How To Pray For Long Hours

We all have our own reasons for coming to church, and often, those reasons can be quite selfish. For some of us, we’re aware of it, and for others, we might try to hide it. Some people come to church for social reasons—it’s a good place to gather with friends. Some might be here for the activities, like playing table tennis or football.

August 25, 2024

We all have our own reasons for coming to church, and often, those reasons can be quite selfish. For some of us, we’re aware of it, and for others, we might try to hide it. Some people come to church for social reasons—it’s a good place to gather with friends. Some might be here for the activities, like playing table tennis or football. Maybe you’re here because you need healing, or you’re seeking a breakthrough in your life. Whatever the reason, even if it’s a selfish one, God doesn’t reject you.

I find it hard to believe that anyone comes to church solely for God’s sake. We all come because we need something from Him, and that’s okay. I’d rather have people come to God with their agendas than stay away for the wrong reasons. God will deal with your motives and your agendas, but that can only happen in His presence. Outside of God’s presence, it’s impossible to be transformed. So no matter how legitimate your reasons might be for not going to church, I’m telling you that even your selfish reasons for being here are better than staying away. If there’s any hope for transformation, it’s in the presence of God.

So maybe you came to church because you thought you would find somebody and get married. I’m telling you, I don’t have a problem with it. What better place to find people than here? But what I’m trying to tell you is that, when the younger son came back to his home, he did not come back because he was longing for his father. I’m talking about the story in Luke 15. He came back home because he was hungry. It was the hunger that brought him home. And probably when the father hugged him, the father sensed that he was here out of hunger. Not for me. But see, the Father does not say, get your motives right and come to me. Because the father’s concern is, as long as you are in the house, there’s hope for you to be transformed. 

I used to be a very self-righteous person, and I believe there are still parts of that self-righteousness in me that God is working to flush out. I would constantly question my motives—asking myself why I was going back to church, why I was serving. But let me tell you, if you keep searching for your motives outside the presence of God, there’s no hope for you. As long as you remain in God’s presence, there is hope. Even those negative intentions with which you came can be transformed.

This is why coming to church is spiritual warfare. You will always have legitimate reasons not to go to church—an exam, a promotion coming up, an important meeting, health issues, or even being offended by someone. There will always be legitimate reasons because this is spiritual warfare. But here’s the word I want to give you: show up, no matter what. No matter how offended you are, show up. No matter how sick you feel, show up. No matter how much it’s raining, show up. There is hope in the presence of God; outside of His presence, it’s hopeless. You cannot fix your life on your own. You can’t even fix your heart on your own.

If you’re proud, come into God’s presence—He will humble you, but He will do it without humiliating you. Do you know how many times I’ve gone to the Lord and said, “God, I know what the right thing to do is, but I don’t have the courage to do it. I know I need to say sorry, but I’m so embarrassed. Father, help me. Help me find a way that the person comes to me and initiates the conversation.” There is hope as long as you keep showing up. You will always have a thousand legitimate reasons not to be here, but none of them are valid. Your selfish reason for being here is better than any of those excuses.

When I talk to people, I get a sense of why they’re here, and yes, everyone has an agenda. But who cares? As long as you’re in the house of God, He can change and transform your priorities. So no matter what your agenda is, I stand with the Lord, believing in the work He is doing in you. 

Today, I want to talk to you about how to pray for long hours. Last week, I spoke about why we should pray. We all know that prayer is essential, especially if you’re part of a church or someone of faith. We understand that prayer works and is important, yet many of us still struggle to do it consistently. The reason is that this knowledge is often just information in our heads—it hasn’t become a revelation in our hearts.

It’s similar to making resolutions at the start of the year, like deciding to go to the gym, walk 10,000 steps a day, or avoid junk food. We make these decisions, but they often don’t stick because they remain mere information, not something we’ve fully embraced. 

So, I’m inviting you on a journey—a journey to pray every day, not just once in a while, but consistently, just as you eat every day. Prayer is like oxygen for a believer. Without it, you won’t find the strength to fight your battles or face your challenges. And if you want to see a real impact from your prayers, you need to dedicate at least one hour a day to prayer.

