Untangling Prayer with Rachel Wojo - When Healing Doesn't Come

0:00What happens when faith and mental health meet for real? What's up? I'm Grace Graber. Welcome to Breaking Through with Grace Graber, a podcast for honest conversations about anxiety, trauma, healing, hope, and the God who never backs away when life gets heavy. We are going to talk about everything mental health. No pretending, no perfect answers, just real stories, real faith, and a reminder that you're not alone. Get ready. You're going to be absolutely obsessed. Breaking through with Grace Graber, available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Life Audio Welcome to the Untangling Prayer Podcast. I'm Rachel Wojo, and each week we unravel life's knots through prayer. Here you'll find practical wisdom and prayer encouragement to guide you through life's hardest seasons. Join me as we untangle life's messes together. One prayer, I tell him.

1:03Hey there, I'm Rachel, and I wanted to start today by asking a question. Do you face a fear that just keeps knocking? Boy, I do. I was thinking about this because I've been watching the series on Prime Video called The Chosen in the Wild with Bear Girls, and it's where Bear takes the cast of The Chosen out into the wilderness, and he puts them through these survival trips. And in one episode, he picks up an actor off the Colorado River by helicopter, and there's zip lining and scaling cliffs. And, you know, I love a good nature hike. Give me a trail, give me a long walk outside. I am all in. But watching these people hang off of a helicopter over a ravine, or work their way up a rock wall with nothing but jagged cliffs underneath them, I have to catch myself wondering if I would be brave enough to do that. And honestly, it puts a little bit of fear in me just watching them from my couch.

2:07But this is a small but silly example of what fear does to us. It opens up a bigger question in my heart, and it's this week's question because fears that really wear us down aren't typically helicopter rides. They are thoughts that show up, time, and again, every night. It's the what if that's waiting for you the second to wake up before your feet ever even hit the floor. And you've prayed about it. You've handed it to God. And then a few hours later, or maybe even a few minutes later, there it is. Again, knocking at the door of your heart like it never left. If that's you, this episode is for you. We're in the for the weary stretch of this season. And I don't know a weariness quite like the tiredness of fighting the same fear over and over again. So today we're going to talk about what to do when fear won't stop knocking.

3:11And I want to show you something about God's love that changed the way I pray through fear. But before we go any further, I want to make sure you know that last week, praying through life's battles released 90 days to strengthen your faith. And this whole season of the podcast is walking through the three movements inside this book starting with for the weary. So if fear is a battle that you keep fighting, don't miss out on this book. You can get it at battle prayers.com. I'll come back to it at the end of the episode. But now here's this week's question. How do I pray when fear keeps knocking at the door of my heart? And I appreciate the depth of this question it was sent in. I'm not sure how we received it, but it's not saying how do I make the fear disappear. And I'm guessing that whoever with the question knows that fear isn't a one and done thing. So the question is how do we keep praying when fear keeps coming back at us?

4:16And Psalm 34 is one of my favorites. David says, I sought the Lord and he answered me. He delivered me from all my fears. I've read that verse a lot, probably a hundred times. And David isn't saying God delivered him from all his troubles in this verse. He is saying God delivered him from all his fears. Those are quite the same. Sometimes the trouble is still sitting there right in front of you, right? And it hasn't changed. The circumstance or the situation has not changed. But what God does is he comes for the fear of your situation. And that can change how we pray for a long time. My prayers about fear were asking God to change the circumstances. Take this away. Fix this. Change the outcome. And there's nothing wrong with asking God to make those changes. But if the only prayer that I know how to pray is make this scary thing go away, then every

5:16time it shows up, I'm stuck again, right? Because it's not working according to my schedule. David was in a hot mess when he wrote Psalm 34. He had been fleeing from enemy territory. I mean, his son... There's so much pain and hopelessness in our world right now. Addictions everywhere. And if you've battled it or watched someone you love battle it, you know how tight that grip can be. It can feel like there's no way out. But hope and healing are possible. The life recovery Bible has helped millions take their first courageous step toward true recovery. Not just a program, but a relationship with the true source of healing, God Himself. On every page, you'll encounter his grace, his love, and his redemption. Inside you'll find devotionals, real people profiles, and study notes that seamlessly weed the 12-step program together with scripture. Giving you a powerful foundation of spiritual care, practical wisdom, and the life-changing word of God.

6:17If you're ready to take the next step toward a new life and a hope-filled future, learn more at liferecoverybible.com. That's liferecoverybible.com. Absalom was hunting him with the intent to kill. So imagine being betrayed by someone you love. David knew that his son's strength and his warrior skill was enough to kill him because he had trained. Absalom, he had trained the killer. And so I think David is telling us, don't wait until you feel brave enough to pray. Seek God from inside the fear, not when you're over it. And then bring the fear to God. Don't dress it up or try to make it look any different than what it is, name what you're afraid of. I think that can be pivotal in our prayer life. Thank you so much for listening to this part of the episode. We'll be right back after a brief word from our sponsors.

