A Prayer Burden – Radio Classic – Dr. Charles Stanley – How To Talk To God Vol 1 Pt 4

An inner sense of heaviness settles on your shoulders. The weight won’t be shaken off no matter what you do. It’s not despair or depression. It’s not fear. Somehow, whatever this is pulls at your heart and draws you to your knees.

It’s a prayer burden from the Lord. In this message, Dr. Stanley explains what a prayer burden is and what to do with it. God wants us to co-labor with Him to see this world transformed. And we do that by praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

With a message from god’s word, here’s Charles Stanley.
Neale Mount chapter 1.
The title of this message, a prayer bird And most all of us know some things about prayer.
The conditions have answered prayer and persevering in prayer, faith in prayer, The hindrance just answered prayer, but probably the aspect of prayer we know the least about is a prayer burden.
And you can pick up most any book about prayer, and I can just about guarantee you, you will not find the chapter on a prayer burden.
There may be some references in some aspects, but I think it is important.
In fact, I’m sure it is, and I want you to understand what the Bible teaches about.
And I think Nail my prayer here is a good example of that.
Let me explain to you what’s happening. Near uh, Nehemiah is in beveling and captivity.
The Persians have taken over. Our execs is the king now, and he’s a cup bearer. Uh, they’re in beveling.
And his brother comes over.
Some people come over from Jerusalem and tell them that, uh, tell him, rather, that the walls have 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 4 to saying it came to pass when I heard these things that I sat down and wept and and mourned certain days and fasted and prayed before the god of heaven and said.
I beseech the oh lord god of heaven, the great and terrible god, that keeps covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his managements, let thine air now be attentive, and thine eye open and that thou mayst 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 command as thy servant Moses, Remember I beseech thee the word that thou command as thy servant Moses say, if you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations But if you turn into me and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out into the utmost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from whence and will bring them under 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.
Oh lord, I beseech thee let Nel thyear be attended to the prayer by servant.
And to the prayer 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 cup bearer.
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 1 of 3 sources.
Watch this We become burden or since this heaviness in our life.
It’s an emotional heaviness, a spiritual heaviness, and it comes from 1 of 3 sources.
Number 1, 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 heaven is comes As a result of someone else’s attitude, their actions or behavior are 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 3rd aspect that I wanna 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 preverton?
A preburden is a motivation.
It is a heaviness, a weightiness, that results in a motivation to seek the lord.
Our prayer burden is a heaviness that we begin to fill 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 wanna give you single words for you to jot down, if you will, and then you can hang the rest of it, uh, on these particular words.
And then begin to search your own heart.
Many of you said, you know, well, I just feel terrible about something.
I don’t know what in the world is and and you said, you know, I wanna 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 take a couple of aspirins or something.
That is not what you do when god wants to get your attention.
So the first thing I wanna 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 birtened him through the information passed on to 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, 0 our attention in on a given area of need.
And I believe people all over America ought to have a burden and increasing burden for what’s happening in this country and where we are headed.
But that’s only one area of a burden. But something else about the nature of a burden here. Listen.
If god burdens your heart, to pray about a particular situation or thing or circumstance. It is because listen.
It is because god intends to do something about it.
For example, if you become burden to pray for someone who’s lost god wants to do something in that person’s life and they may wanna use you, If he burdens your life about somebody else’s financial problem, he wants to involve you in on part of the solution.
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 see 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, it 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. All prayer has to be in a triangle.
You say, well, now wait a minute. What about the times that I pray that’s just between god and myself?
Right. But my friend, here’s the thing that you’re not on the stand.
You and I do not know how many times god has answered our prayer As a result of somebody over here praying for us, we didn’t even know about.
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’s gotta 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 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 another people’s problems, other people’s burdens, other people’s heartaches because he wants the body of Christ to be 1.
And so he allows us to be a part of somebody else’s blessing, a part of someone else’s solution.
That’s the nature of a pre bird. Now the second aspect, the second word here, is the source.
For example, where does this burden come from if it’s a pre bird?
If it’s a prayer bird, 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 in prayer. It may come through reading the word.
A few weeks ago, a fellow called me up in the morning about 8 o’clock, and he said, Charles, he said, Uh, I I’ve sort of hesitated to call you because they didn’t know how you respond, but I wanna tell you something.
I said, well, man, just let me have it.
He said, well, I hate to tell you this, well, I never know what’s coming, you know.
So he said, 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, that is that’s straight from me.
And soon as he says that said that I said alright. I I know that’s immediately.
I knew that was from god. I cancel everything up.
I got in my study and I got on my knees and I spent the day there.
And as soon as I got the read in 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.
PAC. 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 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, uh, fixed that god knew that some 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 the 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.
God burned my brother’s heart to say something to me because god wanted to say something to me because he wanted to affect some other people’s lives because of what he wanted to say to me.
So you see, God allowed him to be a blessing, not only to me, but to be a blessing to you in ways that I’ll probably share with you a little later.
