Stop Panicking. Start Praying. Why Prayer Changes Everything

When you're walking through a hard season, when you're struggling with a major problem in your life, are you choosing panic or prayer?

Because the answer to this question can shift everything in your life.

Today we're going to dig into how praying before a prayer is answered, how praying before a miracle happens, and how praying before a victory happens.

It changes everything.

And so that's what we're going to dig in today, and why this is so important.

Why?

Why we have to stop letting ourselves go into panic mode, anxiety and worry, or feeling defeated before we've even called on God to help us through our storms.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically, and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, care for your whole self, and live aligned with what matters most.

Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come to him with thanksgiving, and let us sing psalms of praise to him.

The Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.

So throughout scripture, we're told to give thanks to God.

We're told to praise Him.

And so these are two of the things that we're told to do.

And it's by staying in that state.

Right.

Another Psalm 104 says, well, it ends with, give thanks to him and praise his name.

So we're called to do this.

And when we do, we are opening up that supernatural ability of God to show up in our lives.

And so we're going to dig into a couple examples in the Bible of that today and then just encourage you in when we pray and how we pray, not just in our daily prayers, but when we're going through something, when we're struggling, when an enemy is near, whether that enemy is mental, physical, spiritual.

But we need to, you know, bring the name of Jesus.

We need to step in prayer through that challenge or that battle that we're going through.

Okay, so, you know, what we're really talking about today is are we praising God before the victory?

Because worshiping him, praising him, praying to him and saying that we believe and trust that he's going to answer our prayer, that he's going to, you know, fix our marriage or help us heal, whatever it is, get us healed.

When we praise God during those things during the storms, it is that act of worship is a strategic act of warfare against things that are harming us, right?

Whether, like I said, it's in our bodies, whether it's in our thoughts, or whether it's, you know, in our relationships or something else we're walking through.

So let's see.

So the first thing that I wanted to bring up is.

Let me just find this.

So in Joshua 6, 16, they're basically talking about when Joshua is with his men and he's circling the city.

And so it says the seventh time around, when the priest sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, shout, for the Lord has given you the city.

Now, up to that, they were told to march for six days, and they marched in silence around the city.

But.

But on the seventh day, they gave a shout of praise to the Lord and the walls fall down.

We've all heard this, the scripture story.

So that's the thing is the name of Jesus breaks every chain.

And so actually, we're going to jump in from that one to.

Let me just see where this is at.

This is in Acts 16, but it's when Paul and Silas are in prison, they are chained, their feet are chained in the inner prison cell.

And they start praising the Lord.

And when they do, there is a quake, if you will, in the prison.

And the doors come open, fly open, and all of the chains are released off of all the prisoners, including those two.

They were praying and singing hymns.

And that prayer, even in the midst of being jailed, in the midst of not knowing what was going to happen to their future, them believing God for who he is and trusting and believing in him, allowed the doors to open and the chains to be broken.

So that's another example of, you know, someone in the Bible praying to God through their circumstances.

And so there's three things that are happening here.

Okay?

So the first is when we pray and proclaim that God will make us victorious, right?

What we're going through is not bigger than our God.

So first it's that when we do this, when we praise God before the victory, it shows our faith and trusting God and his promises.

So, one, it's letting him, it's saying, yes, Lord, we know you're all powerful, almighty in that you can fulfill this promise.

You can keep me safe through this storm.

You can bring me to the other side, you can take me out of what I'm stuck in.

The second thing that's happening is when we do this, it shifts.

Shifts our focus.

It shifts our focus from the problem, right?

Or the circumstances that we're in to focusing on God's power and that he is Much greater and bigger and than anything we're walking through, no matter what it is.

And in the fall, I shared a couple episodes.

One of them was a doctor that found out he had stage four brain cancer not so November, a year and a half ago.

And they told him he had four months to live.

But through his prayer and his worship, you know, he already was eating clean.

He changed some of that, of course, as well, but he just doubled down as well on that in four months after his diagnosis.

I'm sorry.

They told him he was going to live for eight months, not more than eight months.

Four months in, he was given the bill of clean scans, and he does not.

He went into remission.

He does not have cancer.

Okay.

But that's the sort of thing is he focused on God's power to heal his body.

And he prayed those prayers over himself and his health.

And then I also shared an episode.

A woman that had written a book about healing and how when we believe God for the healing, that is when healing happens right in our bodies, we can't believe that God could do it or can do it for someone else because that won't heal us.

