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T.A.O.S.-The Art of Supplication (Pt. 3)
"Supplication Amidst Being Wounded"
5/13/26
Author: Dr. S. Edwards

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T.A.O.S.-The Art of Supplication

(Pt. 3)

"Supplication Amidst Being Wounded"

 

"The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, But who can bear a broken spirit? "

-Proverbs 18:14 (NKJV)

 

Not too long ago we explored The Serenity Prayer and spent some time expounding on the power and significance of peace. And not just any peace, but the peace of God, which is like no other peace that we can find.

 

God's peace soothes us in a way that man or material things simply cannot. And just as we often overlook and neglect the importance and impact of peace in our lives, another facet of importance that we tend to often overlook and at times even neglect, is that thing that is not only a part of us but is vulnerable to everything around us. It is that thing that can carry us through or cause us to bury ourselves under. It is that thing that we quite often don't attend to or invest the time into nurturing, maintaining, or protecting. It is that part of us that feels every thought, every feeling, and every emotion. It is that part of us that wars like no other part of our body. It is that innermost part of us that can be so strong and fight so hard yet be so severely wounded. And in case you still haven't guessed what this thing of significance is, it's OUR SPIRITS!
 

Many of us might take the time to do a self-check. But when we take the time to take a step back, as we check our behaviors, our attitudes, and our emotions, are we checking our spirits as well?

Our spirits are that invisible but very tangible part of us that can be seen without us speaking or being in the presence of the one that we're communicating with. Our spirits can be felt even in silence and regardless of the amount of distance that exists between us and the individual that we are connected to or interacting with.

Have you ever spoken to someone on the phone that you didn't know, maybe a customer service rep or someone in which you were requesting or receiving service from, and you found yourself thinking, "I better find another company or speak to another representative because I don't like their spirit."? There was something about the energy of that person that either alarmed you or rubbed you the wrong way. Or maybe you hung up thinking, "I like their spirit, they had good energy" and decided to choose that particular company or vendor or remain with that company or vendor simply because of the energy of the interaction.

We often make assumptions or form our personal opinions of others based on their spirit. However, we don't always recognize that we are doing so, because we often don't term it as such. Many of us often use the terms, "energy", "aura", "vibe", or "demeanor" to describe this feeling that we are picking up from the individual that we are interacting with. There are some individuals whose spirits don't noticeably greet us. But then there are those whose spirits or energies are so strong that they either deter us from or draw us closer to that individual.

The spirit is defined as:

  • a particular way of thinking, feeling, or behaving, especially a way that is typical of a particular group of people, an activity, a time, or a place,

  • the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul,

  • the force within a person that is believed to give the body life, energy, and power,

  • the part of a person that includes their mind, feelings and character rather than their body,

  • the non-physical part of a person that is the seat of emotions and character,

  • the way a person is feeling, or that people in general are feeling.

Mostly all the definitions of "spirit" refer to an internal state or source in which one's innermost thoughts, feelings, and emotions rest. The spirit is often seen as one's state of being. Viewing the spirit from these contexts can help us to better understand the teaching presented in Proverbs 18:14. Let's Explore...

Broken Spirits?!            

I am sure that many of us may have at one point or another observed two individuals who endured a similar situation and while one individual triumphed, the other bowed to defeat and gave in to despair.

We may have all witnessed individuals overcome health battles and medical diagnosis while others seem to have been taken under by the same health battles and medical diagnosis. We might have all witnessed someone who was lively, upbeat, and energetic, who when suddenly faced with something unexpected, gave up on everything. Or we might have seen someone who was negative and grumpy, when faced with something life altering, suddenly underwent a complete turnaround, becoming a pillar of hope and positivity.

All of these scenarios can help us to understand the context of our scripture highlight. Proverbs 18:14 tells us that a man's spirit can give him the strength to overcome sickness. However, if that same spirit becomes broken, who can bear such? In other words, the spirit can help us to overcome many adversities, but how can one overcome a broken spirit? Is it possible?

We all handle things differently. We are not impacted by the occurrences of life in the same way. Some of us can keep a positive spirit even if and when things don't turn out in the way that we want them to. There are some individuals whom when faced with the challenges of life whether physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional, will keep fighting until the very end. There are some individuals who might experience a medical illness and even if and when the doctors don't give them the news that they want or if the diagnosis doesn't change, they never lose hope, although hope may not seem an option that can be theirs.

