A Prayer Burden

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, August 24th. Have you ever felt an urgency to immediately stop and pray? If so, you might be experiencing a prayer burden. Today's podcast explains what that is and how you should respond. Nehemiah chapter one, the title of this message, A Prayer Burden.

Let me explain to you what's happening. Nehemiah is in Babylonian captivity, the Persians have taken over, our Xerxes is the king now, and he's a cupbearer there in Babylon. And his brother comes over, some people come over from Jerusalem and tell him that the walls are broken down, the gates are burned, and the people of Judah are in great problems and heartaches and burdens. And so hearing that, he begins in verse four to say, And it came to pass when I heard these things, that I sat down and wept and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, and said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keeps covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments.

Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eye open, and that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night. For the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned before thee, both I and my father's house have sinned. We've dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest, thy servant Moses. Remember I beseech thee the word that thou commandest, thy servant Moses, saying, If you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But if you turn unto me and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out under the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed, by thy great power and by thy strong hand.

O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name, and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer. Now the Bible says many things about bearing burdens, that we are to bear one of us burdens. The scripture says that our burdens come from one of three sources.

Watch this. We become burdened or sense this heaviness in our life. It's an emotional heaviness, a spiritual heaviness, and it comes from one of three sources. Number one, sometimes our burdens are self-inflicted burdens. As a result of our sin, we get under conviction, so we feel the burden of conviction.

Or it may be error in our thinking. Our negative attitude or thinking wrongly about something will put a burden upon us. Sometimes that burden of that heaviness comes as a result of someone else's attitude, their actions or behavior or something they may say to put us under a guilt trip or to put us under some particular heavy burden. Or thirdly, the burden can come from God wanting to get our attention about something. And it's the third aspect that I want to talk about today, and that is a prayer burden. What do I mean by a burden?

I mean a heaviness. I mean an inner sense of weight that is from God, the ultimate purpose of which is to get our attention. So when you say, what is a prayer burden? A prayer burden is a motivation. It is a heaviness, a weightiness that results in a motivation to seek the Lord. A prayer burden is a heaviness that we begin to feel in our spirit that motivates us to seek the Lord. So when we talk about a prayer burden, there are several aspects that I want you to jot down here. And I just want to give you single words for you to jot down, if you will, and then you can hang the rest of it on these particular words and then begin to search your own heart. Many of you said, you know, boy, I just feel terrible about something.

I don't know what in the world it is. And you said, you know, I want to pray. And sometimes our response, listen, if we don't understand what a prayer burden is, don't know how to respond properly, when you get to feeling this, you go to the medicine cabinet and want to take a couple of aspirin or something. That is not what you do when God wants to get your attention. So the first thing I want to discuss here is the nature of a prayer burden.

What in the world is it to begin with? Well, a prayer burden is that inner sense of heaviness that God places upon our spirit when he wants to get our attention about some particular area. It could be something within us, it could be something in behalf of someone else, or it could be, for example, on behalf of our nation. With Nehemiah, God burdened him through the information passed onto him through his brothers from Jerusalem that the walls of the city were broken down, the gates were burned, and God's people were subject to being attacked by their enemies. So therefore, his burden came as a result of the news he received from someone else.

God placed the burden upon Nehemiah for the nation of Judah. A burden to pray, listen, a burden to pray comes when God begins to focus our attention, zero our attention in on a given area of need. But something else about the nature of a burden here. Listen, if God burdens your heart to pray about a particular situation or circumstance, it is because God intends to do something about it. For example, if you become burdened to pray for someone who's lost, God wants to do something in that person's life and he may want to use you.

If he burdens your life about somebody else's financial problem, he wants to involve you in on part of the solution. Now watch this because this is the whole context of prayer right here. Somebody says, where does prayer begin? Prayer always begins with God, and you have to watch this to see what I'm saying. So I want you to get a good view of this, all right?

Now watch. Here is God. When God who knows everything sees your particular need, what does he do? God, so to speak, humanly speaking, looks around to find somebody who is available to receive the burden.

It may be someone who knows you only casually or someone who knows you intimately. So God seeing your need, what does he do? He finds someone over here, he places a burden upon their heart. So they began to have a feeling for you over here with your need. And so God increases the burden, the intensity of that burden.

So here is the person who sees your need. Originally, God saw your need. He sees these available people.

He impresses them to look at your need. They begin to talk to God about your need. So God who saw your need impressed it upon their heart does what?

He burdens their heart. They pray. God answers what?

Their prayer and meets your need. You and I do not know how many times God has answered their prayer as a result of somebody over here praying for us we did not even know about. When you and I get to heaven, we think, well, let us see how many prayers God answered that I prayed. We are going to be awfully humiliated when God says, you prayed? You know, so many other people are involved in our prayer life, we do not even know about it.

But I want you to see that triangle. So where does that put you? If God burdens your heart, why does he involve you over here? He can do it without you.