So the source comes in different ways.
Number three, And that is the weight of him of this particular burden.
God began to weigh down on Nelma’s heart. In fact, it became so heavy.
He said he wept sat down whipped more and faster and prayed certain days. That is he was so burdened.
He couldn’t go about his responsibilities.
He just 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 gonna be so heavy. You’ve gotta stop everything.
And here is one of the traps Satan gets us and Satan tells us, you are so busy.
What you’re doing is so important. You cannot afford to stop What are they gonna think?
What are you gonna do? Suppose you don’t go to work all of these things.
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 bird Getaway, spend a few hours alone with the lord, or 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 3 days of prayer.
Sometimes it is something god moves into our heart 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 burned your heart, don’t go sit on eat a big stuff and watch television for 2 hours and then decide you’re gonna 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 gonna happen as soon as you say that your mind’s gonna get through wandering.
You’re gonna get to think about a lot of things and nothing’s gonna happen for a little while.
You’re gonna 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 every lie out of hell straight to your mind to get you above your knees.
But, 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? And this is the key. What am I gonna do?
And you begin to think about your circumstance and your situation What am I gonna do? What about my finances?
What about my family? All of these things, 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 gotta get you a will before he can do it.
So the, listen, the intensity, the awesome weight of what you’re feeling will be determined by 2 or 3 things.
Number 1, by the magnitude of the thing that god wants to deal with.
Secondly, by the immediacy with which god wants to deal with that thing.
When that fellow called me, he said this morning, you to start praying.
And immediately, I was overwhelmed with a tremendous sense of the presence of god and awesomeness of a heavy weight and a burden.
Listen, I can never tell anybody else how the bird not a feeling you, but I can tell you how fields in me.
When god virgins my heart, I get it over on this side. There’s a there’s a heaviness.
There’s a weight that I feel that I cannot shake all. I can’t explain it away. I can’t rationalize it.
I can’t blame on anything has nothing to do with anything physical.
It is god’s way of burdening my heart to say, you need to seek my face.
You need to check this out. 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 the particular area of your life or circumstance or your vocation or whatever it might be, and you’ve got everything all of a sudden, things not right.
And god begins the burden of your heart, and you feed 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 ought to do. What’s the matter?
Friend, when you begin to feel that you’re stopped and you’re saying, oh, 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.
Now that one of the reasons he burdens us listen, If you’re headed toward the cliff and god knows you’re gonna walk off and he gets your attention, he gets your attention to stop to say, stop.
Look at me because I’m gonna tell you you headed in the wrong direction, and what I wanna do is to turn you around because this is the safe way, and that’s the disastrous way.
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 wait the magnitude of what god is going to say will determine how heavy and weighty that burden is.
The 4th word is linked how long does the burden last? Well, in essence, it lasts this long.
A burden, 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 gonna happen?
Your stalwart statue is going to begin to bend.
You’re gonna 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 in one of his most beautiful ways is through a bird.
Now, Nelma, receive 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 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 re 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 why we’re beginning to pray.
And remember this, if god has burdened your heart or somebody or some of the situation, he is already working in the situation.
In other words, god doesn’t burden you for someone else and isolate you without working in the other situation.
If god burns you for someone, he’s working on them.
If he burns you to change your circumstance, He’s on the process of doing it. So what does he do?
He listen, and here’s the thing we forget.
God does his work primarily God does his work primarily through answering the prayers of his children.
That’s the way he does his work. That’s his choice means of doing. What is he saying this word?
You have not what? Because you ask not, no praying you’re not gonna get it.
Somebody says, well, Look how god’s blessed me.
And I didn’t pray, and I wanna go back and tell you, brother, you don’t know how many other folks who pray.
Listen. God knows how ignorant we are about some things. So what does he do?
He finds somebody over here who’s intelligent enough to trust him.
And that person’s interceding for us and praying for us, and god is answering their prayer and sparing us all kind of misery and mistakes.
And we think, well, I’m not doing too bad. If they stop praying, you’d fall fat on your face.
And we must recognize the importance of praying one for the other.
So the length of the burden, how long do they pray now? Watch this?
There have been times when a burden when god put a burden on my heart lasted 6 months.
There have been times who has lasted 3 months, 2 months, 1 month, 1 week, a few days, I’m out of a few hours.
Depending upon what god is gonna require.
If god’s gonna require a complete total change in your life, a whole sense of new direction, then more than likely it’s not gonna be something that flops in today and out tomorrow because here’s what happens.
In the burden, here’s the process. When god gets your attention, you begin to look at him.
You begin to look at him, what happens? You begin to pray. You begin to search your own heart.
You look at yourself. You look at him. You look at his will. You look at your will.
You begin a real searching process. God begins to sift. God begins to search. God begins to sand.
You begin to get god’s viewpoint.
While he’s working in your life, giving you his viewpoint, and you begin to see things from his perspective all the time.