Our spirits are so delicate. They are so mighty and valiant yet can be so fragile and so vulnerable as well. There are some individuals whom for whatever reason become broken and never leave that place of brokenness no matter how hard they try.

It is amazing that someone's spirit has the ability to sustain them throughout all of the occurrences of life yet if that spirit is broken, something as simple as an "hello" can wound them and make them feel like their entire life came crashing down. With our spirits being so powerful, so important, and in the same breath, so fragile, why do we not spend more time nurturing them?

Declaring Victory Over Our Wounds?        

On last week we emphasized that being wounded does not equate to being defeated. We spoke of individuals who were all wounded in different ways, yet they had the ability to overcome. They did not succumb to the wounds that were inflicted upon them, but they became victorious despite what could have destroyed them.

While we can all have victory amidst trials and despair, just as they did, the truth is that we must choose to do so. And what makes that difficult is that victory does not always look like an option that is available to us. Victory in many cases does not seem like something that we can choose. Victory at many times feels like something that we must earn. Victory does not often feel like it is in our control. It does not seem like something that we can take for ourselves. Victory can at often times seem unfair. So, what do we do when victory seems out of reach and our place of brokenness seems like it will become our permanent place of residence? We must at some point decide to take our wounded spirits to God in supplication.

Supplication Amidst Our Wounds          

In 1 Samuel 6-11,13-18, we read the following account of Hannah:

            Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on

            year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and

            would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, 'Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why

            are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?' Once when they had finished eating and drinking

            in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. In her

            deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, 'Lord Almighty, if you will

            only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give

            him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.' Hannah was praying in her

            heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, 'How long

            are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.' 'Not so, my lord,' Hannah replied, 'I am a woman who is deeply                      troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for

            a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.' Eli answered, 'Go in peace, and may                  the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.' She said, 'May your servant find favor in your eyes.' Then

            she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast (NIV).

Hannah is one who indeed had a spirit that had become broken. Hannah was loved by her husband, but she was not able to bear children. Her husband Elkanah also had another wife, Peninnah, who would taunt Hannah because unlike Hannah, she had given Elkanah children. In spite of Hannah being loved by her husband, she was stricken with grief. Being loved was not enough for Hannah. She was distressed. Hannah had a broken heart because of what she did not have and could not produce. Hannah wanted what she wanted, and her spirit had become weary due to not being able to obtain it. Tears had become Hannah's norm. However, at some point, Hannah recognized her brokenness and decided to take it to the only person that was capable of fixing this brokenness that she did not have the power or strength to fix on her own. Hannah took her brokenness to God.

Hannah wept in supplication to God, humbly making her request known unto Him. In reading this account, we see that the emotions behind Hannah's prayers were very tangible. They were noticeable. However, Hannah's prayers were silent. The scriptures state that Hannah was praying in her heart. Hannah was not seeking the attention of man; she was seeking the attention of God. And because she was seeking the attention of God, God allowed her to be noticed by a man. And not just any man, but one who was a man of God, Eli, the high priest.

Upon first seeing her, Eli assumed that Hannah was drunk and even rebuked her as a result of his assumptions. However, Hannah made known to Eli that what he thought was her drunkenness was nothing more than a woman with a wounded spirit. Hannah made it known to Eli that she in her despair, was pouring her heart out to God. And in realizing Hannah's truth, he says something to her that many of us might overlook and take for granted. Eli says to Hannah, "'Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him."

And while many of us might miss that and might not get it, Hannah understood the depth of what Eli's words meant because we then read Hannah's response which is that humble reply of, "May your servant find favor in your eyes." Hannah, who while in her grief, had moments in which she would not eat, after hearing what the high priest Eli, told her, went away and ate something. And the scriptures tell us, "AND HER FACE WAS NO LONGER DOWNCAST"!

Hannah had accepted God's peace and the assurance that God would answer her cry. If we continue to read 1 Samuel 1, we find that God "REMEMBERED" Hannah and allowed her to conceive a son. And not just any son, but the son who would become the one whom we know as the Prophet Samuel. "She named him Samuel, saying, 'Because I asked the Lord for him" (v. 20, NIV). Ahhh, the power of supplication from a deeply wounded place.

God REMEMBERED HER!            

