Holy Spirit’s Gentle Correction

I always begin my daily prayer times with praise. Jesus is so worthy and deserving of our thanksgiving and praise for all that He has done for us. Therefore, we should enter the gates of prayer with thanksgiving and the courts of His presence with praise.

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and His faithfulness continues to each generation.” (Psalms 100:4–5)

Recently, the Holy Spirit spoke to me about how I had been praying. Again, I was entering my daily prayer times with thanksgiving, but as I began to pray for different people and situations, I began to shift from a posture of thanksgiving to a posture of carrying a burden for something that needed to happen or come to pass. I left my posture of thanksgiving and began praying from a posture of burden.

Of course, we are to make our requests known to the Lord, but our posture of thanksgiving must remain; it is where faith and confident hope are intertwined. Unknowingly, I somehow began allowing faith and worry to be mingled together.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6–7)

The correction that the Spirit brought to me was that I was praying more from a place of burdens and worries than from faith and thanksgiving. I had allowed urgency to replace expectation regarding what He was going to do. I was also explaining to Him all that He already knew before I asked; I was letting fear mix in with my faith, when I really needed to let thanksgiving mix in with my faith. (Photo via Wallpaper Flare)

Praying from Faith

Jesus instructed, “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask Him!” (Matthew 6:7–8)

Jesus continued on to show us how to pray:

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'” (Matthew 6:9–13)

Okay, back to the point of this article. I changed how I prayed for things: I began to thank Him for the things that I had previously been babbling about to Him. I also prayed the simple prayer from Matthew 6:9–13 within my daily time with Him. And I have witnessed amazing turnarounds in the things I was praying for, including some seemingly impossible situations turning around and being provided for! I have also experienced a restoration of profound peace around my heart and mind.

Babbling Over Burdens Has Ceased

“Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7)

The peace that I am experiencing has exceeded anything that I can understand, and the breakthroughs have been so sudden. As I have begun to thank Him for what He is going to do in each situation (and life) rather than sharing my opinions on what needs to be done, it has changed everything.

I have been doing intercession for over forty years, and I even spent years directing a house of prayer; yet in the past number of months, my prayers started taking on a different tone, and now I see that this was because I had allowed burdens to create a sense of urgency which brought forth worry and fears. His Spirit adjusted my prayers in order to reveal something happening in my heart, something that was not leaving me with peace but rather a sense of urgency and an ongoing burden.

I needed to go back to the simple place of thanksgiving and praying for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done. A lot of babbling over burdens has ceased, and a lot of peace and breakthrough has come. (Photo via Freerange Stock)

Remember, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been saved or how long you’ve walked with the Lord, we all have seasons that can begin to affect us and our prayers in ways that need to be realigned. For me, the last six months of 2024 were a time of being surrounded by a lot of people and situations that needed help and turnarounds. Some of them seemed urgent, and I picked up those burdens. Over time, I began to pray from the posture of the burden rather than from the posture of confident hope in God being a good Father.

Praying out of the burden rather than out of thankfulness for all He has done (and all He will do) was robbing me of my peace. That simple adjustment not only restored my peace but has brought forth answers that I had not been seeing.

Trust the Burden Bearer, Enter His Peace, and See the Turnarounds!

He bears our burdens. We are not to carry them and somehow believe that it is our “intercessional duty” to carry things that are too heavy for us. We are to enter the gates of prayer with thanksgiving and His presence with praise. Then we are to pray for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done, remembering with gratitude all that He has done and knowing that He will do it again. This guards our hearts with peace that exceeds understanding, accomplishing more than we can ask or imagine!

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)

I pray that this simple adjustment and counsel that His Spirit gave to me will help you to find peace and to see the turnarounds that only HE IS ABLE to do!

Kathi Pelton
Inscribe Ministries
Email: jkpelton@sbcglobal.net
Website: www.inscribeministries.com

Jeffrey and Kathi Pelton live in Portland, Oregon. Jeffrey is a writer, teacher and book editor. Kathi is an author and prophetic voice to the Church. They walk with nations and individuals to see God’s original intent fulfilled. Their ministry, Inscribe Ministries, was founded upon the verse from Habakkuk 2:2 that says, “Then the LORD answered me and said: ‘Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.'”