You Do Not Have Because You Do Not ASK

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. -Isaiah 62:6-7

You do not have, because you do not ask. -James 4:2

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. -Luke 11:9-10

The Lord has been revealing so much truth to me in the area of bold and powerful prayer. A lot of this blog is what the Lord has directly been teaching from watching this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyxZdpL-xeU 

This video focuses on how we do not see God answer prayer because we do not ask Him and do not ask Him enough. I will let you watch the video and hear God's truth through Matt Chandler's voice. This past week the Lord has been allowing me to wake up and see how much spiritual warfare there really is all around me and how many thoughts are lies from the enemy trying to keep me in mediocre trust in and prayer with the Lord. The Lord has been teaching me like crazy about the desires of my heart having being put there for a purpose. It is so easy for us to look at desires of our hearts and convince ourselves that we cannot have those desires for many reasons. Women may have a strong desire for a future husband but convince themselves that they cannot think about and process that desire because they have to guard their hearts. Guarding hearts is important but pushing desires back into the Lord's face is not going to get us anywhere. If we are following the Lord and continually deepening our understanding of surrender, the Lord promises us that our desires will align with His desires. For these women, the strong desire for marriage is how God created them and it is in His plan. He has put that desire on their hearts for a reason and I believe that the Lord is strengthening this desire to prepare them while God is in the processing of blessing them with answers to these desires. The Lord WANTS to bless His children who follow Him. The enemy twists the truth of guarding hearts and deceives them into not trusting the Lord to bless that desire. That is honestly scary to me. This is just a sample situation but this can even relate to those processing future plans of career. Sometimes we can feel a strong pull towards a certain plan and have such a strong desire to follow it but again, we do not trust that God has placed that desire there FOR A REASON. We need to step up and not continually let ourselves pray for things 'if it is in His will.' If we were honest with ourselves, most of the time when we pray those words, 'Lord, I pray for this if it is in Your will,' we are really saying, "Lord, I want You to bless this desire that I feel is from You but I don't want to be disappointed because I'm not REALLY sure if you will come through for me." Can you relate? I sure can. I know many of my prayers have had doubt that the Lord could really answer my desire so I trick my mind into saving myself disappointment by covering my prayer with "if." No wonder the Lord doesn't answer us. The Lord commands us to GIVE HIM NO REST from bold and fully surrendered prayer until He does answer us. We quit asking for answer to prayer way before the time the Lord was going to bless us. We don't allow God to give us answers. When we fall into this type of prayer, we set ourselves up for attack from the enemy. I hear this happen a lot through relationships and friendships that people have. If we do not hear from our friends who are other Christians in the time frame that we are hoping or in the way we were hoping, the enemy uses that to pull believers and the body of Christ apart. The Lord desires to bless relationships between believers, especially those relationships that naturally encourage, challenge and build one another up. The enemy is fully threatened by these relationships and desires to pull them apart so quickly. This is not the Lord's plan. We need to be ready to fight for praying for each other that we would recognize the deceitfulness of the enemy and start praying with power. It is okay to declare desires as the Lord's when they are rooted in and aligned with God's truth. Do not second guess this. The enemy uses second guesses to twists thoughts and create action of not trusting in the desires God has given us. We need to proclaim, "Lord, I believe this is from You and You have purpose in using this to further Your kingdom and build up Your bride. I trust that You will bless this desire and I will not back down from fighting with prayer for it." 

This may seem intense but the Lord blesses those who seek after Him WHOLEHEARTEDLY. Trust that your desires are of God if they line up with His Word and do not stop asking Him. The Lord delights in us knocking on His door continuously!