We have to have the belief that God can and is and will bringing the healing.

Okay?

The third thing is when we praise God and we pray to him, we worship him through these storms, through the trials and tribulations of life, we are releasing God's supernatural power.

In other words, we are a conduit for that.

But when we don't believe, and we're not praying for it and believing him for it and praising him for the victory, we know that's already coming, right?

So we're not just praying to him like, oh, God, fix this.

We're also praying to him.

God, I see you working in my circumstance.

I see you bringing forth the change, the healing, right?

Those taking down my enemy, you know, whatever it is.

And so we're showing him that we trust him and we know he is working for our good, right?

As he's.

As it's moving forward.

So those are three things that are happening.

Okay?

And there's two.

Two other examples.

Let's see.

So David, let's see.

Okay, so David in one instance was with Saul, and basically Saul, a darker bad spirit has come across or against Saul.

And they say, get David.

So he brings his.

I think it's a harp, and sings, which was worship, right?

I mean, I say sing.

He was playing music.

And when he did that, the spirit left and Sal felt better.

But it's that whole thing that God, David knew that worshiping the Lord and that he was right with the Lord brought forth, and it helped the demon or the bad spirit flee.

David was also, let's see, he was near Gath when he was surrounded by his enemies.

And he, you know, just offered praise while surrounded.

And he.

He just, you know, said he trusted God to protect him, that he was not afraid, even though he knew his enemies would try to harm him, that God would protect him.

Right?

He would bring him through it.

And that's just another example of that.

The last example that I wanted to share is.

Let's see, it's in 2 Chronicles 20, 20, 24.

And it is when King Jehoshaphat and his army are going in the wilderness, and there's basically three armies coming against them.

And the king says he sends his singers, worshippers to go to the front of the line, right, and head of his army and praise God's holy name.

So he sends them to worship and sing.

And as they do, these three armies start fighting each other and they basically take each other out.

And so King Jehoiashat's army doesn't even have to fight them, and they're still standing.

Everyone else is wiped out because that singing, that worship turned on God's ability to go and fight the enemies.

And here's.

Here's the thing.

Excuse me.

Do not be afraid.

Don't be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours but God's, right?

So that's talking about what I just explained, but that's the part we have to remember.

Don't be afraid and don't be discouraged through whatever it is you're walking through with.

Are going to walk through some things, friends.

Actually, we're going to walk through a lot of things.

We're going to have seasons that are hard.

We're going to have seasons of loss and grief.

We might have a season of a diagnosis, either us or loved ones.

We might have a season of hardship, whatever that might be, financially.

Maybe it's struggling with depression or anxiety.

Maybe we have people coming against us, right?

Saying things that aren't true about us.

So many things.

It could be spiritual warfare, right?

Demonic attacks against us, but we need to not be afraid.

Don't be discouraged and be reminded of God's power and be reminded that the battle is not ours, friends.

The battle is God's.

But we have to go to him because he doesn't.

He is not going to intercede or act on our behalf until we Say to him, I believe you for this, Lord.

I'm praising you and I'm giving you thanks for, for what you are doing in this circumstance and knowing that you can do it because you are bigger and greater than any struggle or problem that I have set before me.

And so this is such a promising thing.

And we just have to remember that the Lord breaks every chain.

He breaks every problem.

He can heal anything that's happening in our lives where there's division or difficulty or trouble, relationships that are wounded, all of it can be healed when we come to God with it, and we believe him for it.

We can't always know the timing, and sometimes on this side of heaven, we will not know.

It may not even be in the time we expect.

But I promise there will be victory somewhere along the path.

And so today, I just wanted to share this with you because I think it's so important to remember as Christians.

You know, most people are going to church or doing online church service or something, and they might be praying daily or doing devotionals, Bible studies, all good and important spiritual practices.

But we have to remember one thing that's also super important is the way we pray and give thanks and that we do it continuously.

And so we don't want to just say, you know, I guess, small prayers.

We want to pray for the big things.

We want to pray for God to move in miraculous ways in our lives, and we want to believe him for it.

So important.

I also want to share a couple thoughts from the account.

Unfold the scripture that's speaking about this.

The same idea, and it's this.

You treat worship like a mood booster, something you do when you feel like it.

But Jehovah's fat didn't feel like worshiping.

He was terrified.

He was terrified, surrounded by armies, and he worshiped anyways.

And I love this, because worship isn't about your emotions.

It's about God's authority.

And.

And they go on to say, next time fear tries to paralyze you, don't run, don't panic, don't spiral.

