"For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12
Sometimes there is a deep need for resting in the Lord. Sometimes we need to FIGHT! My prayer tonight is that these words from R.A. Torrey challenge you like they do me to find the balance and to wrestle in prayer until the answer comes. - Todd
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"If we are to pray with power, we must pray with intense earnestness, throwing our whole souls into the prayer. This thought comes out again and again in the Bible. We find it in Romans 15:30: 'Dear brothers and sisters, I urge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to join in my struggle by praying to God for me. Do this because of your love for me, given to you by the Holy Spirit.' The word translated 'join in' means 'to contend, strive, wrestle, or fight'.
We hear a great deal these days about the 'rest of faith'. By this, one usually means that we should take things very calmly in our Christian lives; and when we pray we should simply come into God's presence as little children, quietly and trustfully ask Him for the thing desired, consider it ours, and go away calmly and reckon the thing ours. Now there is truth in that, a great truth; but it is only one side of the truth. The other side of the truth is that there is not only the 'rest of faith' but also the 'fight of faith' and my Bible has more to say about the fight of faith than it does about the rest of faith.
The thought of wrestling or fighting in prayer is not the thought that we have to wrestle with God to make God willing to grant our prayers. No, our wrestling is '...against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.' Ephesians 6:12, against the Devil and all his mighty forces, and there is no place where the Devil so resists us as when we pray. Sometimes when we pray, it seems as if all the forces of hell sweep in between us and God. What should we do? Give up? NO! A thousand times,no! Fight the thing through on your knees, wrestle in your prayer to God, and win.
It is prayer in which we actually wrestle in the power of the Holy Spirit that wins out with God. The word that is the root of the word 'join in'(Rom. 15:30)is from our word agony. In Luke 22:44, this is the very word that is translated 'agony'; '...and being in agony he prayed more earnestly: '...and being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Oh, that we might have more agonizing prayer!
Turn to Colossians 4:12 and you will find the same thought again, put in other words: 'always laboring fervently for you in prayers.' The word translated 'labor' is a very strong word; it means intense toil, or painful labor. Do you know what it means to toil in prayer, to labor with painful toil in prayer? Oh, how easily most of us take our praying, how little heart we put into it, how little it takes out of us, and how little it counts with God!" - R.A. Torrey
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