Prayers for the Womb
(mentioned on the “Ministering to Babies in the Womb” album)
These prayers were originally developed when we recorded the series several years ago.
Please use them freely, but keep in mind that they are designed to be a springboard, not an absolute guideline.
There have been many new insights discovered since they were created, and we encourage you to incorporate the new things you are learning.
So, be blessed as you follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit and may these additional tools help you nurture the spirit of the children in your life.
Arthur Burk
Prayers to Break Curses of Infertility
Genesis 35:1ff
Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God...” God appeared to him again and blessed him. God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number...”
Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God talked with him... Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty... So Rachel died. Genesis 35:1ff NIV
After the city of Jerusalem, Bethel is the second most mentioned city in Scripture. This land was spiritually charged as a place where mankind could connect with the spirit realm more easily than other places. It was here eventually that Jeroboam introduced worship of the golden calves. Far better that God’s people controlled that land than the kingdom of darkness. Hence God met Jacob there when he was running from his brother Esau. And God sent him back there from Paddan Aram. In the next 15 to 20 years, Jacob never went the Bethel because it did not have good grazing. After the debacle at Shechem, God specifically ordered him to go SETTLE in Bethel to sanctify and secure that critical land.
As Jacob finally began to move in obedience to the call of God on his life, it says, “the terror of God fell upon all the towns all around them so that no one pursued him” (Genesis 35:5). Not only did he have full protection, but also when he arrived there, God finally gave him his birthright. His name was changed from “Supplanter” to “God prevails.” He thought he received his birthright when he wrestled with God at Peniel. He actually stepped into it at the point of simple obedience to God’s commands.
God met him at the point of obedience and blessed him with fertility. The only one of his wives who was still bearing children was Rachel. I wonder if God’s intent was to father the entire nation through her, and to have the other children sent away like Abraham’s other children were.
Regardless of what God’s plan was, Jacob refused to remain in obedience. He moved away from Bethel. From that time on, a devouring curse swept through his family. Only days later, Rachel his beloved died, and he had no more children after that and destruction nipped at the heels of his whole family for the rest of time.
If there is a pattern in your family line of having health, freedom, finances or future devoured, it may a generational curse stemming from an overt act of selecting financial comfort over obedience. Break that curse off the generations, then in your own life move to a high level of earned authority through obedience to the kingdom work God has clearly assigned you to do, regardless of the cost.
Prayers to Break Curses of Infertility
Deuteronomy 33:11
Bless all his skills, O LORD, and be pleased with the work of his hands. Smite the loins of those who rise up against him; strike his foes till they rise no more. Deuteronomy 33:11
Just before Moses died, he prophetically blessed each of the tribes of Israel. This passage is part of Moses’ blessing on the tribe of Levi. There is an interesting contrast between his asking God to bless Levi, and his calling down curses on those who resisted Levi. Of course Levi the man was long dead, but the tribe stood as the priestly tribe in Israel and therein lie some lessons for us.
There was no middle ground. The priesthood was to be spiritually blessed and was to also be nurtured and defended in the natural. God is quite protective of the office of the priesthood. Even when dealing with Caiaphas, the ungodly and illegitimate high priest who procured Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, Jesus would not revile him.
In this verse the phrase “smite the loins” can have different meanings depending on how you translate the poetic imagery. But one of the more straightforward meanings is to cut off the ability to reproduce. In other words, if someone resisted or reviled God’s priesthood, the consequence would be that their family line would die out.
While we don’t use the word “priesthood” in the same context today, it stands to reason that God is still quite offended when His appointed spiritual eldership is reviled or attacked.
If there is any sense that in your generation or in previous generations there has been a wrong response to spiritual authority, that needs to be confessed and renounced and any curses attached to the womb must be broken off. This is not saying that the spiritual authorities God placed over us are always right. It merely means that their judgment is in the hands of God, not in our hands, and we choose to step back from that position of judgment, lest God curse our physical or spiritual reproduction. Having done that, you should overtly claim the cleaning from sin that God has promised when we confess our sin and cover it with the blood. Than spend some time praying blessings on your spiritual eldership, simply because of their position.
Finally ask God to release life into your womb with the same power that He used at one point to close your womb.
Prayers to Break Curses of Infertility
Isaiah 39:5-8
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD Almighty: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon.
Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
“The word of the LORD you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.” Isaiah 39:5-8
This is yet another curse of barrenness. While it did not produce barrenness in Hezekiah’s generation, it did cut off his family line in a subsequent generation. The king of Babylon killed many of his children and grandchildren and others were made eunuchs.
The issue here is whether a person has a generational worldview or not. Understand that when it came to obedience in his generation, Hezekiah had no peers. In God’s evaluation, Hezekiah was set above all other kings in the history of Israel. This means his obedience was more radical and pleasing than David’s which is a pretty high complement (II Kings 18:5-6).
