PREVENTIVE, NOT CURATIVE PRAYER!

2 Chronicles 33:10-13 TLB

Warnings from the Lord were ignored by both Manasseh and his people. [11] So God sent the Assyrian armies, and they seized him with hooks and bound him with bronze chains and carted him away to Babylon. [12] Then at last he came to his senses and cried out humbly to God for help. [13] And the Lord listened and answered his plea by returning him to Jerusalem and to his kingdom! At that point Manasseh finally realized that the Lord was really God!

 

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says we must pray without ceasing while Luke 18:1 declares that “Man ought to always pray. Prayer is both a toil and travail, a battle and agony as uplifted hands grow tired long before the battle is won.

We must be dependent on God for everything, without Him, we can do nothing; if we always feel that dependence we will always be in the spirit of prayer and those who feel this spirit will, as frequently as possible, be found in the exercise of prayer.

When we pray ceaselessly, we are in effect, sowing into the future a preventive measure to counter whatever the enemy may bring our way.

We take certain medicines and precautions to prevent a medical problem, affliction and possibly death. In the same way, we must take the word of God to prevent the enemy from besting us.

When we pray, we are partnering with the Lord to change, divert, stop, and minimize the effect of a challenge but when we don’t pray, things happen that could either have been averted, changed, or stopped.

Sometimes, like Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, we have to pray for years to see the result of our prayers but imagine if she had not prayed.

Manasseh ignored the Lord and refused to pray but verse 12 says when he got into trouble, he had no option but to pray.

How often do we curatively pray instead of preventively pray?

Why do we wait until affliction is upon us to seek the Lord in prayer?

Prayer is not only to get God to do something for us, but it also includes us receiving strength for the journey, wisdom to act, the direction to go and the ability to overcome but we only get these through preventive not curative prayer.

Imagine the presiding angels shutting the gates and windows of prayer in heaven, lest your curative prayer should be heard.

In the first instance in times of need, almost everyone will pray desperately. Moses stood on the shores of the Red Sea in Exodus 14:15-18, surveying the panicking Israelites when they realized that Pharaoh’s Chariots were thundering down on them, but God’s response to them was “Why are you crying out to me? Who else was Moses meant to cry to? He hadn’t prayed into this; he had no idea of what the Lord was leading them to, but he still acted in faith.

“So I prayed to the God of heaven!” Nehemiah made preventive prayers for the difficult journey and task ahead of him, even before he made any plans.

We face daily challenges without the sublime energy that preventive prayer supplies or the restful confidence it gives.

Like chicken little, we wait until the sky is falling to begin to pray. Why not pray before the sky falls?

Abraham’s servant in Genesis 24:10-20 made a preventive prayer before embarking on the important journey of wife selection for Isaac.

The time we put in prayer, preventive prayer in our closet as Matthew 6:6 prescribes is the prayer that prepares us for battle before it comes, it’s what gives us hope of victory and anchors us so that the storms of affliction do not drown us.

Manasseh could have avoided capture and agony if he’d only prayed. But when we come to the Lord in repentance, the Lord is receptive to our prayer and answers us.

Pray always to prevent and not to cure.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

-        How often do I pray preventively rather than waiting for a crisis?

-        What areas of my life need more preventive prayer right now?

-        How can I cultivate a lifestyle of ceaseless prayer as commanded in Scripture?

PRAYER: Thank you Lord for always waiting to hear my prayer and promising to answer them in Jesus’ name.

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