for miracles or explain away miracles, we deny people a glimpse into a supernatural, spiritual realm that might open them up to believe.

Secondly, miracles reveal the nature and heart of God. Bill Johnson puts it this way. “A primary purpose of the miracle realm is to reveal the nature of God. The lack of miracles works like a thief, stealing special revelation that is within the grasp of every man, woman, and child. Our debt to mankind is to give them answers for the impossible and a personal encounter with God. And that encounter must include great power” ( Bill Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth, p 119).

One of the great revelations of Jesus was the heart of the Father towards men. Jesus declared that when we have seen him we have seen the Father. The miracles of Jesus delivered people from illness and terrible disabilities, ended demonic torment, fed hungry people, raised the dead returning them to their grieving families, and restored relationships. For people who may only see God as the angry judge of all the earth, a touch of his love and compassion through a miracle is life altering and totally changes their view of God and their perception of his thoughts about them.

Thirdly, miracles continue to validate Jesus as the Son of God and Risen Lord and to validate his church as those who carry his Spirit and message. Those who deny miracles propose that stories of miracles that were reported two thousand years ago is sufficient to create faith in Jesus as Lord and the Bible as true now. If that were the case, everyone who read the bible would surrender their hearts to Jesus. Once the Holy Spirit resides within a person, faith based on two thousand year old stories is not a stretch but coming to faith often needs more than that..it needs an experience with God to create faith that then accepts the rest.

Even churches who deny miracles will talk about feeling the love of God, being overwhelmed by the peace of God,or sensing his leading. How are those experiences not miracles in which God has inserted himself into the natural order of things so that people experience something outside the natural realm? If people came to faith because they experienced God in those ways, what is the difference in people coming to faith because they experienced the love and power of God through healing, deliverance, a prophetic word, answered prayer, or some other kind of miracle?

When people, including believers, experience the power of God in their own lives, something shifts. God either becomes real or more real. Torment leaving in the name of Jesus or cancer disappearing in his name confirms by experience that Jesus does have all authority in heaven and on earth. Faith grows. Expectation increases. The reality of God is established and the church that does those things in his name gets instant credibility in they eyes of those Jesus has touched.

To deny miracles or to be indifferent toward s them robs the church and the world of life-altering glimpses into another reality. It robs the world of a revelation of the nature and heart of God. It robs the world and the church of faith. Saul of Tarsus knew the Torah and the miracles of the Old Testament. He had heard the stories of the miracles of Jesus and of the church he was persecuting. More stories would not have changed him but a personal power encounter (a miracle) with Jesus changed him and history in radical ways. The non-religious need miracles to begin to consider the reality of a spiritual realm and a world beyond this one. The religious need to be knocked off their feet to reconsider who Jesus really is and his heart for broken, imperfect people. Not only do miracles still happen today, but they are needed more than ever. We should not be shy in asking for them or pursuing them because they lead straight to Jesus.

We know that prayer is essential in the Kingdom of God. John Wesley went as far as to say that God does nothing except in response to his people’s prayers. I won’t say that God does nothing without our prayers but I do agree that, perhaps, even the majority of things he wants to do will go undone if we do not ask.

Notice Paul’s emphasis on prayer in his letter to the Ephesian church. As he is closing out his section on the armor of God and spiritual warfare he writes, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should” (Eph.6:18-20),

In just a few verses, Paul requests prayers four times. He instructs them to pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers. He asks them to continually pray for the saints (other believers) and he asks them twice to pray for him that he might declare the gospel fearlessly. Paul must have prayed for “fearlessness” on a daily basis but he thought it necessary to add the prayers of the church to his own as if his own prayers were not enough. We could add dozens of other scriptures in the New Testament that implore us to pray without ceasing because, other than faith, it is the most essential thing we can do.

But I will also say, as essential as prayer is, there are still some mysteries associated with it. If God already knows our thoughts before we ask, then why do we need to ask? If we pray once about an issue with fervency, then why do we need to keep praying since we have already lifted that issue up to God and he knows our heart about it? Why are some prayers answered overnight while others take years?