However, even though he was obedient in his generation, he had no passion for subsequent generations. When the prophet Isaiah spoke to him of his own impending death in Isaiah 38, he wept and pleaded with God until God reversed His own decree and gave Hezekiah 15 more years of life. When the same prophet brought a message of destruction about many of the same king’s offspring, he couldn’t be bothered. There was not one single tear, not a whispered prayer, not an iota of effort invested in the well-being of subsequent generations of his own family line. And that was iniquity.
Today the same mindset is rampant. Couples postpone childbearing until careers are well established. When children are conceived they are shuffled off to childcare because income in this generation is more desirable than spiritual heritage for the next generation. Mothers use the TV to entertain their children because it is easier than personally nurturing their minds and spirits. Fathers take promotions knowing that the hours and travel will be hard on the family. Even on the smallest level, fathers come home from work with a focus on having an evening to relax and enjoy themselves in front of the TV, instead of valuing the time for nurture of the next generation. As children grow older, parents give in and allow the kids to do unwholesome things because the parents would rather have short-term peace than to hold a line against the pressures of an evil society.
If these iniquities have been in your family lines, renounce that value system, break the curse of the family line being cut off, apply the blood of Christ to all that evil then proclaim that that wrong value system and that deadly curse will stop with your generation.
Then make covenant with God. Describe to God in detail how you plan to raise the children you desire that He give you. Tell Him about the sacrifices you will make in your generation for the sake of the next one. Tell Him what spiritual dynamics you desire to build into the family line for multiple generations to come.
Then ask Him to bless your generational vision with His favor and to give you children that you can raise as a spiritual priority, not as an appendage to your own life’s plans.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Genesis 1:28
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:28
The story of the Garden of Eden provides great insight into God’s ideals. Having families is certainly central to that. There are three specific observations we can make about child bearing from this verse. First, it is not only a privilege but it is also a God- given responsibility. Second, the purpose for having a family is to implement the Dominion Mandate. Third, the ability to have a family is the result of God’s blessings.
Let’s bring those three things into the context of intercession. Prayer is presenting any kind of petition to God. It is perfectly permissible to present our emotions to God, even when we are certain what we want is not what God wants. Christ did that in the Garden of Gethsemane. Intercession however, is praying God’s will into reality. It is arguing a legal case before God, using Scripture to show God why the thing we are asking for His will and should therefore be granted. So this week, you as a couple should sit down and make a list of all the ways your family could implement the Dominion Mandate better as a larger family, than as a family of two. Look at the examples of family ministry in Scripture (case law) and build your case so it is strong. Start with the specific call on your own lives as individuals, then as a couple, and show every different aspect of those calls that could be better implemented if you had children working with you.
From there, present yourselves to God as willing stewards of the marvelous gift of life. Commit to the responsibility of raising children for the sake of the Kingdom, not for your own pleasure. Turn the situation completely around. Instead of asking God to give you children because you want them, ask Him to give you the children that would enable His Kingdom purposes to go forward. Hannah had a problem in that she needed children for the sake of her identity as a woman and a wife. God had the bigger problem in that He needed a prophet in Israel. God gave her a child when she committed to give the child back to Him for His Kingdom purposes. In the same way, set aside your needs. Show God His need of a womb to bear some world changers and offer yourselves as a couple who is willing to serve God by raising such Kingdom-focused children.
Then in the context of the Dominion Mandate and your submission, ask God to bless your womb with new life.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Genesis 25:21
Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. Genesis 25:21
Imagine what was going through Isaac’s mind when the first couple of years of marriage passed and his wife did not conceive. He knew full well the story of his own conception, and he must have been thinking, “Here we go again! Am I going to have to wait sixty more years before having a son like Dad did?”
While Abraham initially wondered whether he would ever have a son, there should not have been any doubt in Isaac’s mind. He had clearly articulated generational blessings that could only be fulfilled through his having a child. So even though he wasn’t sure of God’s timing, he was sufficiently sure that the promise was good that he prayed for his wife to be healed, and she was.
There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. First of all, Isaac did not let his father’s experience become the norm. He did not wait a few decades for God to show up so he could discuss the situation with God personally, the way Abraham did. He took the initiative. Similarly, each couple who has not yet conceived, should stop looking at what has “worked” for others around them. Each case is unique. Seek God for your own strategy.
Second, you can appeal to God for children based on His faithfulness to fulfill the generational promises in your family line. Now most of us do not have as clear an understanding of God’s promises to our forefathers as Isaac did. However, God has a perfect record. Christ lives to intercede for us, and He has access to the record.
So the husband could go to the Lord in prayer invoking any (unknown) unfulfilled generational promises. If there are blessings on the books that require your having children before those blessings can be released, ask the Lord to plead your case before the Father on your behalf, reminding Him of those blessings.