Why one hour?

When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked His disciples to pray as well. When He returned, He found them sleeping—just like many of us sometimes. And Jesus said, “Couldn’t you pray with me for one hour?” I’m challenging you—if you start praying for one hour each day, within 30 days, you will see evidence of that prayer. I’m confident that within a month, you’ll witness the effects.

How do you pray for an hour?

I was raised in a Christian family, with parents who are pastors, so the importance of prayer was ingrained in me from a young age. I remember a time after I finished my engineering degree when I had no idea what to do next. All I had heard from people in church was, “Fast and pray, and God will guide you.” So, I decided to set a date on the calendar to fast and pray for the whole day.

That morning, I woke up early, prepared myself, and took a shower. Fasting wasn’t a big issue since I didn’t eat much anyway at that time. I started praying, fasting, and using every prayer and Bible verse I knew. I prayed with all my heart, calling down heaven, lifting up the earth, and bringing fire upon hell. I prayed for everyone—my parents, relatives, everyone I could think of. After what felt like an intense and lengthy prayer session, I thought, “Surely, an hour must have passed.” But when I looked at the time, it had only been five minutes.

How many of you can relate to that? You’re in prayer, giving it everything you’ve got, and then you look up, and it’s like, “What? Only a few minutes have passed?”

Let me share a funny story. I’m wearing a watch right now, but it doesn’t tell the correct time. It’s just there as a decoration. If I need to know the time, I still have to check my phone. This is how some things in our lives can be. God has blessed us with so much, but sometimes we don’t know how to use it, so it just becomes like jewelry—something we wear but don’t fully utilize. Being a Christian can become like that too—just a label we wear. But there is real power behind calling yourself a Christian believer. There’s power in it that can shift the atmosphere of any room you step into. And that power comes from gaining strength through prayer.

Proverbs 24:10 – If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

We need strength to overcome the days of adversity, and prayer brings us that strength. You don’t go to the gym when you’re sick or feeling unwell; you go when you’re healthy to build strength. Similarly, you need to pray on your good days so that when the bad days come, you’ll have the strength to rise above those situations.

The problem is that many of us only pray when something goes wrong. For example, when your boss says your job is on the line, suddenly, you become very spiritual. I’ve seen it happen—people become so devoted to prayer when they’re out of a job. They show up for every fasting prayer, every all-night prayer, and they’re always on time. Why? Because they’re operating from a place of fear. Prayer, unfortunately, has become a way to firefight—to try and stop the disaster before it happens.

But I’m telling you, if you pray daily, there are certain fires you’ll never have to face. If you pray daily, you can build up enough strength to avoid crises altogether. Some of the crises we go through are self-imposed; we bring them upon ourselves by neglecting to build that strength in prayer.

Just take for example, me and Alvin, we go out for coffee. And that particular season I’m in, I’m struggling with finances, okay? I’m struggling with finances and I’m just thinking about finances. But Alvin is not in that place. He’s doing good. So while we are having coffee and we just see that someone walks out of the door and their wallet falls, and a big bundle of notes falls from that wallet because of where I’m coming from, my eyes are on that bundle. God has answered my prayer. Oh, but for Alvin, it’s not even a temptation. Why? Because he’s fed. He’s already in abundance. So he’s thinking, how can I find this person and return the wallet? And I’m finding reasons to justify why this money should be with me. Are you getting this? Some of our crises, some of the temptations that we go through, it’s not even the devil. The poor guy is being blamed for everything. It’s not even the devil. It’s the lack of feeding. It’s the lack of prayer.

It’s the lack of prayer. Prayer gives us spiritual strength. So today, I want to teach you how to pray for extended periods because we need to address the main struggle with prayer. It’s that prayer can sometimes feel boring. Yes, boring. How many of you can relate? You know, the ultra-spiritual among us might not, but for the rest of us who struggle, prayer can be tedious.

When you start to pray, distractions come at you from every direction. Suddenly, you remember that you forgot to make your wife coffee, even though it hadn’t crossed your mind before. Every meeting you’ve been avoiding will pop into your head. It’s like every distraction you’ve ever had shows up when you begin to pray.