God who is omniscient can see the need and all he has got to do is answer the need. Why does he involve you? Because God wants to get you and me in on the blessing and he wants to get us involved in other people's lives because he wants us doing what? He wants us involved in each other's life. He wants us loving each other. He wants us doing what?

Encouraging each other. God involves us in on other people's problems, other people's burdens, other people's heartaches, because he wants the body of Christ to be one. And so he allows us to be a part of somebody else's blessing, a part of someone else's solution. That is the nature of a prayer burden. Now the second aspect, the second word here, is the source. For example, where does this burden come from if it is a prayer burden? If it is a prayer burden, it always comes from God. Now it may come as a result of something someone else says, it may come through a message, it may come through something that God simply says to you privately in prayer.

It may come through reading the word. A fellow called me up in the morning about eight o'clock and he said, Charles, he said, uh, I've sort of hesitated to call you because I didn't know how you respond, but I want to tell you something. I said, well, man, just let me have it. He said, well, God told me to call you and tell you to stop everything you're doing and spend your day in prayer. As soon as he said that, it's just like God said, whoo.

That is, that's straight from me. And soon as he said that, I said, all right, I know that immediately I knew that was from God. So when my secretary got here, I called her and canceled everything out and I got in my study and I got on my knees and I spent the day there. And as soon as I got to reading the scripture, every scripture said, dear Charles, I knew that God was trying to say something to me. Now, my burden to pray that day, you said I had a whole day already arranged. Everything was arranged. My first impression when he said that was, and I caught myself, I thought I can't.

Yes, I can. God said, you must. Well, it took several weeks for all that to unfold for God to show me what he was saying. So that prayer burden came from somebody who was a friend through whom God had spoken to say something to me that the Lord must have known that either I was not listening or my arrangements were so fixed that God knew that he had to say something to me in a very unusual way.

And when he said it, I heard it. And a prayer burden is a heaviness that can come immediately. It can come as a growing situation.

Some of them will come both ways. But there have been times when you have felt what I'm talking about and you thought you were sick. You aren't sick and you got down in the dumps.

You don't get down in the dumps, you get down on your knees. And you see, when God puts a heaviness in your heart, he's trying to get your attention either about your life or something else he wants to make you a part of. Number three, and that is the weight of this particular burden. God began to weigh down on Nehemiah's heart. In fact, it became so heavy, he said he wept, sat down, mourned and fasted and prayed certain days. That is, he was so burdened, he couldn't go about his responsibilities.

He just had to sit down and weep before the Lord and cry out to God. Now, some burdens won't come that heavy. Some burdens are going to be so heavy, you've got to stop everything. And here is one of the traps Satan gets us in. Satan tells us, you're so busy, what you're doing is so important, you cannot afford to stop. If God says stop, God means to stop.

He says a good man's life is what? His way is ordered, his steps are ordered by the Lord. His steps and his stops are ordered by the Lord. So it may be that sometimes what you need to do when you feel that heavy burden, get away and spend a few hours alone with the Lord, a few days, whatever it might be.

You say you can't do it, yes you can. And if God says do it, you must do it. Now listen, all burdens don't require three days of prayer. Sometimes it is something God moves into our heart, and as we said in the very beginning, to get our attention.

He wants to say something to us. So when you come home after work, if God's burdened your heart, don't go sit down and eat a big supper and watch television for two hours and then decide you're going to pray a little bit. It won't work. You need to forget the meal, get by yourself and simply ask God, now Lord, what are you saying to me? Let me tell you what's going to happen as soon as you say that. Your mind's going to get to wandering. You're going to get to thinking about a lot of things and nothing's going to happen for a little while and you're going to think, I'm wasting my time. Maybe I just don't feel good.

Maybe that's my imagination. I'll tell you Satan will send every lie out of hell straight to your mind to get you up off your knees. But now listen, let me distinguish between a worry and a prayer burden. A worry, when you're worried about something you've taken upon yourself, then what do you do? You say, oh my goodness, what, now this is the key.

What am I going to do? If it is worry, it's self-centered. Listen, if it is worry, it is self-centered.

If it is a burden from God, it is God-centered. God wants you to focus your attention upon Him, not your circumstances. He doesn't want you even focusing upon the thing that He wants you to be burdened about necessarily. He wants you to get focused upon Him. He's got something in mind. He's got to get your attention.

He's got to get your will before He can do it. Now listen carefully. The reason God burdens us, there are many reasons, but one reason, and maybe this will get some of your attention, one of the reasons He burdens you is in order to keep you from running off the cliff. Here you are, head down in a particular area of your life or circumstance or your vocation or whatever it might be, and you've got everything going, and all of a sudden, things are not right. And God begins to burden your heart, and you feel Him plowing you up and cultivating, and you say, I wonder what the problem is. I've been reading my Bible and praying, and I've been doing what I ought to do. What's the matter? Friend, when you begin to feel that you stop and you say, now Lord, are you trying to say something to me?

