The Sin of Prayerlessness - Stronghold Exposed

God has brought me through so much. I am so thankful for it all. However, it took a wonderful mentor of mine to pinpoint some very important words that would be used by God to make a huge breakthrough in my life. Dee Brestin is doing a wonderful Bible study on her blog. The post was called, What Turns our Hearts to Stone. 

This is what was said,

What Satan wants to do is cause “attachment disorder” between you and your heavenly Father.
“Attachment disorder” occurs when the person who should have protected you hurts you.

You see, I used to have an amazing amount of faith in prayer. I would pray for things that others would probably play it safe on. I experienced the joy of seeing prayer after prayer answered the way I prayed. It was amazing. I felt super confident in God and in my prayers. I do think we are all to pray but I think that prayer is a spiritual gift as well. It is a helps gift and is very important. 2 Corinthians 1:11a states, "You also must help us by prayer." I think because of that it just comes easier to some. This was what was happening with me.  And it had nothing to do with me only the grace given by God.

Like the gift of teaching, it will be a joy and come easy for the teacher. Serving, will happen with joy and come easy for the one with the gift of service. Prayer as a spiritual gift will come easily and with great joy. A spiritual gift is a grace given to you by the Holy Spirit. Generally it is a great joy to operate in your gifts. It is something that just comes naturally though it can be improved with practice over time as we grow.


With that said, all are called to pray, all are called to preach the gospel to the world, and all are called to serve one another. God uses the body with each individual using their God given grace gifts to help it grow and mature. This is to edify the body of Christ nothing else. It is not something you use for personal gain that you withhold from others. A spiritual gift is to be shared and used to serve others. When we each operate in our gifts we strengthen the body of Christ and keep it healthy. When we don't use our gifts we are not keeping the body healthy. Each one plays an important part. This must be taken seriously. 


We cannot simply state that our part is not needed. We must know that when we fail to operate in our gifting it effects the entire body. It is also operating in disobedience. Often I am tempted to feel that this helps gift of intercession is insignificant. I cannot measure it for results like one would who might be gifted in hospitality and sees immediate joy because they opened their home to someone.

However over time my heart started to shift. I liked being known as the one you wanted praying for you. I started seeing God as the gift giver instead of God alone. I was going after God because of what He did not just because of who He was. This was a painful truth to be confronted with. And it happened when I prayed one of those put your self out there kind of prayers.

When God didn't answer this particular prayer it devastated me. To make matters worse people started gossiping about it. I felt like I stepped out there for God and He let me fall. So because of this satan planted some lies I believed and embraced in my head then in my heart. I formed attachment disorder with God. I thought I could not trust Him. This is where the problem took place.

God has worked so much in my life since then but I still find myself being "safe" because I cannot bear to just let go and trust God fully. He is showing me that I can and this is where healing is taking place. This also is where this need for approval I spoke of earlier took root. 


I am so thankful that He shows us things in our hearts and desires us to be fully His. Our hearts are deceitful and we often do not even know what is in them but God knows. He always knows and He loves us enough to not allow it to stay in our hearts to rot. He will show us as we seek Him and help us work it out. The pain we feel He feels alongside us. He is safe though not controlled by us. He can be trusted fully but His ways are not our ways. We just have to trust who He is and that He knows best.


This has been a very vulnerable post in my struggle with prayer over these past few years. I still pray but it is nothing like it was in the past. I am coming back to that. In obedience I am listening now. I want to stay here. He delights in our prayers. The next couple posts will be a Bible study about prayer. Hope you will enjoy them and grow yourself in prayer.