I want to help you overcome these distractions so that you can stay focused and pray for longer periods. But before I share how to stay in prayer for extended times, let’s first understand the strategy of the enemy.

You see, the devil is very afraid of you. In fact, the devil knows what you carry in Christ better than you do, and that terrifies him. That’s why he will do anything and everything to stop you from praying. But don’t worry, I’ll reveal his strategy and then show you how to develop your own strategy to overcome it.

From today onwards, prayer will no longer be boring. You’ll get so immersed in prayer that people will have to remind you that two or three hours have passed. That’s the kind of prayer life I’m talking about.

1 John 2:15-17 – Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

 

Threefold strategy of the devil to distract you from your prayer life.

1. The desires of the flesh.
2. The desires of the eyes.
3. The pride of life. 

Now, I’ll give you an example to explain how he works against us using this. How many of you believe that where Adam fell is exactly where Jesus went through and won the victory for us? 

1. Desires of the Flesh.

Hebrews 4:15 – we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

When Eve was in the garden, the devil came to her. The first thing he asked was, “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” He was pinpointing an area of lack in her life, a pleasure she couldn’t participate in. The devil focused on the one thing she couldn’t take pleasure from. There were so many trees in the garden—studies even suggest that the garden was as big as the nation of Iraq—yet the devil highlighted that one tree and said, “You can’t take pleasure from this one.” That’s the desire of the flesh. The devil will use the desire of the flesh to make you feel like you should partake in something forbidden.

Similarly, in Jesus’ temptation, the devil came to Him when He was hungry and told Him, “You, you know what? If you’re the Son of God, turn this stone into bread.” He’s attacking His pleasure, His area of pleasure. Amen. That’s why when we sit to pray, all the things that come into our mind are the things we could have done except pray. “I could have watched a movie right now.” See, it’s so easy, right? For us to sit through three hours of a movie without getting distracted. But in prayer, we keep getting distracted because the devil will slide in a pleasure that is from the world and take the pleasure that we have from God. Somewhere, the devil has convinced us that there is no pleasure while you pray. That’s why there’s a starting problem for us to pray, because we think that prayer is boring. How many of you will agree that you have a starting problem in prayer, but once the prayer starts, you are in a flow? It’s a kickstart problem. You know, in the nineties, they had a scooter with a kickstart. Some of us have a kick starting problem.

But once we continue in prayer, we have to tell ourselves there is pleasure in prayer. So, this is what the devil does. He’ll tell you all the pleasures, all the pleasures that you are missing right now. That is what he’ll distract you with. “You can play Table tennis right now. You can call that person, watch a two-hour movie.” Why? Because prayer is spiritual warfare. He’ll try to do anything and everything to distract you. So the first thing that he does is bring in the desires of the flesh, which attack your pleasure.

2. Desires of the Eyes.

The next thing is the desires of the eyes. See, when the devil was tempting Eve, she saw the fruit, and the Bible says in Genesis 3 that this fruit was a delight to her eyes and the tree was desired to make one wise. When Eve saw the fruit, she thought it was desirable. You know why the devil brings desires that you get attracted to with your eyes? It’s so that your deeper eye, the deeper eye of the mind, remains closed. So, when you see something that is desirable, what happens is you want it now.

You’re walking down the street, you see the latest iPhone, and even though you don’t make that much money, your eyes are filled with desire. You end up buying it on a credit card. Six months later, you’re wondering, “Why did I do this?” The desires of the eyes attack your patience. When you desire something through your eyes, you want it immediately.

Look at Jesus’ temptation as well. The devil took Him to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. The devil said, “If you worship me right now, I will give it all to you immediately.” He was trying to make Jesus impatient by appealing to what He saw. 

3. Pride of life.

When Eve was tempted, Genesis 3:4-6 says that she was enticed by the idea of becoming wise.

Genesis 3:4 “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’’

But if you go back to Genesis 1:26, you’ll see that they were already created in the image of God. It’s like saying to Jeremy, “If you eat this fruit, you’ll become a male.” But Jeremy is already a male! Do you see how the devil deceives? By telling Eve she could become something she already was, he was attacking her confidence.