As we've been exploring the act of supplication, what it means, and the impact that it can have on our lives, we have expounded on our ability to trust God to give us what we have asked Him for. However, along with trusting God, there is something that Hannah understood that we too must understand. When we trust God to give us whatever it is that we are requesting of Him, we must accept God's peace concerning that which we have made known to Him, because that peace is going to be pivotal in our ability to wait until He manifests that which we have asked Him for.

Hannah did not make supplication unto God, have an encounter with Eli, and then go right back to her place of despair. Hannah's encounter awakened her hope and when Eli instructed her to "go in peace", she did just that.

Hannah, although anguished, recognized her opportunity to take hold of what once seemed out of reach. In that moment that she knew that her request was no longer just a request, but that it was now a request that had another, "AMEN" spoken over it, she held it close. Hannah's request was no longer just a request rooted in despair, but her request was now one rooted in expectancy.

 

Hannah accepting God's peace meant that she no longer had to carry the burden of what she did not have or what she could not do, but now through her encounter, she could let go of the burden of putting the weight on herself because she now understood that it was fully in God's hands. Hannah could now have peace and trust God to do what only He could do. It was no longer Hannah's job to be troubled because her new assignment was to rest assured. Quite too often we take on worry and despair as an occupation when we feel like God has not come to our rescue. Hannah's face was no longer downcast because she now had something to look forward to that was aligned with what she had asked God for.

Prior to Hannah's moment of supplication, her despair had become the captor of her expectancy. If Hannah wanted God to move on her behalf, then she had to believe that He would. Hannah's confines, her feeling deprived and living her life as such, her considering herself unworthy, allowed her pain of what she lacked to become her overflow, which held her prayer request captive. And what is so profound and shows how God can and will move on our behalf when we humble ourselves, cry out to Him, and trust Him, is the fact that Hannah never told Eli the details of her request and Eli never inquired what her request was. She made known to him that she was crying out to God, he spoke assurance over it, and she accepted that assurance. Hannah did not just take Eli's response as the response of a 'man', but she acknowledged it as both a word from a servant of God and a word from God.

Many of us might have missed our moment of assurance, because we might have wanted a divine encounter similar to that of Moses and the burning bush. We want an 'out of the box' confirmation from God in order for us to gain enough assurance to trust that He has heard us. We want an 'out of the box' confirmation with an 'in the box' faith that is wrapped in doubt.

 

However, Hannah being at the point of despair that she was in, perhaps did not care how God attended to her prayers as long as He heard them. She took that word that Eli spoke to her as if she was having a one-on-one with God. She acknowledged Eli for who he was, but Hannah's faith rested in the peace that God had heard her prayers. This encounter gave Hannah the strength to strengthen herself. That peace that Eli spoke over her, placed her in a position in which she now understood that she had to go in a different direction. God allowed Eli to speak life back into Hannah and she then began to nurture her physical body because her spiritual man was no longer broken. Her spirit was now revived so she could now do what she needed to do to sustain herself while she both trusted and waited on God.

What is even more profound is that we don't know much about Eli's response. Eli's response could have been something that he said to everyone that he found praying. His, "go in peace" could have been what he felt the need to say. However, when we believe God for who He is and trust that He orchestrates all things, controls all things, and aligns all things, we don't take Eli's words as mere coincidence.

Whether these words were Eli's usual response to people whom he encountered praying or whether God commanded him to speak those exact words to Hannah, we know that it was still God who allowed both the encounter and the conversation to take place. Eli could have said "Very well, carry on", but those are not the words that God allowed to flow from his mouth. Regardless of if Eli spoke those words out of self or obedience to God, God allowed Hannah to find comfort in her supplication, her encounter, and Eli's "go in peace and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him."

Many of us often find ourselves broken and in despair and part of the reason that we stay there is because we are too busy trying to write our own narrative as to how God is going to attend to our prayers. We want supernatural encounters so that we know for sure that God is both listening and moving on our behalf. However, God will sometimes speak and confirm things to us in the most calm and common of ways because our trust must be rooted in God's word and not how He delivers the message to us. In Hannah's time high priest were not just readily available to interact with the people, so for Hannah this encounter was indeed significant whereas for us, in our day and time, we might want something more.

Many of us would have probably wanted more than a "go in peace". Many of us would have probably wanted Eli to say, "God WILL grant what you requested," versus "May God grant what you requested". We would have wanted more certainty. Many of us would have wanted more words and more details.