Put on a worship song.

Speak praise before you see proof.

Declare his faithfulness while you're still surrounded.

That's when breakthrough comes.

And then the last thing I'll share that they shared is because worship isn't just a song, it's a weapon.

And it's time you used it so good.

And I want to wrap up today's episode giving you two action steps.

So the first one is a new practice I started this year.

So many of us have done prayer Journals before or do them daily.

I. I fill out a prayer journal several times a week.

I've had seasons where I do it every day.

But the honest truth is if I'm doing a Bible study or two or a devotional and a Bible study, I don't always do the prayer journal every day.

But what I've started is I got a new notebook and I have, I guess we'd call it a prayers of protection.

In other words, I've started a smaller notebook and I write in there.

When I come across a good prayer, I put it in here and then I label it.

So I have prayers like, let me see here.

I have prayers to pray over my home.

I have prayers to pray over my family.

I have prayers to pray for protection.

I have prayers like specific prayers like the prayer of Jabez.

Let's see, check my home.

Pray for my home.

Prayer of bold request, Speak life.

Over myself.

I have prayers to give thanks.

Protecting your mind and thoughts.

So I just have these.

This whole book I keep filling in a spiritual warfare, you know, so prayers to protect or to cast out any thing that's trying to come against me.

Prayers of protection.

So in other words, as I find powerful prayers, I put them in here so that they're all in one place.

And then what I do is daily I go through and I pray quite a bit of these over, you know, like I said, my home, my family, whatever it is, pray over the work I'm going to do, right, or the ministry I'm going to do today.

So I'm just finding that I. I just adding this to my morning practice when I'm, you know, being with God.

And so you're not going to do it in a day.

I've been filling it out since the beginning of January.

And so I'm guessing by the end of the year I'll have quite a bit of prayers and I'll probably eventually pare this down to maybe my.

The top ones that I've put together.

Sometimes I do write my own prayers, but if I come across one that's really good for now, I just write it down so I don't have to think about it or try to try to rewrite it for myself.

So that's the first thing I'm going to say to you is the more you have prayers on the ready to pray, right, and to praise and give thanks to the Lord, the more likely you're going to do it.

So I know many of you have heard about prayer rooms before or a prayer corner or a Prayer desk or a prayer chair, prayer binder.

So however you want to do it.

But a place that you write down and note you know, what you're praying for, who you're praying for, you know, all those things.

It's so helpful.

And even if you haven't had the time to do it again, even something short, a few days or minutes a day is, can be very powerful.

The other thing is on my website you can grab a workbook called Joy Rising, but it's basically a daily gratitude, noticing joy in your life and then noticing how God is present or moving in your life.

So it's, it's like a daily tracker.

The reason this is so important is when you start, you can just print it, you know, for so how many ever you want to do for the week and then just print them as you need more.

You can put it in a binder if you want, or you could do it online.

I think it's a PDF.

But the point of it is the more we get in God's presence, the more we look for God's presence or him at work, the more we realize that he brings forth joy, the more we realize that we are grateful for so many things.

Every little thing that he provides, every little thing that he's created, we start living in a different way.

Our spirit is different, our thoughts are different.

And when we do this, we're going to be more spiritually mature.

To praise God before the victory, to praise God through the battles, to praise God through the struggles, to praise God through the hardship.

And so, you know, once again, all of these disciplines, they are, they're like layers, right?

Of an onion, if you will.

They.

The more you do, the more you fill yourself up with these things, the more you're focused on, as it says in the Bible, what is good, what is kind, you know, all those things.

The more you do that, you're going to get more out, more of that out.

Right, right.

Kind of like if you put junk food in, you're not, your body's not going to work at a optimal, in an optimal way.

Well, it's the same with our spiritual lives.

We want to fill up and we want to stay grounded in who God is, what he's doing, how he's moving.

And then in giving that thanks and praise and you know, and being grateful for all that he's done for us.

And a lot of times if we don't write it down, it's easy to not notice or forget.

So that's it for today.

And like I said, just go over to KristinFitch.com you can go to my workbooks page and grab the Joy Rising workbook.

And I can't wait to share my next episode with you.

We're going to talk about belief because even though I have those episodes in November, I think it's just one of the most important things that as Christians we've got to understand and then actually live out.

And so that is the next episode coming up.

We're going to talk about belief and how do we truly believe God for what he promises and what he says that he is going to do and can do in and through us.

Until next time, have a great week.

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