Similarly, when Jesus was tempted, the devil took Him to a high place and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written: ‘He will command His angels concerning you…’” The devil was trying to undermine Jesus’ confidence.

So, the devil’s strategy is threefold: desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. What do these desires do? The desires of the flesh attack your pleasure, the desires of the eyes attack your patience, and the pride of life attacks your confidence. This is his strategy. That’s why in prayer, you often feel the most impatient, distracted by all the pleasures around you, and you may lose confidence. It’s spiritual warfare—exactly what the devil wants: to rob you of pleasure, patience, and confidence.

Faculty of spiritual senses.

Now, to counter this attack, there is a strategy.

1 Corinthians 13:13 – “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 

Everything else can pass away, but these three—faith, hope, and love—will always remain.

The prophetic may cease, healing may cease, and tongues may cease. But these three things will always remain: faith, hope, and love. Now, when you sit down to pray, the devil will try to bring worldly things to engage the faculties of your body. Your body interacts with the world through five senses—your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. The enemy’s strategy is to use your body to distract you from your spiritual reality and keep you focused on the physical reality. But remember, you are not merely a body—you are a spirit man. You are a spirit man living in a body that has a soul.

Just as your body has five senses, your spirit has its own faculties: faith, hope, and love. For example, if I tell you to pick up something, you’ll use your hands. Similarly, if you want to engage in the spiritual realm, you must engage with your spiritual faculties—faith, hope, and love.

Listen to me carefully, don’t drift off. This is a very important message. The devil will try to make you sleepy so you won’t be able to pray. If you stay awake now, you’ll sleep peacefully during the week. But if you sleep now, he’ll rob you of rest during the week. So stay alert, take notes if you need to.

Your spirit’s faculties are faith, hope, and love.

1. Love.

Now, what is love? Love is the connection you have with God, the understanding that you are one with Him, even before you start praying. When I talk about love, I’m not referring to how much you love God. I’m asking, how much do you know that God loves you? Because if you don’t understand how much God loves you, you can’t truly love Him in return. 

1 John 4:19 – “We love because He first loved us.” And even in 1 John 2:15, it says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” 

We fall in love with the world because the love of the Father is not in us.

The first step is to become aware of the love God has for you. Before you begin to pray, you must be aware that you are loved by God—regardless of what dreams you’ve had, regardless of what you’ve done. As you begin to pray, remind yourself: “I am loved by my Father.” And when the Father loves you, He loves you unconditionally. “Unconditionally.”

If you step away from the knowledge of God’s love, you’ll always be distracted. More than your sin, fear, or shame, you need to believe in the love God has for you. Bring your awareness back to God’s love. The fruit of staying in God’s love is pleasure. When you understand that God loves you, you will start enjoying His presence. It’s this pleasure that will make you want to pray for hours on end.

Think about it. Why do we watch movies for two hours and not feel like we’ve wasted time? It’s because we derive pleasure from it. There is pleasure in God, and He wants to give it to you. But this pleasure only comes when you truly believe that God loves you. 

The evidence that you know God loves you is that you will enjoy His presence. It’s true in any relationship—husband and wife, for instance. If they aren’t enjoying each other’s company, there’s no real love. They spend time together, enjoy each other, and celebrate each other.

The evidence of love is pleasure. What you love, you enjoy. If you love watching movies, you enjoy it. If you love playing football, you enjoy it. Similarly, if you shift your pleasure from worldly things to finding pleasure in God, you first need to believe that God loves you unconditionally. 

Romans 8:1 – “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

You have to believe that God is on your side. Even if you lived like the devil yesterday, the moment you recognize that you are loved by God, you will start enjoying His presence.

How many of you can relate to living like the devil at times? But I’m saying, if you believe that God loves you, you will start enjoying His presence. David says in 

Psalm 37:4- “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” 

Do you know that God wants to give you pleasure? Religious minds may have a problem with pleasure—they want to give you pressure, not pleasure. But God wants to give you the best pleasure. All worldly pleasures are cheap imitations of God’s pleasure. Worldly pleasures leave you high but dry, providing short-term joy with long-term side effects. But when you find pleasure in God, you gain long-term benefits.