Many of us often want words of preciseness. We want words that mean 'definite' such as "WILL BE DONE", "SHALL HAPPEN", and "WILL BE ANSWERED", not realizing that the confirmation does not always rest in the message, but it rests in the one who sends the message to us. The confirmation rests in God. Regardless of what words God allowed Eli to speak to Hannah, there would have been preciseness in those words, and they would have equated to being definite, because God was in the details and He was orchestrating the encounter. Hannah recognized her moment. Hannah found faith in what Eli said to her. She did not need him to reiterate back to her what she had prayed for, nor did she need him to confirm the details. And the entire time, GOD WAS WATCHING. God recognized her pain, her plea, her acceptance of peace, and her faith. AND HE REMEBERED HER!

FAITH YOURSELF MEMORABLE!            

We see that Hannah's husband to no avail could bring her out of her despair. No matter how much her husband might have confessed his love to her or inquired of her, how much she loved him, it was not going to soothe Hannah's pain nor was it going to stop her from wanting what she wanted. And if we were to really reflect on it, God was not going to allow Elkanah to be the one to soothe Hannah's wounded spirit or get her to relent from what she wanted because God always had a plan and a purpose for this despair that He allowed Hannah to endure. God wanted Hannah's dependency to rest in Him and Him alone. Samuel was always going to be a part of Hannah's future; God just needed her to seek Him for it and trust Him to do it. Because God had a plan for Samuel, He needed Hannah to be vulnerable enough and willing enough to give Samuel back to Him so that He could use Samuel according to His plan. God had a plan for the encounter between Hannah and Eli.

After all of Hannah's years of misery, one encounter with someone who in all honesty initially got it wrong, was still able to get Hannah to the place that she needed to be both spiritually and emotionally in order to receive her breakthrough. When God is in the details and when your pain is part of His plan, the assumptions and mislabeling that people place upon you don't faze you in the way that it normally would because you are too busy trying to get the breakthrough that you are praying for.

 

When you are supplicating to God from your wounded place and you are completely and wholeheartedly focused on Him, you could care less about who people think you are. You could care less about people's opinions concerning what you're going through. Your only concern is that God knows your despair.

 

Although Hannah clarified for Eli that her appearance of drunkenness was instead a prayer rooted in anguish, she did not lash out at him. Hannah recognized that her fight was not with trying to get Eli to recognize her truth, but she was trying to make sure that God recognized her truth. For many of us, that encounter would have perhaps ended differently because we probably might have felt the need to take our focus off our request to God in order to set Eli straight. And while Eli was so quick to rebuke Hannah for what he assumed was her issue, there were individuals in Eli's personal life that he should have been rebuking but failed to do so and God corrected him for such. When we are seeking God for something that has our spirits in a state of brokenness, we will at times have to ignore the people around us that get it twisted and let God fight that battle for us. When we stand in need of something we at times are going to have to ignore the distractions that come at us disguised as the opinions of man.

Now it appears that Eli may not have meant any harm in rebuking Hannah as he was the high priest, and he might have felt it his duty to rebuke any behaviors that disrespected the sanctity of the temple. However, Eli was completely wrong in his judgment. It is a blessing that Hannah did not allow being misjudged to wound her spirit even more than it already was.

Eli's judgment of Hannah could have been fatal. It could have caused Hannah to become even more discouraged and relent from her request. However, perhaps God allowed Eli to misjudge Hannah as a means of allowing Hannah to remind herself of who she was. After being taunted by Peninnah and allowing Peninnah to constantly make her feel unworthy, it took Eli mistaking her for a wicked woman for her to own the good about herself.

 

Something deep inside Hannah needed to recognize her worthiness. Hannah was stronger than she realized. It is also very much possible that God allowed Eli to misjudge and rebuke Hannah in order to teach Eli a lesson of his own. Maybe God needed Eli's eyes to be opened, considering what lied ahead of him. While we won't expound on it in this post, although completely wrong in assumption, Eli rebuking Hannah showed that he clearly recognized the need to rebuke that which is out of order although he failed to address it in his own household. And to show the manner in which God operates, it would be Samuel that God uses to bring Eli's own flaws to his attention.