God’s out here working. You see, it takes time for god to work his will into our life.
He gets our attention by the burden and then the process is set in motion.
When I am ready, the burden’s gonna live. Some burdens left just like that and some are prolonged.
For example, Nirmaz burden, it lasted until what happened.
One thing people don’t understand about this book of neomy is this.
Art Exerxes, the king had already stopped the building of the walls And, uh, the gates once before because some some evil counsel he received from some of the enemies of uh of Israel.
And so here, after a period of being burned down, fasting, and praying, waiting upon the lord, Neeami goes in and watch how god operates now.
God saw Israel in trouble. He finds near my right in the king’s palace and here’s the king.
So he burdens his heart to pray while he’s praying. Nail Ma’s getting himself prepared. And what’s happening?
God’s preparing the key. So one day he walks in to care at his responsibilities, and the king says, Nema, why is your cabinet so sad?
Nema 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 Art Execxes.
So the length of time will be depending upon the circumstance and our response to that.
Now the next word is sharing. You say, well, should you share a burden that god places upon your heart?
It depends upon the nature of it.
And it is something got listen now, If it’s something that god burdens your heart about about someone else, then my friend don’t tell anybody until god allows you listen.
Watch this until god allows you in the spirit of genuine encouragement genuine love absolutely nil of all criticism, absolutely totally absent from all gossip and god gives you the he gives you the privilege and he gives you a word that you can share that burden with someone else.
Of all the times we have to be careful about sharing burdens, and we’re praying to someone else.
It may be that god doesn’t want you to share the burden with anyone, but the person for whom god has burdened you, and you came out to them and said, oh, god’s burdened me for you and said, what?
Because now listen, When the lord begins to burn your heart, what do we say?
It takes time. While he’s working on you, he’s working on them.
And when god gets you ready and they’re ready, you go to them and you say, God truly burdened my heart for you.
They’re gonna say, boy, am I happy to see you?
Because I’ll tell you I’ve been so lonesome, and I’ve been so frustrated. I’ve need somebody to pray for me.
Thank you for coming. You see, we have to be careful about sharing burdens.
People just start off flipping around, going about their own little thing just so they make a living.
That’s all it is. I wanna tell you there’s something wrong with the Christian who has no burden for this country.
God’s trying to say something to Americans. Well, sharing it.
And then the personal effect upon a burden, uh, or a burden upon us. Listen, care.
Here’s the beautiful thing about the fact when god begins the burden your heart about something, you begin to feel it.
You see, it’ll come sometimes by a sense of restlessness. That you can’t put your finger on.
Once you get that, the smartest thing for you to do to save time is to get on your knees and just say, Lord, if you’re trying to say something to me, increase what I feel.
God will always answer that. 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.
Well, 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 here 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, 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.
It 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’re 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 the the the first result is cleansing process. Secondly, what’s the second natural result?
We’re gonna feel a sense of closeness to him.
We’re gonna feel close to If we deny his right to burden us, if we run from the burden or reject the burden, what’s gonna happen, we’re gonna miss the blessing and we’re gonna get as kernel as the devil himself.
If you just say, no, I I’m not gonna deal with that.
I wanna tell you you’re gonna 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 got a burden, a heaviness in your heart, and you’ve been trying to shake it off, go to the doctor do all kind things.
I wanna 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 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 burn is that god will use you in some way to be a blessing may be known or unknown to that person.
Maybe in a circumstance that is known or unknown to a group of people, but god would use you personally, literally, powerfully, answering your prayers to motivate and to change.
And I’m saying you that god will use us on each other to change one another.
God will use us in this country to change this nation.
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’ll be absolutely totally amazed at what god did with you because you are available to listen to him.
A father we pray in Jesus’ name that the Holy Spirit, who is the one who carries that burden from heaven to earth.
Places it upon our heart and impresses us with our need to focus all of our attention Maybe sometimes requiring fasting and praying, focusing all of our attention upon you.
And, lord, you’re so willing, and, father, my heart is so amazed, I just get so amazed, god, thinking about what you’re willing to do, what you are doing, and what you could do if we would simply be willing and available and ready to look at our own lives, to get ourselves cleaned up in your sight, and to allow you to place the burden upon our heart and to watch you move in people’s lives.
Don’t spare as the burden, father.
When you wanna change a nation, I pray in the name of the lord Jesus Christ who is the Messiah.
Who is the reigning ruling lord and king over all this earth.
I do believe, father, in Jesus’ name, if we’re willing to accept the burden you’re willing to change and to save this nation.
Not only that, you’re willing to burden the churches. You willing to brighten the lights.
You willing to stir the flame. You willing to fan the flame.
You willing to send the great, a great, mighty awakening to this country.
I pray in Jesus’ name that you might find among us, a group of people who are willing to bear the burden.
And to stay with it until we have the victory and assurance that our heavenly father, righteous omnipotent reigning Christ, has answered and that we will see the results in due season.
And this is my prayer in Jesus name.