Your attitude toward prayer should be one of connection with God and the understanding that He loves you unconditionally. Start enjoying His presence. There are times when I’m praying and not saying anything—I’m just sitting there, soaking in His presence. I’m not declaring, not speaking in tongues; I’m simply enjoying God.

Psalm 16:11 – “In Your presence there is fullness of joy.” And in Psalm 36:8, “They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights.”

God wants to give you delight from the river of His presence. He desires to satisfy you. He’s not against you having pleasure; in fact, the name Eden means pleasure. God placed Adam and Eve in a garden of pleasure. God wants you to enjoy Him. So, love gives you pleasure.

2. Hope.

Romans 8:24 – For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

Hope awakens your spiritual eyes. I mentioned that love helps restore your pleasure and fights against the desires of the flesh. Hope, on the other hand, awakens your spiritual eyes and combats the desires of your physical eyes.

One of the evidence of hope is patience.

Romans 8:25 – But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

When you are praying and distracted because the devil is tempting you with immediate gratification, hope helps you remain patient. Hope allows you to believe and wait for the right time.

Hope comes from a Greek word that means “picture it done.” When you pray, you need to envision your request as already accomplished. If you’re praying for healing, see it as already done. If you’re praying for a breakthrough, imagine it as already complete. Create a mental snapshot of your prayer being answered. So, if love engages the faculty of your heart, from which pleasure comes, hope engages the faculty of your imagination. When you pray, you should visualize. If the devil presents you with wrong images, replace them with the right ones.

Do you know why we are often asked to pray with our eyes closed? You can certainly pray with your eyes open, but closing your eyes helps disconnect you from the physical reality and access your spiritual vision. Imagination is a window to your spiritual reality. Use hope to build patience and see your prayers as already answered. Abraham waited for 25 years because every time he prayed, he saw a picture of himself becoming a father. The evidence of hope is patience.

3. Faith

Faith counteracts pride because faith gives you confidence. 

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Pride is self-confidence, while faith is God-confidence. Faith helps you move with the strength and effort of God, not just your own.

Hebrews 11:2 – For by it the people of old received their commendation.

Commendation here means how they were known or recognized. So, if pride is about self-effort and confidence in yourself, faith is about putting confidence in God and moving in His strength. Amen?

Let’s quickly review the three strategies the devil uses:

• Desires of the flesh: Attacks your pleasure.
• Desires of the eyes: Attacks your patience.
• Pride of life: Attacks your confidence and identity.

God helps you counter these strategies through love, faith, and hope:

• Love: The evidence of love is pleasure. When you know you’re loved by God, you will enjoy His presence.
• Hope: The evidence of hope is patience. Hope gives you a picture of the completed work—it’s done.
• Faith: Faith provides confidence in God, not just in your own abilities.

Romans 14:17 – For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

So, let’s connect this all together. The devil’s strategy includes the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and pride of life. But God has given you the spiritual faculties of love, hope, and faith to counter these strategies. Love gives you pleasure to fight against the desires of the flesh. When you experience pleasure, you have joy. That’s why, in prayer, when you have pleasure, you come out with an attitude of joy. Life feels good, and everything seems amazing because you’re full of joy. It’s a sign of being in love with God.

You can be in love with God at all times by reminding yourself that He loves you. Think about it—can you ever love your parents as much as they love you? Despite their immense love, you don’t see anyone competing to love them back more. Similarly, you can never fully reciprocate God’s love, but you can remain aware of it and enjoy His presence.

I met a child the other day who was anxious, asking, “How can I love my father more?” Nobody thinks like that. You use your parents’ love, but when it comes to God, we want to love Him the way He does. How? Where do you begin? You can’t. I’m not saying don’t love God, but that’s a tough competition. Learn to enjoy His love. Learn to enjoy the privilege of being loved by your Father.

You know, for your father and your mother, the greatest thing they would want is that you receive their love. Have you seen a baby born? The parents spend hours and hours adoring that baby, making cute faces, and they can spend all day doing that. They look at the baby as if the baby is the most beautiful baby in the world. Every parent feels that way about their baby. Even if the baby is sleeping, pooping all over, it doesn’t concern the parents.