Regardless of Eli's misunderstanding of Hannah's disposition, while Eli initially saw drunkenness, GOD SAW FAITH! God saw Hannah's cry and plea for help. 1 Samuel 1:19-20 in part reads, "Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.  So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son" (NIV). After Hannah's encounter with Eli, she walked away with peace and went back to life. She now chose worship over weeping in despair. Hannah was no longer stuck in the chains of feeling deprived, but her spirit had been lifted. And amidst her getting back to life, while she might have moved past her weeping in despair, God did not just remember that despair, but HE REMEMBERED HER! The scriptures stating that God remembered Hannah is not to say that God forgets, but what this meant is that God acknowledged Hannah's pouring her soul out to Him and He responded. God acknowledged Hannah's humility. God acknowledged Hannah's faith.

Our prayers do not get erased from God's memory. God does not allow our faith to go unnoticed. Even when it seems that our prayers are not being answered and that God does not hear our cry, we must trust that our faith is never wasted. Our faith is always acknowledged and in due time God rewards us for our faith. OUR FAITH WILL ALWAYS GET GOD'S ATTENTION!

If we recall Part 1 of "The Art of Supplication" and our discussion of Manasseh, he was as wicked a king as Israel had ever seen. Yet despite this fact, God did not ignore Manasseh's act of supplication that was rooted in faith. God is the one who allowed Manasseh to be taken captive as a result of His judgment upon him yet, God turned right around and answered Manasseh's cry for help and delivered him back to where He had him taken from because Manasseh trusted in Him. Although God punished Manasseh, He did not ignore his plea.

 

God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He is never without knowing. He knows us. He sees us. He knows exactly what we are going to do before we do it. Therefore, He is always aware. However, our plea that is rooted in faith although it does not surprise Him, it alerts Him. And it does not alert Him in a way that makes Him aware because He knows everything that is going to happen before it earthly happens because He is the one who orchestrates it. But our acting out our faith and dependency on God confirms to Him that we are as He created us to be. And when we confirm this to God, it is not confirming as in He needs assurance that His creation was without mistake, but it confirms it as in showing Him that we are both willing and choosing to operate according to how He created us to. It shows God our willingness to have faith in Him while recognizing Him as the source of everything that we will ever need. God created us to have faith in Him and to be fully dependent on Him. Our faith is part of what shows God our allegiance to Him.

Hannah was depending on God. Even when she came into contact with the high priest, she did not fall to his feet and beg him to make it happen for her, but she kept the duty and responsibility on God. She reverenced Eli as the high priest. She acknowledged him as a servant of God. She humbled herself to him recognizing that her humbling to him was honorable to God and in honor of God. But it was the God of Israel that she was depending on to give her what she wanted. AND GOD REMEMBERED HER!

 

We must also make our supplication memorable to God. How so? BACK IT WITH HUMILIITY, FAITH, AND FULL DEPENDECY ON HIM! Don't be afraid to pray your whole heart to God. Don't be afraid to pray your truth to God. He already knows but there is a release in doing so that frees us from the burden of carrying what we can't control or make happen for ourselves. There is a release that shows God that we acknowledge that He is there and that He is able. There is a release that allows us to let go of despair and exchange it for peace. We must faith ourselves memorable.

Overcoming Our Wounds through Peace and Trust        

Accepting God's peace and trusting Him to attend to our request is a pivotal part of making our request known to Him. However, WE MUST RECOGNIZE that having peace and trusting God does not automatically change our situation, it instead helps us to be sustained amidst it. When we have peace and trust in God, He is the one that changes the situation! Our accepting God's peace and trusting Him does not mean that we will then become able to orchestrate and shift things on our own behalf, but it means that God will start to orchestrate and shift things for us.

Hannah having peace and trusting God did not mean that she now had the power to cause herself to conceive, but it meant that God could now move on her behalf and both cause and allow her to conceive. Part of the reason that our spirits at times remain wounded and that our faith falters is because when we decide to have peace and trust God, we might often start off in a good place, but when we find that nothing seems to have changed, and it seems that nothing around us is moving, we take the burden back out of God's hands and think that we are doing something wrong or need to do something more, and we put ourselves back into the mindset that this thing that we are asking for is within our control. Does God give us power? Absolutely! But Him giving us power does not take the control out of His hands.

