Galatians 4:19
19 My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you,
I want to teach yall today about a way of praying that really gets not only God’s attention, but gets answers. Travailing prayer brings breakthrough. So let’s talk about travailing.
What is Travailing in Prayer?
Spiritual Travail is defined as “Intense Intercession given by the Holy Spirit whereby an individual or group is gripped by something that grips God’s Heart. The individual or group labors with Him for an opening to be created so that the new life can come forth.
Daniel travailed.
Daniel 9:3-7
3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
4 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments,
5 we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.
6 Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land.
7 O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.
Nicole and I were talking a week or so ago about travailing and I was talking about the podcasts I’m working on when she said she had never heard anyone teach on travailing. And her dad is a pastor – she’s been in church her whole life. Then I realized I never had either so I decided to do one. Travailing used to be commonplace in the church.
The saints back in my Grandmother’s day and my Mom’s day knew how to get God’s attention. I think today we wonder where the power is, we wonder why the body of Christ is sick and the church seems so powerless, and we wonder why there is no real move of God. I think we may blame pastors or maybe we blame the Lord, but the fact of the matter is we have no one to blame but ourselves. We wonder why kids today are on drugs and getting into trouble, why all the young people are in the clubs and bars and seem so aimless in life. Why they dress so immodestly.
But you know what? We are talking about a generation that’s never seen a true move of God! If all of us who are older who HAVE seen God move travailed for God to move and if you could get them all together and then God showed up, they would choose Him over all that careless living. They are doing those things because they don’t have Jesus, yall. I spent some time in the clubs in my younger days and I can tell you 110% if I had then what I have now in my relationship with the Lord, the clubs would have held NO interest for me! You lose all taste for the world once you know Him.
Everyone is in such a hurry today. Things moved a lot slower before all the modern technology we enjoy now. In pioneer days, it took 10 days to get a letter to someone by Pony Express. Now we send emails and get them in 1 second. I love modern technology and how it saves us so much time, don’t get me wrong, but I think we can get so much done in so little time today that that becomes our focus. Prayer, our communication with the Lord, is not quick and efficient like that. Maintaining any relationship requires time and careful attention. We can’t just email God our requests.
And prayer, if we are not careful to monitor our prayer life, can become just a list of things we want from Him. We meet with God once a day, give Him a quick rundown of our requests and expectations and go on about our day. We’re busy, after all.
But He is GOD, yall! He’s not going to be relegated to being another item on our To Do List and let us think that is enough. Not for long anyway. And what happens is until we show Him the reverence He deserves, until we make HIM our priority as we should, we just won’t get answers. Now answer honestly…where is your prayer life right now? Are your prayers almost always answered? Never answered. Answered a few times a year? Could this be the reason???
I have attended churches where the Spirit of God showed up in the services and people would literally RUN to the altars. People would be kneeling down front, some of them going out under the power of His Spirit, crying out in prayer to the Lord. I have felt His Spirit move so powerfully that a hush fell over thousands of people in a church at once. And when He moved on the whole place to lay money on the altar and there was no one preaching! It looked like a human wave as everyone moved quickly down the aisles and we placed our tithes & offerings on the altar. No person was speaking or preaching or EVEN ON THE PLATFORM when this happened and we were all filled with JOY!!! Like we couldn’t WAIT to put our offerings on the altar because we knew God was in the House that morning and He was about to do something big!! You can’t bring a move of God like that with entertainment. You can’t bring it with even the most anointed preaching – only the Spirit of the Living God can do THAT.
We found out when the service began that the preacher had been back in his office TRAVAILING. You know, 100 years ago in my Grandmother’s day when America really WAS a Christian nation, saints would lay out and pray at the altar like that every service. People would fast, they would REPENT which is almost unheard of Now. Repentance – you know – that thing where you recognize you’re sinning and actually be sorry for it and give it up? Preaching repentance isn’t even socially acceptable any more. How DARE we say to ANYONE that they shouldn’t do whatever they feel like doing??? How DARE we.
We wonder why the youth is getting so bad. They’ve never seen a real move of God, yall – how could they be any other way?
And if you even MENTION fasting today, everyone backs away slowly and disappears from the room – LOLOLOL. No wonder there is so little of God’s Spirit in our services today. We have forsaken humbling ourselves with fasting and prayer. Two of the things Jesus and His disciples did regularly.
