Joyce Meyer - Why Aren't My Prayers Working?

James chapter 1, verse 5 through 8: "If any of you is deficient in wisdom," which I think is probably most of us, "Let Him ask of the giving God who gives to everyone," that includes you, "Liberally," that means way more than enough, "And ungrudgingly," He doesn't resent helping us, he likes to do it, "Without reproach and faultfinding".

Well, I could sit and just look at this scripture for a long time. So when I come to God, even though maybe some of the messes in my life are of my own making, they came through my own lack of wisdom, I got myself in trouble, I didn't listen to God to start with, I didn't follow peace, I can still, even in the midst of that, I can go to God and ask Him to help me and he won't even reproach me, which means shame or blame, and He doesn't find fault with me. He just helps me.

Now, that doesn't mean he doesn't teach me and train me and correct me. But one of the examples that I've used many times is if you have a child that has not done all their chores this week, but they're outside playing and the neighborhood bully gets after them and you hear them screaming for help, you're not gonna go check their list of chores to see if they got all their checkmarks, otherwise just too bad for them.

I mean, if the door's not open you may go through it to get outside to help your kid. Are you hearing me, amen? And that doesn't mean that you won't correct them later about their chores. That doesn't mean that you might not even, you know, tell them they can't go outside for a day or something but you will not refuse to help your children because they are not perfect and don't do everything exactly the way you want them to.

So stop letting the devil steal from you by thinking that you dare not ask God to help you because you have not done everything that you should do. Just own it, amen?

"Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, and doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. For truly, let not such a person imagine he'll receive anything he asks for from the Lord, for being as he is a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), he is unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything he thinks, feels, and decides".

Ow, doubt leaves us midway between believing and not believing. And this says we're not to become people of two minds. And so the Bible talks about the mind of the spirit and the mind of the flesh. And I think we have to learn how to live by the mind of the spirit and that's really like what you sense down in here.

So there are times when I can believe something with my heart but the enemy is gonna use my mind to try to steal my faith. Now, are you with me? So I am not gonna stand here and tell you that I have some nifty message that I can give you a little three-point sermon on how you can never have doubt again. Because, to be honest with you, doubt comes to all of us.