Prayer in the Midst of Cosmic Conflict

Can you imagine showing up to play a basketball game in a hockey uniform—ice skates, helmet, shoulder pads, and all? That would be ridiculous. You’d be entirely unsuited to perform. Even worse, imagine showing up to play a hockey game in tennis clothing. Without ice skates, a helmet and other protective gear, or a stick, you’d have no chance. Those are just sports, you might think—trivial matters. But you’d never even consider showing up to play such games with the entirely wrong gear.

How much less would you even think of entering a nuclear facility and putting your body in the presence of radioactive materials without the proper protective gear? That would be a matter of life and death.

We would never show up unprepared in those ways, yet I fear we sometimes do not take the life of faith and the practice of prayer in the midst of spiritual warfare seriously enough. Do we think that spiritual matters are not matters of life and death?

The Priority of Prayer

“Of course I believe spiritual matters are of utmost importance!” you might answer. But do you and I live like that? Do our priorities—the way we spend our time, energy, and money—match what we claim to believe?

If we are serious about our faith—at least as serious as we would be about mere games—why do we so often neglect to put on the armor of God? Why do we so often pray without realizing we are embroiled in a life-and-death struggle—a cosmic conflict in which “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19, NASB)? Why do we so often neglect to spend uninterrupted time in prayer altogether?

Christ Himself often withdrew for dedicated times of prayer, sometimes even spending entire nights praying. He who was sinless and in perfect relationship with the Father recognized the need for dedicated, uninterrupted prayer. How much more do we need this?

Given how busy life is today, it is easy to neglect prayer—or to neglect praying with the seriousness that these days of earth’s history demand. Yet what could be more important than one’s relationship with God?

Simply defined, prayer is communication with the living God. As Ellen G. White once put it: “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.”¹ It includes praise, confession, thanksgiving, lamentation, surrender, and petition.

Indeed, without neglecting other aspects of prayer, Scripture consistently highlights petitionary prayer—prayer that calls on God to act in our lives and the lives of others. Indeed, the New Testament is filled with intercessory prayers, and calls for Christians to offer them. Notably the vast majority of such prayers are focused on the mission of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ—the advance of the light against the darkness.

Spiritually “Armored” Prayer

From the front lines of mission Paul often called for petitionary prayer, and in Ephesians 6 he directly locates such prayer in the context of the great controversy, with specific instructions for how we are to prepare for spiritual conflict.

Given how busy life is today, it is easy to neglect prayer—or to neglect praying with the seriousness that these days of earth’s history demand.

Paul writes, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:11, 12).

Our struggle is not against other humans, and any understanding of the cosmic conflict that causes us to demonize other humans is not of God. This conflict is a cosmic struggle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (verse 12, NIV).

In this context of cosmic conflict, just a few verses later Paul calls for fervent petitionary prayer: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf” (Eph. 6:18, 19, NASB1995).²

To pray as Paul calls us to pray, we must understand that this spiritual warfare is not like earthly warfare. This is a conflict of a different kind, a conflict over the truth and whom to trust, in which the devil is “the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9, NRSV), relentlessly waging a war of disinformation.

Thus, elsewhere Paul writes, “We do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5, NRSV).

To this end, Paul instructs us to “put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” in this “struggle . . . against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:11, 12, NIV). It is no coincidence that the spiritual “armor” Paul exhorts Christians to put on is suited for a conflict over truth, with an arch-deceiving enemy—the devil, whom Jesus calls “the father of lies” (John 8:44, NIV) and the temporary, usurping “ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).

Accordingly, Paul first calls us to wear “the belt of truth” (Eph. 6:14, NIV), which makes sense against the “father of lies,” whose modus operandi is continual deception, slandering of God’s name, and accusations against God’s people (cf. Gen. 3; Job 1; 2; Rev. 12:9, 10). Here and elsewhere Scripture makes clear that the truth matters far more than most realize.³ Thus, in His quest to ultimately “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8; cf. Heb 2:14), Christ came to “bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37) and called His disciples to also bear witness to the truth (John 15:27).

Second, Paul instructs, put on “the breastplate of righteousness” (Eph. 6:14), highlighting the importance of goodness and justice, which are intrinsic to God’s nature and character (e.g., Deut. 32:4; 1 John 1:5). Since all have sinned, we must pray in a spirit of repentance, yet with confidence that we can come to the Father and be accepted through Christ (see Heb. 4:15; cf. 1 John 1:9; Rom. 8:1; 1 Cor. 1:30).

