Why Your Prayers Aren’t Working: How to Pray in God’s Power

One night I had a dream.

In the dream, I was made to understand something about working with God that I was unconsciously missing.

For a season there was an individual whom I poured prayer into. The challenges this person was experiencing were tremendously complex and ongoing, and so daily I spent much time supplying scripture and investing encouragement and prayer.

In the dream, I heard that this person was having an operation and the Lord Jesus was the surgeon in the operating room. I was surprised that I hadn’t been called to come and assist the operation and thought that must have been a simple oversight. Surely an operation on this person would not, could not happen without my assistance.

In the dream, I raced into the operating room and took a place around the table with the surgical team. Jesus was standing at the head of the surgery table but did not begin the operation. Instead, He looked at me and said that He wanted me to leave. You can imagine how embarrassing and odd that made me feel because I felt He had been totally depending on my help up to this point. I quickly said okay and that I would wait right outside in the hallway. But Jesus said, “No, you won’t. I want you to leave the hospital. I have another assignment for you, and you are not even to touch this case again in your thought life. I did not assign this person to you. You self-assigned.”

I was shocked. What else could I do after the Lord told me to leave? Absolutely nothing. Of course there was no point in defending myself. In the light of His words, I knew what He said was true. And I also knew what it must have felt like when Jesus put people out of the room before doing a miracle.

Needless to say, I had a conversation with the Lord about the dream when I woke up and many times since then. What did He mean by “self-assigned,” and how had I come to be “self-assigned” to this person’s breakthrough? Was my passion to pray for this person fueled by the Holy Spirit or by myself? Had any mountains in this person’s life been removed by my own might, power, and determination in prayer? Decidedly no. I just kept praying harder. This person’s growing dependency on me and my prayers instead of God was the only fruit of my efforts. However I had come to assign myself as the key for this person’s victory, I sure didn’t want to do it again.

When it comes to working in the Kingdom, there are different ways to serve Him. People serve in a worship team or perhaps children or youth ministry, production, or one of the other teams that function inside a church. These ministries are all vital, as are all the ways that believers serve the Lord both inside and outside of a church service.

Whichever way you minister or serve the Lord will become the most optimal when you work with God and not just for Him. These two verses say it well!

God is faithful (reliable, trustworthy, and therefore ever true to His promise, and He can be depended on); by Him you were called into companionship and participation with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:9 AMPC).

Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you. [Live in Me, and I will live in you.] Just as no branch can bear fruit of itself without abiding in (being vitally united to) the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me (John 15:4 AMPC).

We have been called to bear fruit that represents the life that comes through Jesus Christ. We have also been called to participate with Jesus, not just to work for Him. We get the amazing opportunity to work with Him. There is absolutely no way to do the work of God without doing it with God.

One of the most thrilling and fulfilling ways I have found to work with God is in the ministry of prayer. It’s interesting to see what the Bible says about a man in the church at Colossae who served God in this vital ministry.

Epaphras, a member of your own fellowship and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident that you are following the whole will of God. I can assure you that he prays hard for you and also for the believers in Laodicea and Hierapolis (Colossians 4:12-13 NLT).

Epaphras isn’t the only one God has invited to be a part of a ministry in prayer. Praise the Lord, it’s possible for you, too, to become very skilled in this ministry as well.

The first key in this ministry is that you serve the Lord, not yourself. You work with Him, under His direction and not on your own, like I attempted to do in my dream in the operating theater. I had determined what I wanted the outcome and future of this person to look like and was praying day and night to make it come to pass. Other areas of my life and ministry were not adequately attended to as a result. I felt it was the “price” to be paid, but it certainly wasn’t the price the Lord was asking me to pay. Obedience is better than sacrifice.

Did you notice the way Epaphras’ prayer life is described? “He always prays earnestly” and “he prays hard.”

I have had experience in praying earnestly and hard with my own passion instead of the fervency that comes from the Lord. A person who works with God doesn’t have to supply his own passion. When you’re connected to and draw upon the vine, you receive God’s unfailing will and strong desire regarding the matter that you are praying about. God and His will fuel prayer that is both fervent and earnest.

Let’s continue with the example from my dream in the operating room. Consider the individuals who are members of a surgical team. The surgeon in charge will want people on his team who won’t just come up with their own ideas during a surgery. What if he calls for a certain procedure, instrument, or medicine and an assistant says, “Ah, yeah, I was actually thinking we should do something else. I am feeling like what you’re saying is not the way we should proceed.” No way! The surgeon will insist on having people on his team who carry out his will, his way, and in his time. The surgeon won’t have to beg for it to happen or argue for it to happen. He wants his whole team to work together quickly with his instruction to help the person being operated on.

In the prayer room, when we are working together with God, we’re not trying to be the savior and telling God what to do, but we’re there to carry out His will. God doesn’t need any of our bright ideas for how He should rule; we are here to serve and assist Him.

A good surgical team does exactly what needs to be done, and they are activated by the surgeon’s word. The people who respond to those words save lives. In the same way, there are some massive prayer assignments that God needs to be carried out in this time by people, like Epaphras, who are “one of us”—who serve God and His purposes.

This verse of scripture doesn’t mention Epaphras being the pastor, speaking on the platform, or having a big spiritual title. No. It says, “Epaphras, who is one of you.” He was one of the people in the church family, and this is what Paul says about him. He prayed earnestly for the people of that church that they may stand strong, perfect, and complete in all the will of God.

We want to be so responsive to the Lord that when the Holy Spirit sees you come into the “operating room,” He says, “Oh, good, I’m so glad they’re on this job because whatever I say to do, I know they’re going to do. Whatever I want them to say, I know they’re going to say it.”

Don’t we want to be that person who gives delight to the Holy Spirit by being a skilled co-laborer with God in His purposes? That is what we’re looking at in this particular study in prayer.