You know what, I think the devil held a meeting in hell one day and him and the demons came up with a plan years ago. They needed to stop prayer and get the generations off track. So he worked on Madeline Maureen O’Hara who then dedicated her life to abolishing prayer in schools. And it worked. Oh and she paid quite a price for all her hard work to remove God. We don’t gloat over this, but if you sow destruction and evil that is what you will reap. She was murdered by one of her own staff and the only way they were able to identify her remains was by some metal plate in her artificial hip or something. You won’t see HER when you get to heaven, she was a dedicated atheist to the core and I’m sorry to say as far as we know, she never repented.
The devil orchestrated a scheme to take God out of school so now all the little kids who don’t learn anything about God at home have no chance to learn about Him at school either. Yall, when I was a kid, you could say scriptures in school plays!! I still remember having a speaking part in first grade in the school play. My part was to read
Luke 2:10-11
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
That was actually prophetic, though I wouldn’t realize it until I had been saved. It is now my job to bring good tidings of great joy to all people.
So now we live among a generation of young people without motivation or much in the way of morals, without any reverence of the Lord. And satan is working hard through them to remove all that is of God from our world.
Is all hope lost? Is there any way to affect a generation so disinterested in the things of God? Or family members or spouses sl disinterested in God? You bet there is. As long as there is a God in heaven, there is hope. There IS a way to affect any situation you are facing in fact. It’s called Travailing in Prayer.
What is travailing?
To travail means to cry out to God at length, usually in intercession for someone or some thing. It basically means striving with intense effort and anguish. In the old days, the Pentecostals called it Praying Through. I don’t know if they still call it that or something else. Travailing is laboring under a heavy burden. It’s the same word used to describe a woman giving birth. And by the way, if you ever dream of giving birth, that means something new is about to be born – like a ministry. I had a birthing dream right before the Lord spoke to me to start the Wings of Prophecy blog that became this ministry.
Gal. 4:19
19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
Dr. Lester Sumrall wrote this in his book, Secrets of Answered Prayer:
Daniel knew God better when he met Him regularly in a special place. Jacob knew God better when he had wrestled with Him all night. You can know God better when you seek Him on a regular basis, after travailing with Him, being with Him long enough, consistently enough, and deeply enough to become one with Him. It is then that you will become the kind of child of God He desires you to be. It is then that your prayers will be answered.
Okay, I want to explain something here. Travailing in prayer is NOT everyday prayer. Travailing is for when the Lord puts a prayer burden on you or when you have a very serious issue to pray about. Travailing is a very fervent way of praying.
Have you ever received a prayer burden from the Lord? It feels very heavy and very sad. If you have received a prayer burden before, that means you are called to Intercession – you are called to intercede for someone by praying – at length. What the Lord wants us to do when we get those burdens is get into prayer for whoever or whatever its about as soon as possible, and then pray and travail until that burden is lifted. When it lifts from us we will suddenly feel lighter, and that means our prayers have been heard and the answer is on its way.
Travailing Over Abortion
Any time you are travailing in prayer, you are, as one writer put it – manifesting the grief of God’s heart over something or someone. I sometimes get burdens to pray over the abortion issue or other sins in our society in America. Abortion is the murder of an unborn child. Or in some places where the barbaric partial birth laws are, it is the murder of a born one.
Any time you pass laws to legalize murder in a country – ANY murder – and the U.S. openly and freely murdered the Native Americans and took their land. So that was innocent blood shed, too. And THEN along came Roe v. Wade in 1973 legalizing the murder of unborn children, America has killed more than 61 MILLION children before they were even born into this world. This year marked 47 years since America began murdering innocent little babies in their mother’s womb.
And by the way, did yall know those little unborn babies FEEL THAT PAIN if the abortion is at 20 weeks or later? They don’t’ THINK they do prior to that based on nerve development & transmission. But when the fetus is 20 weeks, they FEEL their limbs being ripped off. In fact, the State of Utah now requires doctors to administer anesthesia to them in those cases. But I guess none of the 61 MILLION we killed before that got any anesthesia.
Travailing for My Children
In the first year after I was saved, I felt a tremendous burden to intercede intensely for my two grown children to be saved. They were not raised to know the Lord since my husband and I neither one knew Him and you can’t lead people where you’ve never gone yourself.