In Exodus 4:21, God says to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go" (NIV). God gave Moses the power to perform these wonders before Pharaoh, but God still remained in complete control. God gave Moses the power to perform, but God was still doing the orchestrating. We must understand that God giving us power does not mean that we can then make it happen for ourselves. Any power, strength, or might that God gives us, He remains both the source and controller of. Once we accept God's peace and we decide to trust Him, we must remember that God still calls the shots.

We must recognize that accepting God's peace and trusting Him to do as we have requested is not going to be a 'Peace and Poof' experience in which we accept God's peace and 'POOF' goes what we prayed for. Can God do it as such? YES, HE CAN and HE SOMETIMES DOES, but at other times, THERE WILL BE A WAIT!

It was always God's plan to deliver Daniel, but he still had to stay overnight in the lions' den. It was always God's plan to deliver Joseph, but he had to endure all the years that started at the pit and led to him being placed over the kingdom. It was always God's plan to deliver Israel through David and within minutes through the strength that God had given David, he KNOCKED GOLIATH OUT! Jesus touched many and they were INSTANTLY HEALED! Yet all of these individuals had to endure trials and circumstances surrounding what they needed deliverance from that started way before their moment of breakthrough. They all had a BACKSTORY whether we are made known of what their backstories were or not!

 

At times accepting God's peace and allowing ourselves to remain in it can be difficult when we are still enduring chaotic and tumultuous circumstances. Having God's peace is not about changing the situation as much as it's about changing how we choose to respond and navigate amidst it. Having peace and trusting God can help us to overcome both our wounds and being wounded, but we must remember that even in accepting the peace of God we might still find ourselves in a very natural battle. God's peace helps us to first win the war within us before God starts to change what we are warring with that exists outside of us.

There is much sorrow that exists within broken spirits. When we become wounded and we don't accept God's peace or trust Him for who and what He is, our spirits can become a detriment not just to ourselves but to everyone that we are connected to and come in contact with. Much like Hannah, we can find ourselves living every day in agony and defeat, allowing ourselves to be taunted by what we want and don't have and being ungrateful for that which we do. When our spirits are broken we become an even greater target for our enemies. When our spirits become wounded, it can put us in a place in which we allow one thing to make our whole lives feel both incomplete and useless.Having a wounded spirit can put us in a place in which we lose hope in everything.

 

Wounded spirits can find themselves in a place in which they don't care who they're loved by if they're not loved by the one who they're seeking love from.  

 

Wounded spirits at times don't care how much they're needed if they're not needed by the one that they want to be dependent on them.

At many times those with wounded spirits don't know how to embrace joy, react to love, or function in peace because defeat and downtrodden have become their resting place.

Broken spirits tend to paint a picture using the same color, the same brush, and the same canvas for every picture that they paint causing everything to appear to them as one joint mess. They won't see any beauty in it. However, if that same broken spirit, can do like Hannah and dare to supplicate, give it God, accept His peace, and have faith, they will be able to look at that canvas that they once viewed a mess, consider it abstract, and appreciate the beauty that can be manifested through brokenness when we look to God to overcome.

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We might all flock toward prayer when we        stand in need of something, want guidance on  a decision that we need to make, or just want    to take out time to commune with God. Many

of us have even tried to understand the root of  what prayer is and how we can pray more        effectively. BUT WHAT ABOUT SUPPLICATION?

In Philippians 4:6, Paul instructs us, "by prayer

and supplication with thanksgiving", to make

our requests known unto God. But what is        supplication and what does it have to do with    how we pray?

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What is supplication and what does it look

like? The answer is not as simple as it seems.    Supplication won't always wear the same face

or appear in the same contexts, but if we

explore the Word of God, the examples are

most definitely there. On last week, we              attempted to explore the differentiation

between prayer and supplication. Now, let's      examine supplication from the viewpoint of

two particular verses, and within exploring these verses let's also explore a very significant and    imperative ingredient that adds an "AMEN" to our supplication, and it is that infamous word and thing that we struggle to do concerning those things that we ask God for. And in case you haven't guessed it...

It's "TRUST"

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"God, grant me the serenity to accept

the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference."

How often have we read this very familiar          passage or recited it as a positive affirmation

to remind us to either let go or to hold on?

Better yet how many of us who have recited

it, have actually been successful in applying

it into our lives and within our circumstances?

If we want the essence of this prayer to

manifest itself and become ever so present

in our lives, we must not only recite it, but we

must also come to understand the depths of

it, and how we can truly act out what it says.

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