Poverty in Prayer

If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.
(Proverbs 28:9 – ESV)

Did you ever have a problem, a serious problem, and no matter how hard you prayed, God seemed to be turning a deaf ear to you? Perhaps it is because your prayers are not seasoned with soul food; you haven’t been in your Bible lately. However, if you have been in His Word, and your prayers aren’t getting answered with a “yes”, then there is some other thing, and this might not apply to you today. Be on guard about it, though, and be brutally honest with yourself about it. For the seasoned Christian, we most often sin in ways we don’t even realize (Psalm 19:12-14).

If you have been out of His Word, then you cannot hear His voice because your heart is so hard He could be shouting the answer, and you still wouldn’t hear. It isn’t that God is deaf it is that you are. You aren’t answering His call. It is like you have a phone call in to Him, but He was already on the other line trying to call you first. You can’t seem to get through to each other because you are on different lines. He called you first, click over to that line. He is always calling you to read His Word, to study it, to learn it, to do it. He cannot answer your prayer until you answer that call. We must continually be in His Word for that Word to be continually keeping our hearts soft, our eyes open, and our ears ready and able to hear.

If you stay out of His Word, you can’t pray out of your world. You dug yourself into that worldly pit without His Word, and now you must dig yourself out with His Word. Why should God deliver you right now when you failed to plant the seeds of deliverance back then? No, you must plant those seeds for there to be a harvest. How can His Word save you when it isn’t sown in your heart? If you had sown it long ago, but haven’t sown it recently, are your meager tears enough to water the seed and make it active again? Is that what you mean to do, to trust in your own sincerity when the chips are down? The less worth God’s Word has to you the less worth your prayers will have to God.

Friend, you need to work your soil and keep planting the seeds of God’s kingdom in your heart. You cannot do this on your own any old time you feel like it; you must remain diligent. Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty (Proverbs 28:19 – ESV). The reason you are in such spiritual poverty is that you have strayed from the house of God, from the Word of God, from the people of God.

Now true, godly spiritual poverty is where you remain broken and usable before God, where you may be bold because of finding your worth in Christ (Hebrews 4:16), at the same time understanding your utter poverty without Him. This is evidenced by reliance; continued reliance on Him. And this happens by staying in His Word, not straying from His Word (John 8:31-32). You see there is the spiritual poverty where someone has tended another garden, outside the will of God, outside the Word of God, outside the walls of God’s design, and the fruit is ripe to cause destruction in your life (Galatians 6:7-8).

It isn’t about mustering up a mustard seed when you pray. It isn’t about how much faith you have during the prayer; it is about how much faithfulness you have had before it. Not how obedient you have been to earn a prayer reward, no, we aren’t talking about a performance based prayer theology. But have you been spending time with Him in His Word at all, do you know His voice, today? Remember, He values your words as you value His.