They were then to the point I was in younger years that whenever my Mom wanted to tell me about Jesus, I would suddenly have to get off the phone – LOLOLOLOL.
So there I was on a job in South Louisiana where I lived for I think two years, and I was beside myself knowing Jesus IS the way, the truth and the life, walking in the greatest joy I had ever experienced! And knowing that only He could save them. I knew nothing about anything except that I was madly in love with Jesus.
During this time period, I lived in Morgan City managing the permit part of a spec shoot called North Turtle Bayou 3D. I wanted to be sure my children would go to heaven, too, so I decided I would start praying at length every night until the Lord saved them. I didn’t know doing that had a name, I just knew only the Lord could fix the problem of them being unsaved.
So during the day I went to my Oil & Gas job. In the evenings I would return to the apartment I had rented, have dinner, and then start preparing for my nightly prayers. I would lock my doors, turn off the ringers for every phone, and put all my work aside. I would turn on my favorite worship music and I started by worshiping and singing to Him, and then I would pace my room, or sometimes the whole apartment, calling on God to save my children.
Somewhere along in these prayers, I decided I might need to offer the Lord something in return. I mean, I was asking Him to save my kids so they will be in heaven with me and that was a BIG thing, right? I didn’t know the Lord or His Word yet, so I did not know that He wanted them saved even more than I did, OR that He would not expect anything in return for saving them. But we are polite down here in the South and I did not want to impose on His good nature, so I started trying to bargain with Him, with absolutely no idea whatsoever what He might accept in return.
So I’m pacing the bedroom this one night and I start bargaining. I’m offering up one thing at a time that I think He might want because I didn’t really know what to offer Him. And I remember it was fairly late in the evening and I was over by my closet and I said I’LL GIVE YOU MY LIFE. And right then, my knees went out from under me like someone had just disconnected them and I slid to the floor. It was fast and it was unexpected, but it was not painful. I remember where I was because 2 seconds later I was on the floor in the open doorway of my bedroom closet.
I said “I take it THAT was what You wanted?” And God’s glory fell on me. HARD.
I tried to pull myself up but it felt like a truck was parked on top of me, yall! God’s glory isn’t painful, but it is a HEAVY thing – I had never felt it before!!
The Bible also calls God’s glory heavy, though I was too new a Christian to know that yet. Let me read you some passages:
2 Chronicles 5:6-14 NKJV
6 Also King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark, were sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude.
7 Then the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the [a]temple, to the Most Holy Place, under the wings of the cherubim.
8 For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles.
9 The poles extended so that the ends of the poles of the ark could be seen from the holy place, in front of the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside. And [b]they are there to this day.
10 Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, [c]when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they had come out of Egypt.
11 And it came to pass when the priests came out of the Most Holy Place (for all the priests who were present had [d]sanctified themselves, without keeping to their divisions),
12 and the Levites who were the singers, all those of Asaph and Heman and Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, stood at the east end of the altar, clothed in white linen, having cymbals, stringed instruments and harps, and with them one hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets—
13 indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying:
“For He is good,
For His mercy endures forever,”
that the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud,
14 so that the priests could not [e]continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
Do yall know WHY the glory cloud filled that House of God and we don’t see it filling OUR Houses of God? Because they were HONORING and REVERENCING God in His house and we don’t do that as we should any more. IF we did, and IF we honored Him with our OBEDIENCE and IF we SHUNNED SIN in His House INSTEAD OF WINKING AT IT AND CONDONING IT like we do today in our churches, we would see the glory cloud come down in OUR houses of worship, too!!
So there I was on the floor almost in my closet and I couldn’t get up! LOL I tried to crawl but it was more like dragging myself across the floor because of the weight of His Glory on me. I managed to drag myself over to the end of my bed and pull myself part the way up so I could finish praying. But I found I could not speak either!!! Now yall KNOW that was a miracle, right? LOLOLOL Me – not able to speak?? All that would come out of me were groaning noises. And I would discover later THAT was in the Bible, too.
Romans 8:26 - Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And vs. 27:
Romans 8:27 - Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
So that night, when I could finally speak – LOL – I told the Lord He could have my life and I would do and be whatever He wanted if He would just save my children. And I committed my heart to complete whatever the work was He had called me to.