I’m not certain but I do have some thoughts. In his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul spoke of strongholds of the enemy (2 Cor. 10:4). In Ephesians, Paul warns the church not to give the devil a foothold (Eph.4:27). In the book of Revelation, Jesus referred to Pergamum as a place where Satan had a throne (Rev. 2:13). In his letter to Ephesus, Paul declared that our battles are not “against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph.6:12). In the Book of Daniel, we are shown that powerful angels fight in the spiritual realm against powerful demons who oppose God’s will (see Daniel 10:12-13).

In these verses, it is apparent that there are footholds, strongholds, and varying levels of power and authority in the spiritual realm that push back against the will and purposes of God on earth. It is possible that the greater the power opposing God’s will, as expressed in our prayers, the more intense and prolonged our prayers will need to be to break through the opposition. There are some things that God will do for us, but most things he wants to do with us. He has given us authority as believers to defeat the enemy. Often, he waits on is to express the authority he has given us before he joins in the fight. Since our words carry authority and power is linked to authority, then each prayer may release power in the spiritual realm that assaults enemy strongholds. The greater the stronghold, the more intense and persistent prayer is required. I tend to think of enemy strongholds like ancient castle walls that we are assaulting. Prayers and commands are like catapulted stones that chip away at the walls until fractures appear, then cracks, and then, finally, the wall crumbles and falls and the enemy scatters.

When we minister deliverance to individuals, not every spirit comes out at the first command. Some have been there for decades or have been passed down through generations so that they are firmly entrenched and feel that the person belongs to them. Some spirits have a higher rank than others and some are just nastier than others – especially spirits of witchcraft. However, every time we command the spirit to leave or declare the word of God over the spirit, his position is weakened. Eventually, that spirit must come out but sometimes it may take several hours. We battle with commands issued in the name of Jesus and with the Word of God which is the sword of the Spirit. Since deliverance operates that way, it may be that prayer operates that way as well. Every prayer is not targeting a demonic stronghold, but when it is, more prayer will be needed until enough spiritual power has been injected into the situation that the enemy’s defenses crumble. When we pray for salvations, for nations, for struggling marriages, for financial provision, and even for healing, many times the enemy has established strongholds that must be deconstructed before we see breakthrough.

There is also another possibility to explain the need for prolonged prayer as well. Dutch Sheets in his book, Intercessory Prayer, suggests that prayers are cumulative in heaven and when the spiritual mass or number of our prayers are sufficient, then heaven responds. He says, “Scriptures indicate that our prayers accumulate. There are bowls in heaven in which our prayers are stored. Not one bowl for all of them but ‘bowls.’ We don’t know how many but I think it is very likely that each of us has his own bowl in heaven. I don’t know if it is literal or symbolic. It doesn’t matter. The principle is still the same. God has something in which he stores our prayers for use at the proper time:  And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints (Rom.5:8).  Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake (Revelation 8:3-5). According to these verses, either when he knows it is the right time to do something or when enough prayer has accumulated to get the job done, He releases power. He takes the bowl and mixes it with fire from the altar” (Dutch Sheets, Intercessory Prayer, Regal Books, p. 221-222).

Either way, God is often waiting on us to set things in motion with our prayers. He honors our authority as his sons and daughters and representatives on the earth by waiting for us to ask, declare, command, and pray before he acts.

There are many things going on the spiritual realm that we cannot see or discern. When we are praying according to God’s will, but are not seeing the answer manifest, the reason is not always apparent. Too often, however, I’m sure that we think God is saying “No” so we quit praying. But what if the answer is “yes” and the reason for the delay is that our prayers still need to release more power into the spiritual realm or they simply need to pass a tipping point in heaven so that the fire of God is poured out on the earth. Either way, we have been given a great responsibility for outcomes in the Kingdom that will be fulfilled in prayer as well as by our actions.

Prayer is essential. Persistent prayer is even more essential. In our instant society where we have lost the ability to stay focused for long periods, it is easy to pray a bit and then move on if we don’t quickly see the results. The biblical model is to pray with faith until we die, still expecting God to answer our prayers even though we have left the planet. We are to pray until we see the answer or until God releases us from the prayer. If we knew how essential our prayers are to the outcomes of the Kingdom, I believe we would be more diligent and persistent. One of the great lies of the enemy is that our prayers don’t matter and don’t make a difference. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you have become discouraged, keep praying. If you have laid down a prayer that you thought God had denied, pick it up again. Your prayers matter greatly.