Lord Teach Me To Pray: Travailing Prayer
As I was being taught by the Holy Spirit how to pray, many more prayer occasions came my way. There were opportunities to pray for people, with people, about people, and without people. Because of this, a hunger grew inside me to get alone with God and seek His face. He was drawing me into more private times with Him.
Acts 10: 9 says that Peter went on a housetop to pray about the sixth hour. He wanted to be alone and pray. You never know what revelation might come to you when you are in prayer. For Peter, it was a call to bring salvation to the Gentiles. Our secret place of prayer can bring us into a revelation like Peter had, into brokenness like David experienced (Psalm 31: 1-2), into understanding of the end times like John (Revelation 1), or into the working of miracles like Jesus (Mark 1: 35).
One of the ways we can pray when we are alone with the Lord is called “travail.” Now when I started out praying, I did not know what travail was nor even that it was a form of prayer. I think if I would have seen someone doing it before I experienced it myself, I would have wondered if they were sane or not!
But travail is a powerful way to pray and definitely a way to get into the depths of God’s heart for others. Some people call travail the “prayer of compassion.” My first experience with travail was when the Holy Spirit put upon my heart to pray for a woman whose marriage was falling apart. Yielding to the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, I began to feel myself crying out for this lady to be helped. Not only was I feeling her sorrow and pain, but I could identify with her worry, concerns, anger, frustration, hurt, and trouble. In the travail I felt like I literally was this woman. Through prayer I cooperated with the Holy Spirit, trying to help her release all her pain.
I know by the Spirit that this particular lady was struggling emotionally. Part of her wanted to run, part of her wanted to scream, and part of her wanted to yield to the Lord. She needed someone to stand in the gap on her behalf to carry her through to victory. God gave me the burden, and the travail I was experiencing caused me to groan, moan, weep, agonize, plead, twist, turn, roll, sit up, sit down, and keep pressing into prayer until I could feel a release. The prayer reminded me of having a baby. You cannot quit until it is over, yet you get so tired you wish you could!
By the time the travail ended, I was feeling tremendous compassion and sympathy for this woman. Once you enter into travail, it may last seconds, hours, or even days. I was in travail for over an hour when I was praying for this woman. When this private time of travail finished, amazingly she came to my house, knocked on my door, and asked for prayer! It was a miracle before my eyes as I witnessed God put the relationship of this woman and her husband back together.
For a season travail became almost a daily prayer experience for me. Once I prayed for a man who was dying. During the travail I saw a vision of him sinking in quicksand with his hand reaching out, stretching for help. This man was in the hospital and I was praying at home, but the Holy Spirit knew his need and travail was made to pull him out of that sinking sand. To me, my prayer vision meant that God was trying to save this man’s soul by directing me to pray for him.
There was another time our pastors’ daughter was diagnosed with French polio and told she would never walk again. After hearing this negative report, I went home and the Holy Spirit led me to my bedroom to pray and be alone with Him. For several hours I wrestled and travailed in prayer. I even broke blood vessels in my face, hands, and neck because the travail was so intense. I rolled and stretched as though I was wrestling a demon.
No one was in the room as I prayed, yet “something” pushed me against the closet doors and tried to throw me around on the floor. I just persevered in prayer, hearing the words, “Don’t let go until you get your blessing.”
Hours went by and then all of a sudden, the battle ended and I was done with the travail. The next week I heard the good news that the pastors’ daughter was fine and her health was back to normal. No one was with me in that bedroom and no one saw what I went through during that time of travail. But I know God used me to help bring deliverance to that child. Others were praying and others believed, so who knows all that was needed. Only God knew. Praise God she is a healthy wife and mother today, many years later
God Himself taught me travailing prayer, and later I eventually taught others how to yield to the Holy Spirit in prayer as well. After three years of being used this way in travail, God also began to reveal to me that travail is not something we should get into a habit of doing so that it becomes the only way we pray.
Some of my friends went into travail every time they prayed. The Lord began to show me that we must be careful not to turn travail into a method, but rather to keep travail as one way we collaborate with the Holy Spirit when He leads us. Otherwise, travail becomes ineffective as it turns into works and method only.
As we close today, how has the Lord drawn you to times of being alone with Him? Have you also had experiences of travailing prayer? Thank Him for the opportunity to be used to stand in the gap for the needs of others.
Dr. Sharon Predovich