I can’t remember for certain but I believe my daughter (now backslidden, but I’m praying HARD for her) was saved out of the blue TWO WEEKS LATER, and if I remember right, my son was saved also out of the blue two weeks after her!
If yall get nothing else from this, REMEMBER THIS – GOD IS ABLE. I don’t care how headstrong they are, or how fast they’re running the other way (like I was – LOL) – HE IS ABLE to get them in the boat! IF you will go before Him every day and pray and intercede on their behalf. Remit their sins for them and ask Him to roll back the stones of unbelief from their hearts! Only HE knows why they don’t believe and who they will listen to.
And THE OTHER THING I WANT YALL TO REMEMBER IS THIS: TRAVAILING BRINGS BREAKTHROUGH ! WHATEVER YOU NEED A BREAKTHROUGH IN, WORSHIP HIM AND THEN GO INTO TRAVAILING PRAYER. IF YOU WILL TRULY TRAVAIL, HE WILL ANSWER !
Okay, I want to give yall kind of a prayer structure to help you get maximum results when you travail.
1. Because praying God’s Word is the most powerful prayer you can pray, start by finding some scriptures in the Word of God that apply to what you’re praying for. Like if I pray today for my grown children, I might use
Acts 16:31 NKJV
31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
And I might pray it something like this. Lord, I thank You for saving my children. Your Word says if I believe on You that me AND my household will be saved! And I claim them in my household.
And I might pray 2 Peter 3:9
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Lord, I know You have been longsuffering towards my children because it is not Your will that ANY should perish, but now I ask You to pour out repentance on my children, Lord and save them! Bring them into the path of Your purposes for their lives. Thank You for Your great mercy on them, Lord.
That is what is referred to as standing on the promises, for you newer Christians. That just means finding something the Word of God states and then claiming it in prayer until you see it manifest. Anything God gave anyone else in the Bible, He can give you as well. He is not a respecter of persons, although your level of obedience and devotion have a LOT to do with what you will and will not receive.
2. After I have my scripture list made, if I was really desperate for help, I would go before the Lord and ask if I should fast. The reason I ask is I learned long ago I am no good at fasting unless He anoints me to. And by the way, you can fast things you like to do, not just food. The purpose of fasting to me is to sacrifice something that I like to the Lord. I’ll tell you something, fasting gets the Lord’s attention. Its not practiced so much any more, but it turns up your spiritual clarity like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t love giving up food, I’m a typical Southern cook. And being from Texas, I really love good Mexican food and I cook it often – things like homemade enchiladas with cream sauce. Chicken fried steak with cream gravy. We like to eat down here in the South. So when I fast, I’m giving up something I love for however many days or weeks or months. And though I don’t enjoy foregoing food, at the end of every fast, I’m a little bit sad its ending because my spiritual clarity is so strong during fasts and because I know fasting pleases the Lord.
So I would find my scripture promises and I would go before the Lord and say Should I fast for this? Or will You anoint me to fast for 10 days for this or I might do a 3 day crisis fast like Esther did. I always know in my spirit when I’m supposed to fast and for how long and I just do it.
3. Before I begin my travailing, I will generally make a decision about when and how often I will travail for whatever I’m praying for. Before I start each day, I will usually worship for awhile. I turn on worship music and sing to the Lord and just love and adore Him. Worship will usher in the Lord’s presence IF ITS REAL WORSHIP. If you are really focused on HIM and not what YOU want.
4. THEN I will begin praying. When I travail, I cry out to God – I don’t care how loud, I don’t care if someone hears me. If I’m travailing then the situation is serious. And I will often start by walking back and forth in my house and travailing, interspersed with praises and worshiping Him. Its pretty hard not to worship Him when His presence fills the room.
5. Its also really interesting to journal each day what you experienced. You will look back on that later and be amazed at how God touched you and how He answered. He is a mighty God and greatly to be praised and He stands by just waiting for us to spend time with Him and ask Him for what we need. Travailing brings BREAKTHROUGH. Prayer journals like this are especially encouraging when the times get dark as they are beginning to be.
6. This probably goes without saying but I don’t like to assume everybody knows. If you have known sin in your life, you need to repent before you start something like this. If you have sins you are having trouble giving up, fast and pray for THOSE FIRST and God will help you get free – He would LOVE to help you get free!
