Hindered Prayers

How effective are your prayers? 

Are there certain things that harm the prayers we pray? All of us want prayers to be answered. Why else would we pray? God always answers. We just get troubled when His answer is contrary to our request. His answer is sometimes no. One of my favorite scriptures is, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14, 15).

God definitely answers prayers. The key here is “according to His will.” That’s when He hears and answers in the affirmative. The Bible says your prayers can be hindered by several things. So what are these prayer blockers?

The first prayer blocker is unforgiveness. When we harbor resentment, offense, bitterness, or anger toward another person it blocks our prayers. This isn’t my opinion. Jesus says in Mark 11:25, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Did you catch the “forgive…so that you may be forgiven” phrase? Christians have been forgiven much by God, so why do we withhold forgiveness from others?

Another prayer blocker is unconfessed sin.  Asking God to move on our behalf when we knowingly continue in sin leads to our prayers going unanswered. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Doing bad things never earns us good things. Sin is a barrier that always separates us from God. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  He immediately forgives, yet we are hesitant to ask. You can’t love sin and expect answered prayers at the same time.

Prayer blocker number three is selfishness. James 4:3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Sometimes we don’t get our prayers answered because our motives are impure and wrong. God answers prayers according to His will and desires. If it isn’t His will (or goes against His will) we can be sure they won’t get answered. Now, it isn’t wrong to pray for yourself. You can be unselfish in personal prayers. Jesus prayed, “Not my will but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

Another prayer blocker is ignoring Scripture. Knowing what to do and not doing it is sin (James 4:17). Proverbs 28:9 says, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.” How can we call Him Lord if we don’t do what He says (Luke 6:36)? How can we pray something contrary to Scripture and expect God to answer it favorably? I’ve found one of the best ways to get my prayers answered is to pray the Scripture itself. “For the word of the LORD is right and true. He is faithful in all he does” (Psalm 33:4.)

Husbands, listen up. 1 Peter 3:7 says our prayers are answered according to how we treat our wife. If we dishonor her and fail to treat her with great worth as an heir (partner) in this life, our prayers will be hindered. If we want our prayers to be answered, we must be a godly husband and love her as Christ loves the Church (Ephesians 5:25).

I believe this principle applies to the wife as well. It’s foolish for us to pray for our marriage to improve when our actions toward each other are absurd. Psalm 37:4 is true. When we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart. We really do need the Lord to “teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).