Motivations

I was reminded recently while talking with an intercessor that what motivates us to pray is sometimes more important than what we are praying.

When I first met Faye she was working in a daycare. When she became a believer, she started leading kids to become believers. I had been involved in several varieties of home meetings and prayer ministries and had heard some of the same prayers for years, because some of the prayers were never being answered. Included were many peoples’ requests for their unsaved spouses to get saved.

I don’t remember any of those salvation request prayers being answered. Faye started testifying in meetings about children she was leading to Jesus. She would then lead the children to pray for their family members. Frequently, she would soon be testifying about parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents of the children becoming believers.

I was shocked by the contrast of the answers to the childrens’ prayers for salvations being answered compared to the husbands’ and wives’ prayers seemingly being ignored. When I asked the Spirit about what I was not understanding, I believe that He said that usually the spouse was praying primarily because they were sick of the behavior of the unbeliever, but the children were asking Him to save people because they wanted them to be blessed by being with Jesus forever.