Forget it! I give up! There is no sense in praying about this anymore. God obviously doesn’t want to answer this one. It’s pretty evident because of His silence. So I’m not going to pray because it’s useless.
Ever felt this way before?
Frustration and hopelessness take over your heart…crowding out the belief you have that God hears and answers your prayers. It is such an overwhelming feeling and all you know is that God isn’t answering so you just throw in the towel.
This is a place where I am sure you have been before when it comes to your prayer life. And it’s not a good place to be. Your faith in God and your belief that He answers prayer is slowing fading away. You want to desperately hold onto the prayer, but there seems no point.
My friends, I am here to encourage you to get out of this mindset. It’s not good and it’s exactly what Satan wants you to do. He wants you to forget about God. He wants you to believe that God doesn’t care. He wants you to to quit and give up. He wants you to lose hope in our God. He wants you to fail.
On page 89 of The Circle Maker, Mark Batterson writes:
The reason many of us give up too soon is that we feel like we have failed if God doesn’t answer our prayer. That isn’t failure. The only way you can fail is if you stop praying.
How many times have your prayers gone unanswered and you have felt like a failure? You might have felt you failed because you didn’t pray hard enough. Or your prayer wasn’t good enough. Or that your prayer wasn’t as important as other prayers God answers. Or you didn’t pray in the right way with the right words. Or maybe even thought you failed because your prayer was a little silly.
When these thoughts begin forming in your mind, you give up. You say forget it. You stop praying.
My friends, I am here to encourage you not to give up. God hears you. God loves you. God cares about your prayer. No prayer is too silly. No prayer has to be prayed a certain way. No prayer is more important than another to God. No prayer you pray is worthless.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing”. This doesn’t mean that every minute of every day you are praying. It means to keep circling, keep going, pray continually by remembering thoughts and promises of God. Speak to Him all throughout your day.
When we continue to pray and not give up, I believe that God surrounds us with songs of 
deliverance (Psalm 32:7). It might not be in the time we think it should be (because our time is not God’s time), but He will deliver us and free us. However, if we give up and stop praying we won’t receive deliverance. We won’t find freedom from the things that weigh us down. We won’t feel those sweet songs that surround us.
I don’t like to fail. I especially don’t like to think I have failed at praying. But like Mark says, “the only way you fail is if you stop praying.”
Keep praying. God hears you.
Journal Questions
- What was the last thing you gave up praying for because your prayer never got answered?
- Read Psalm 34:1-4. How can you continue to praise God if your prayers are not answered?
- As I posted on our Facebook group yesterday (and quoted Mark), we need to praying through the Scriptures. Psalms is one of my favorite books to pray through. Start at the beginning and work your way through all 150 chapters. In your journal write down what speaks to you. Pray through it.