Putting on the breastplate of righteousness, then, does not give license to self-righteous prayer. Quite the opposite. Praying in right relationship with God involves confessing sin, seeking God’s mercy and forgiveness even as we forgive others, and asking God to cleanse us and make us people of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Next Paul calls believers to “shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace” and further instructs to take “the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:15-17).

Here Paul emphasizes the importance of faith as a shield against the devil’s arrows that are designed to undermine faith in God by deception and slander. To have faith, particularly when it comes to prayer, is not to presume that God will act exactly as we might think He should. Faith involves trust that God hears, God cares, God is all-powerful, and God is perfectly good—even when we cannot see all that is involved. Even when our prayers are not answered in the ways we had hoped, faith holds fast in confidence in God’s character while we continue to pray, “Your will be done” (Matt. 6:10).

Our struggle is not against other humans, and any understanding of the cosmic conflict that causes us to demonize other humans is not of God.

Paul likewise highlights salvation (cf. Rom. 13:11, 12), which comes only by faith and God’s word. Here we must remember that prayer depends not on the adequacy of our performance, but on God’s saving work.

And, in light of “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” we must make sure our prayers are formed in accordance with God’s Word. Prayer detached from Scripture and the mission of God can easily become an echo chamber of our own desires. Prayer shaped by Scripture, on the other hand, is oriented toward God’s mission of love and light to a world filled with darkness.

Persevere in Fervent Prayer

Just after this, Paul urges Christians to persevere in fervent prayer: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf” (Eph. 6:18, 19, NASB1995).

Likewise, Paul elsewhere instructs believers to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). I remember as a young man thinking that verse called for the impossible. It must be hyperbole, I thought, meaning something like “pray when you can.”

But Scripture repeatedly calls for constant prayer. If we take these instructions as referring only to formal prayer, that would indeed be impossible. But prayer is not limited to kneeling with our eyes closed beside a bed or in church. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you can speak to God right now, for He is always with you. “There is no time or place in which it is inappropriate to offer up a petition to God.”⁴

Not only can you pray to Him at all times, but Jesus Himself is also always interceding for you. “He always lives to make intercession” for “those who come to God through Him” (Heb. 7:25). And the Holy Spirit also intercedes for you, too: “The Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us” (Rom. 8:26).

And there is still more good news. Lest you think that the Father needs to be convinced or persuaded to desire and do good things for you, Scripture is clear that—in Jesus’ words—“the Father Himself loves you” (John 16:27). You and I pray as one whom the Father already loves more than we can possibly imagine, and He gladly gives “good things to those who ask Him” (Matt. 7:11).

Why Not Pray?

Why, then, do we need to ask at all if God is such a good and loving Father? That is a big question—a bigger question than I can answer sufficiently in an article like this; I have written an entire book about that.⁵ Here, suffice it to say that in this cosmic conflict we are temporarily in enemy territory—living within what the New Testament calls the domain of darkness (cf. Col. 1:13). In this context Scripture consistently portrays prayer as playing a genuinely significant role, including with respect to unseen realities in the cosmic conflict.

Remember, though, that prayer throughout Scripture is most often ordered toward mission. It is not wrong to pray for ourselves and our needs—Christ Himself instructs us to do so (see Luke 11:1-13). But we must make sure we pray with motives shaped by unselfish love (see James 4:3). Scripture consistently calls us to spend a great deal of time praying for others, and calls us to also to act accordingly—doing what we can to bring about good in others’ lives by our own hands and feet.

Pray for daily bread, healing, deliverance, and whatever else you may need, then. But also pray for those who hunger, suffer, wander, and grieve. Pray for God’s people. Pray for God’s work. And ask how God is calling you to act as part of the answer to those very prayers.

Paul urges Christians to always be prepared to stand against evil with the armor of God and perseverance in prayer. We cannot stand against evil without divine power. But there is hope: God makes a way. He provides everything we need.

So what are you waiting for? If you have not done so, commit to daily putting on the armor of God and fervently praying not only for yourself and your needs but also for God’s people and God’s work in this world.

Although we are very often focused on merely mundane matters, Scripture pulls back the curtain and shows us that we live in the midst of a cosmic conflict. Yet we are to pray, not in fear, but in faith. We pray in the confidence that the Father loves us, the Son intercedes for us, and the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We pray in accordance with God’s call to participate in His mission of light, truth, righteousness, peace, and love until the day the light finally fully dawns and darkness is no more.