Prayer for Hard Times — Insights from God’s Word
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will give us later. – Romans 8:18 (NLT)
Prayer for Hard Times – Prayer through Pain
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I sit here this morning with a heart that is breaking, knowing that many of your people are in pain and are struggling this day. I know I am not alone in my own personal struggles. I am finding a very real center of your peace falling around me, and I pray that same peace for my struggling brothers and sisters.. I know that pain and struggle are a part of this fallen world in which we live. I know that until the day of Your return there will continue to be pain. But I also know that in the midst of that pain and suffering, I see the extended hands of my Savior reaching our from His heavenly dwelling place, calling to me, and to all who struggle.
You have such bright piercing eyes and Your compassionate heart for our struggles beats loudly. You are reminding me that everywhere all around me there is evidence of Your Presence — and in that I can take hope. To be aware of Your presence at this moment is so important in my life. To know that in all things, I can turn to You, and trust You for whatever the circumstances that face me.
You are faithful to those who call You by name and You are gentle and compassionate. Your Word is filled to the brim with hope, and Your great Kingdom that is to come, a shining light on the horizon, that helps me focus on You and Your needs — instead of my own.
My prayer is for anyone who is at this very moment struggling with things beyond their own control. My prayer is a cry to my King asking for His arms of protection to fall on each one of them. Whatever their struggle this day, Lord, I pray You will reveal Your purposes in that struggle, and I ask You to comfort and sustain the weak ones who are the most susceptible to the snares of Satan — especially at such a time as this.
I acknowledge in this moment that many times we do not understand the path upon which we walk. Many times we only have enough energy to fall to our knees and acknowledge our weakness. Yet through it all You are with us — through it all You gently whisper Your truths into our ears. How grateful I am — especially in this time of struggle — that You are who You say You are, and You do what You say You do. How blessed I am to serve a God who cherishes His children and provides for all of their needs!
My greatest desire is to serve You and Your people, and my heart of worship for you sustains me — especially in this season of struggle. There is no better way to live than in Your service. Give us all the wisdom we need to discern the counterfeits that are in place everywhere, and grant us Your loving and compassionate heart to all we meet so we can be true witnesses of Your truths.
In this moment and at this time — Your truths sustain me. I fall to my knees acknowledging my weakness, and then, seeing Your strength, You reach out from above to touch Your hand to mine. May all I do this day bring You honor and glory!
Prayer for Hard Times — Making it Personal
Reflect: As hard as it is to understand, it is in the struggles of our lives that we can find the moments of greatest truth. If our hearts and minds are open to His truths, we can find the solace we need for our distress, the wisdom we need for our understanding ,and the love we need to sustain us. It’s all in God’s Word. I would encourage anyone who is struggling today to reach for the Bible and turn your pain into His wisdom which will sustain you — no matter what your circumstances. This is the best time to seek His Face.
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Compliments of Carolyn Baker
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
– We have all
sinned
and deserve God’s judgment.
God
, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him.
Jesus
, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He
died
for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was
buried
, and
rose from the dead
according to the
Bible
. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your
Savior
, declaring, “
Jesus is Lord
,” you will be saved from
judgment
and spend eternity with God in heaven.
What is your response?
Yes, today I am deciding to follow JesusYes, I am already a follower of JesusI still have questions
www.allaboutreflections.org
“As a child of God, you ought to expect God to answer your prayers. Do you ask God to do something without adjusting your life to what you are praying? If you are praying for revival, how are you preparing for its coming? If you are praying for forgiveness, are you still living with guilt? If you have asked God to provide for your needs, do you remain worried and anxious? Ask God to increase your faith, and then begin living a life that reflects absolute trust in Him.” Henry Blackaby
Dear intercessors,
We all want God to answer our prayers. We believe in the power of prayer, but when it comes down to our own individual lives and our own problems, we often don’t have the faith to believe God will answer. The times we are living in are difficult. We are often trapped by our unbelief and fear, but God is preparing us for the end-time harvest. He wants to enlarge our territory. He wants to bless us with increase, because His nature is to care and bestow divine favor on us.
We are the ones who limit Him because of our lack of trust and our fear of stepping out in faith. The truth is that the things we do for God should be outside of our own ability and should be trusting in His supernatural ability. When we back away from dependence and trust in God, we are not living by faith. He wants us to trust and obey His Word. He wants us to be strong and courageous. We need to be willing to attempt things big enough that unless God’s steps in, we are sure to fail. This is the kind of trust and dependence He is looking for in our life. We need not be shaken. He can break through every obstacle. He is the God of the impossible!
A Prayer for Trusting God in Hard Times
Lord, I thank You that You are the God of the impossible. You can do anything. I want to trust in Your ability and not my own. Teach me to see difficulties in my life from Your perspective. Help me to focus on You and Your power. I want to be like Joshua and Caleb who believed in a good report and focused on You even in hard circumstances (Numbers 14:7-9). My responsibility is to carefully read, trust, and obey Your Word. Today I bring before You this difficulty in my life . Help me not to fear but to trust You in this situation. I declare my faith in Your ability to fulfill Your promises to me. You will fight for me and win the battles in my life. You are mighty, powerful, righteous and true.