The best response to loving God is enjoying His love. Don’t get into competition with loving God. I gave up in 2012; I can’t love God enough, but I can enjoy God. I can enjoy His love. I can enjoy the privilege of being His child. And when I do that, I genuinely love God. 

So, don’t compete with God about who loves more. It’s not even a competition.

Do I love God? How many people come to me for counseling? I don’t know if I love God enough. You can’t love God enough, let go. The point is not how much you love God. The point of the gospel is, do you know that God loves you? When you know how much God loves you, and you begin to enjoy His love, love will naturally flow out from you. You can only love people to the degree that you know you are loved by God. If you don’t understand the grace of God, you will never give grace to others. I have done crazy things in my life and my past was so dirty, but I have seen God restore me. That’s why when people come to me, I still believe that their lives can change. I can only give grace to the extent that I have received grace from Him. 

When you know how much God loves you, you begin to enjoy, and that enjoyment turns into joy. 

Nehemiah 8:10 – The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Joy is the strength that will keep pushing you up and up and up. But when you hope in God, you picture that it’s done. 

Romans 8:24 – For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

 The evidence of hope is patience. 

Romans 8:25 – But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

The fruit of hope is peace. Even if you’ve been praying for 25 years and nothing has happened yet, it doesn’t steal your peace because you know you’re patient. You can see it in your heart. There are many promises I’m believing for that haven’t yet come to pass, but I have tasted them here. God has given me the best. 

So hope will always come with patience, but the fruit will be peace. Peace means nothing missing, nothing broken. 

Philippians 4:7 – And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Peace will stop you from going down. It will be like a cushion that protects you, sustaining you at the level where God has you. If anything is missing or broken, it will be restored.

Finally, when you operate in faith, the evidence is confidence.

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Confidence that you are the righteousness of God. You have the same identity that God has. You are not the righteousness of God because of your good deeds or what you’ve done. You have the righteousness of God because of the blood of Jesus. So if today God comes to Jeremy and tells him, “Hey David,” you better believe that your name is David. Just like that, God is saying, “You are not a sinner. You are righteous.” You better believe that what He’s saying is true.

With these three elements—love, faith, and hope—you will not lose your pleasure, patience, or confidence. What started as a five-minute prayer can be prolonged for hours and hours. Are you hearing what I’m saying? There is pleasure in God. Don’t miss your life. Don’t miss it. There is no pleasure in the world that can satisfy you. That’s why you keep going back for more and wanting something different. But I’m telling you, if you stay in the pleasure of God, your worldly pleasure will be replaced by the pleasure of God.

You know, growing up, I never liked Indian sweets. I liked chocolate, but I never liked kaju katli, malai, gulab jamun, or jalebi. I never liked these sweets, but today, oh man, sometimes I’m dreaming of them. What happened? Do you know that your taste buds can change? So what makes you think that your pleasure from watching TV cannot change into spending time with God? Here’s a secret: How do taste buds change? You have to sometimes take a step of faith. When I hated these Indian sweets, once I ate something, because as a child, if your mother brings it, you’re like, “I’ve told you how many times I don’t want it. Don’t give it to me.” You would want to bite their head off. That’s how I was. But then, as an adult, one day, I had a little bit of sweet. It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t that bad. So it takes a step of lingering in His presence to shift from worldly pleasure into godly pleasure.

See, the problem with us is, we want everything to happen magically, like Harry Potter magic. We want everything right now. But you know, the problem is God does supernatural things, immersed in the nature of things. What I’m trying to say is He does not do magic; He does supernatural things. That’s why you see things are natural. You know, Abraham, he prayed, and naturally, he had a child after a hundred years. It was supernatural, but the child did not drop from heaven. You see? So the problem with prayer is we are thinking magic is going to happen. You know, I’m praying for finances, and money will drop into my hands right now. It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that. God works supernaturally. God works supernaturally in a sense that you will know that it’s supernatural, but for the world, they’ll see it as natural. That’s why we need to have pleasure with God, not lose our patience, and not lose our confidence that we have in God.

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