And if you give Him half a chance, He will confirm that's what He's doing. So that one of the primary purposes of a prayer burden is not only to get us involved in other people's lives, but sometimes when the burden is given to us, it is to keep us from making a drastic mistake in our life. So what is it? The time involvement is a part of the weight. The magnitude of what God is going to say will determine how heavy and weighty that burden is. The fourth word is length. How long does a burden last?

Well, in essence, it lasts this long. If God puts a burden on your heart for something about you and you feel yourself weighted down, listen, He doesn't weight you down physically. The burden is in the Spirit. Now listen, if you don't deal with it, if you don't deal with it, what's going to happen?

Your stalwart statue is going to begin to bend. You're going to get down in the dumps and down in the mouth because you're failing to deal with something that God says is so very important in your life at this moment that He is willing to purposely and personally indicate in your life by moving into your life through a burden to get your attention to say something personally. People say, God never speaks to me. Yes, He does.

You're not listening. There are different ways that God has to speak, and one of His most beautiful ways is through a burden. Now Nehemiah received the burden of the Lord, and how long did he pray?

He says, certain days he fasted and prayed and waited upon God. Now let me tell you about the length of it. Listen, why is it that some burdens only last a short period of time?

Why is it some last a long period of time? Again, depending upon the magnitude of what God is saying. Secondly, depending upon my response to what God is trying to say to me personally.

So that you see the length of it, there's some things involved. The third reason that the length of it may be prolonged is because God is in the process of getting us ready to hear clearly what He wants to do or we may be putting up some resistance or even another thing is while we're beginning to pray, and remember this, if God has burdened your heart for somebody or some other situation, He is already working in the situation. In other words, God doesn't burden you for someone else and isolates you without working in the other situation. If God burdens you for someone, He's working on them.

If He burdens you to change your circumstance, He's in the process of doing it. One thing people don't understand about this book of Nehemiah is this. Artaxerxes, the king, had already stopped the building of the walls and the gates once before because some evil counsel he received from some of the enemies of Israel. And so here, after a period of being burdened down, fasting and praying, waiting upon the Lord, Nehemiah goes in and watch how God operates now. So he burdens his heart to pray. While he's praying, Nehemiah's getting himself prepared.

And what's happening? God's preparing the king. So one day he walks in to carry out his responsibilities and the king says, Nehemiah, why is your cabinet so sad? Nehemiah said he whispered a quick prayer and said, O king. Then he told him.

You know what happened? The king and the queen agreed. Not only could he go back to Jerusalem, but he gave him all the materials and the protection he needed to get it done. So that after a period of time, God what? Lifted the burden. How did he lift the burden?

He lifted the burden by giving him everything his heart desired through the one man it was most unlikely to come through, through King Artaxerxes. Now what about the personal effect? Think about it. He says a prayer burden here is for God to get our attention, to focus our attention upon him. But what happens when you focus your attention upon the Lord? You begin to see him from a different perspective. Then you begin to see yourself from a different perspective. What happens? All the stuff that's hidden in there begins to come out.

And what happens? When you and I get a burden to pray, one of the first things that happens to us is we have a cleansing process that begins. And so God works on us to cleanse us so we can see what he's saying and hear what he's saying. We cannot, as dirty vessels, hear or understand what God's trying to say. So when the burden comes, you know the cleansing process is coming. One of the reasons we run from the burden is we don't like the cleansing.

I don't like to get plowed up. Sometime when God gets through with me and I look at me and I look like Swiss cheese, I think, brother, there's not much left. Because what does he do? He bores into those areas of our life that ought not to be there or things that he wants to correct in our life. But then when the finished product is there, what has he found? He's found the servants, the servants who are willing to listen to him, clean heart, open to say, Lord, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Lord, what's that you want me to do? Then there's no argument about it. So that the first result is a cleansing process.

Secondly, what's the second natural result? We're going to feel a sense of closeness to him. We're going to feel close to him. If we deny his right to burden us, if you just say, no, I'm not going to deal with that, I want to tell you, you're going to miss the blessing. Now, God could do it all without us, but he chooses to use us by putting the burden upon us to get our attention. As some of you seated right here, out there, you've got a burden, a heaviness in your heart, and you've been trying to shake it off, go to the doctor, do all kind of things. I want to ask you and challenge you to get on your face before God and tell him that you're willing to receive any burden he's willing to give you and you're willing to hang in there until God accomplishes his purpose. And what is the ultimate result of a prayer burden?

I'll tell you. The ultimate result of a prayer burden is that God will use you in some way to be a blessing, maybe known or unknown to that person, maybe in a circumstance that is known or unknown to a group of people, but God will use you personally, literally, powerfully, answering your prayers to motivate and to change. And I'm saying to you that God will use us on each other to change one another. If we are willing to get ourselves in a position to say, Lord, I'm available for the burden, don't spare me the weight and use me to the maximum is my prayer. And my friend, when you get to heaven, you will be absolutely totally amazed at what God did with you because you are available to listen to him. Thank you for listening to A Prayer Burden. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.