SEE ALSO: The Power of a Thankful Heart
I have nothing to fear with You on my side. I will be strong and courageous even in hard times. I will not be terrified or discouraged, for the Lord my God will be with me wherever I go (Joshua 1:9). You will never leave me or forsake me (Joshua 1:5). I do not need to figure everything out. You already know the best plan for my life. I will not try any man-made method to do only what You can do. Show me Your supernatural power. Teach me how to walk by faith and pray breakthrough prayers. I choose to have faith in Your ability to break through every obstacle in my life. Just like Joshua, You will give me the land and every place where my feet step (Joshua 1:3). “Through you we push back our enemies; through your name we trample our foes. I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory over our enemies, you put our adversaries to shame. In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever” (Psalm 44:5-8).
“Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:5-11). In Jesus name, amen.“Faith does the impossible because it lets God undertake for us, and nothing is impossible for God. How great – without qualification or limitation – the power of faith is! If doubt can be banished from the heart and unbelief is made a stranger there, what we ask from God will surely come to pass. Prayer throws faith on God and God on the world. Only God can move mountains, but faith and prayer move God.”
www.crosswalk.com
My heart breaks for those suffering persecution. Would to God I could rescue them all. But they already have a rescuer, a redeemer, who has not abandoned them even though it may appear He has to some who have suffered for so long.
My daughter and her family serve as missionaries in a third world country. I find myself continually surrendering them to God, asking Him to protect them, and to give them (and Mike and me) the grace needed should He call them to give their lives. It’s a hard prayer, a prayer for grace to live and die by.
And that is my prayer for all Christians everywhere. That we would be given the grace to stand – to live for Him even if it’s to kneel before the enemy and be beheaded…then Lord, grant us dying grace. The world is moved by the testimony of the saints as they point to the Savior. May God grant us all grace and peace in the midst of horror, and perseverance in the midst of persecution (and mounting persecutions in our country.) We simply must fix our eyes on Him, the author and finisher of our faith. He calls us to action, and so we do what we can amidst evil and corruption, but we can’t rely on human governments to fix the world. At best they can put a band-aid on it. This battle has been going on since the fall of man. Some are called to be martyrs, but they are not redeemed by their martyrdom, nor are they capable of redeeming others through their heroic act of courage. There is only One who can redeem the world.
Here is the hard truth . . . Jesus came to rescue and redeem EVERYONE! Not just the ones we deem as worth saving.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
Try to wrap your mind around the full essence of truth found in this verse. He bore the sins of the world . . . the WHOLE world. Those people doing all that persecution of Christians around the world, groups like ISIS . . . He died for them. God is grieved by sin; He abhors it. And yet He desires all men to be saved and made it possible through His Son, Jesus Christ. Me, I’m ready to send every last one of them to hell . . . how self-righteous of me! Those politicians that we can’t stand because they’re making a mess of our country . . . we criticize and get angry at them, we ridicule, point fingers and place blame. Yep . . . He died for them.
I just can’t fathom His fathomless grace.
Mark Mosley is a Christian inspirational speaker. He shared a humbling reminder of just how vast His infinite sacrifice for all humanity is.
Jesus bore the sins of the Assyrians, who gloated over the captives they had skinned alive; the sins of SS troops, machine-gunning women and children running from burning synagogues with clothing ablaze.
Jesus bore the sins of child molesters, making sure their victims never have to testify; the sins of the Pharaohs, sacrificing thousands of laborers’ lives, to build themselves deifying tombs.
Jesus was tossed about in these endless storms: enraged fathers beating toddlers to death; pimps seducing runaways into lives of drugs and prostitution; church ladies cannibalizing other church ladies over coffee; Canaanites throwing their children to Moloch, their sun god; impoverished parents in China selling their children into slavery.
Jesus bore the sins of embezzlers; gangsters; bullies; rapists; liars; the indifferent; the sadistic; the self-righteous Bible-believing leaders praying long and loud, while their wives sat in back pews praying that heavy make-up covered their bruises.
It is a scene of unbearable horror and unspeakable madness. He is the accused for us all, bearing the weight of abused children; families destroyed by adultery or apathy; civilizations decaying; wars ravaging victims. Yet, through it all, deep in the terror of hell, He keeps His eyes wide open.
He is not just a bystander caught in the accident; He has come deliberately. He will accept it all, absorbing the full force of this storm of wrath in His body, His mind, His heart, and His soul, until there is nothing left to feel.
Finally, the tumbling will slow a bit; the storm will slacken, and Jesus will lift Himself on His nailed feet to snatch a gasp of air and force His swollen tongue to shout, “It is finished—I’ve come; I’ve seen; I’ve paid for it all.”
I would add to that last line, “And I have borne all this for them.” The mercy that God expended upon mankind at the cross was immeasurable. Christ died for the worst of sinners and loved the most hateful of enemies. What a powerful reminder of God’s enormous love! Christ bore our sin and our punishment so we could bear His righteousness and His reward.
I’m humbled . . . perplexed . . . overwhelmed by His grace and mercy. What an amazing grace.
This coming Sunday, November 5, 2017 is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Won’t you join me in praying for the persecuted church? Here are some helpful prayer points to lead us in praying effectively for them . . . and their persecutors.
lacedwithgrace.com