7:17And now thank you for allowing that word from our sponsors. For this week's segment of Pramor, Worryless encouragement, I want to share with you, this is the part of the podcast where we kind of settle on one prayer principle that helps us pray more and worry less. And the one I wanted to give you today is that when we focus on receiving God's perfect love, that's when we understand his love is stronger than fear. I have to sit with that word a little bit receiving because it's not a natural go to for me. My default is fight fear. My default is brace fear or talk myself out of it. And all of those things kind of keep me locked in on the fear itself. First John 418 tells us there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear. And if you think about that, courage is not what drives out fear. Willpower, perseverance, even faith doesn't necessarily drive out fear.

8:23Love does. And it's perfect love. So in other words, not the kind of love that I think I'm going to muster up to take to God. It's God's love for me. I'm not generating the love or creating the love. I'm receiving the love. Think about what happens in a room when love walks in. There's no space for fear. When you were a little kid afraid of the dark and your mom or dad came inside on the edge of your bed, the darkness was still there, right? Nothing about the room had changed necessarily. They maybe didn't turn a light on. But you could feel their presence and you knew the room is safe. My mom, my dad is here. And when fear keeps knocking, I am tempted to answer the door and you're not going to run, try to wrestle it, right? But what I'm still learning to do instead, even last night, is to let myself be loved by

9:23God right there in the fear. And not to pray God make me brave, although I want to be brave. But God helped me know how much you love me right now. There's a shift that happens when we pray that way because fear might not leave the room, but stops ruling the room. I want to make sure that you understand that I'm handing you some kind of formula. This isn't receive God's love and all fear will vanish and you'll never have to deal with it again because fear comes back knocking and knocking again and again. But what I can tell you is that God's love is bigger than the fear is. And when you believe that to be true, it enables you to pray through the fear instead of just waiting for it to be over. Perfect love is stronger, not because you held on to it, but because God's love is strong. When I think about this in the form of the third segment of our episode, which is always

10:28sharing an answer prayer story, there was a missionary named Amy Carmichael in a story about her. She was born in the 1800s and she spent 55 years in Southern India rescuing children out of temple slavery out of what we would now call human trafficking. And before any of that, Amy was a very small girl. She had brown eyes and the story says that she wanted blue eyes. And her mother had blue eyes and little Amy prayed with only the kind of confidence that a little child sometimes has faith, the size of a mustard seed she asked God for blue eyes and she went to sleep that night completely certain that she would wake up with blue eyes. Morning came, she ran to the mirror and guess what? Her eyes were still brown. She was crushed because God had said no and she didn't understand why. Now, if you walk forward with me 40 years later, Amy is in India and to slip into the

11:32temples and get close enough to rescue children, she would darken her skin with coffee and wrap herself to blend in. And a woman with blue eyes could have never passed through those temple gates, but brown eyes let her go in and notice and brown eyes let her walk out with children in her arms. And the know that she had cried over as a little girl was her heavenly father's love, protecting a future that she couldn't possibly had ever known or seen. I think about how much fear she must have carried in that work. She faced kidnapping, charges, angry crowds. I mean, this was real danger for years. And all the way back to that little story of the mirror, she had learned that God's love is at work even when his answer isn't the one you wanted. She didn't have to see the whole plan to trust God's heart behind it.

12:35And then there's a day that it all came to fruition. The story, a seven year old named Prina had been given to a temple by her mother. She escaped once and she was dragged back and they branded her little hands with hot irons to punish her. She escaped again. And this time she found her way to Amy Carmichael. Amy was just back from a trip sitting down to have a morning tea. And this frightened child just ran straight to her, climbed up in her lap and held onto her neck. And Prina said later that Amy kissed her and she thought, my mom used to kiss me like that. Who is this person? Who is kissing me the way my mother did? And from that day forward, she said that Amy became her mother. And I think about this story. Amy had prayed for years asking God how she could ever reach these children because she didn't have a plan, but God answered a prayer she'd been praying by sending the answer running

13:40through her door and right onto her lap. The fear of how could I ever do this was answered by love showing up. And this is the reason that I wrote praying through life's battles by latest book, most of us aren't afraid of one big thing one time. We're weary because the same fear is knocking again and again. And pep talks don't work. We have to learn to pray from God's love instead of from our fear. This book is 90 days of that. It starts right where we are this month in the wearingness and it walks you towards strength one day at a time. If fear has been knocking at the door of your heart, then start right here. You can get praying through life's battles at BattlePraise.com or wherever you buy books. Thank you so much for joining me on the Untangling Prayer Podcast. I pray today's episode has encouraged you in your walk with the Lord.

14:42And until next time, remember. It sees you, he hears you, and he knows your needs. Thanks for joining me on the Untangling Prayer Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who could use a little help. And be sure to subscribe for more. Until next time, keep seeking, keep trusting, and keep praying. There's no better way to start your day than spending time in God's word and in prayer. Don't know where to start? We have a free daily prayer podcast created to help you do just that. The Your Daily Prayer Podcast delivers a thoughtful devotional and timely prayer to you, seven days a week. Gain inspiration, faith, and encouragement with daily messages in ten minutes or less. To start listening now, search your daily prayer on your favorite podcast app or visit

15:46lyphodio.com.