In effect, you are asking for children not simply because you want them (a weak argument) but because God’s faithfulness requires that He give them to you (a strong argument).
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Genesis 30:1-2
When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?” Genesis 30:1-2
Some people cannot conceive because of genuine biological problems. God is sovereignly delaying others because he has an unusual plan for them. But some cannot conceive because of spiritual or soul issues.
One of the dominant soul/spirit patterns among women who do not conceive easily is a combination of pride and control. They are usually far above average in natural abilities, work hard, accomplish more than their peers, know how to walk in their spiritual gifts and are generally women of excellence. However, behind that is a pride in their own competence and a silent assumption that they can overcome any barrier. God frequently allows them to walk in excellence in every other area, but He demonstrates His power and our human frailty by stopping them at this one point of control.
Pride and control were generational issues in Rachel’s family line. Her Aunt/Mother-in-law, Rebekah, was a controller and manipulator. So was her father, Laban. So was Lot. And so was she. And when she tried to put pressure on Jacob to enable her to have her own way with life, he rightly reacted to her presumption, pointing out that God, not husbands or wives, controls the womb.
In the fullness of time, God gave her children. It was His plan all along. But He humbled her for many long years before giving her children.
If there is any spirit of pride or control in your family line, or your own life, that should be confessed as sin and broken off. Specifically break off the womb all spiritual defilement from those two sins. Then dedicate the womb to God, acknowledging His dominion over it. Thank the Lord by faith for the godly character He is building in you before you have your children.
Then your entire emotional focus should shift away from having children toward building into your life the character quality of gratitude. As that is brought to maturity, it frees God to release life into your womb.
And after all, who wants to have children who are infected with the germs of pride and control? It is actually the mercy of God that keeps us from having children if those issues are unresolved in us and our generational lines.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Genesis 4:1
Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.” Genesis 4:1
Guilt is a devastating thing. Even after the legal penalty has been paid, the fragmentation of relationships remains. A person who commits a crime goes to prison. But when he comes out of prison, he is alienated from society. It is difficult to get a job because of the past and many personal relationships are skewed as well.
This was the case with Adam and Eve. They went from having the highest level of intimacy with God that any man has had, to being criminals. The God who was their friend was now feared. They hid. Their fears were justified because He found them and became their judge. He decreed devastating consequences on them because of their sin, and He personally implemented those consequences. But worst of all, He posted an angel at the entrance to the Garden to keep Adam and Eve from ever recovering the life they once had.
If the story ended there, it would be bleak. But unlike our society, the Judge of the Universe does not just mete out appropriate sentences. He is actively involved in the restoration process. God would not restore them through the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. That was lost for all of time. But He committed to restoring them through their seed.
Eve had very little frame of reference for intercourse, conception, gestation and childbirth. We don’t know what God explained to her, but one thing is for sure: She had no human role model to learn from. Her only resources were her husband who was as inexperienced as she, and her God. Thus the triumphant cry after the birth of Cain. Her God, the one who had judged her initially, had partnered with her in this mighty act of restoration.
When a woman cannot conceive, Satan is right there with his accusations. His bottom line is that she cannot conceive because God is angry at her for past sins. If there is unconfessed sin, confess it. But if you have already confessed it, today is a day to rise up in defiance against the enemy of your soul, and proclaim that the very God who once disciplined you for your sins is now totally on your side. He Himself will partner with you in the healing of your womb. He Himself will make the decision as to when you will conceive and He Himself will knit your child together in your womb. Defy the liar!
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Genesis 49:24-25
...because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, because of your father’s God, who helps you, because of the Almighty, who blesses you with the blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and womb. Genesis 49:24-25
There are two different words in the Hebrew for blessing. One of those refers to the positive consequences of our righteous acts. In other words, we reap positive things when we sow righteously. The other word refers to God’s intervention, totally apart from our investment in the situation. Simply put, God wills the thing into our life.
It is the second word that is used here. This blessing was given by Jacob for Joseph for no other reason than that Jacob loved Joseph. He gave greater blessings to Joseph than to any other the other sons. And because those blessings spoken by Jacob were willed by the Father, they had power. God caused the two tribes that came from Joseph to increase dramatically in numbers while they were in the desert. The nation as a whole did not grow, but those two tribes did, because the blessing pursued them.
Cry out to God for His blessing on your womb. The circumstances around you do not matter anymore than Israel’s subsequent slavery in Egypt, and their years of discipline in the desert could not keep the tribes from growing.
So appeal to the power of God and the shepherding heart of God, and ask Him to bestow the blessing of vibrant fertility on your womb. When God decrees it, there is no work of the enemy that can undo it and no circumstances that can prevent it.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Judges 13:7
But he said to me, “You will conceive and give birth to a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazarite of God from birth until the day of his death.” Judges 13:7
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:18-20
The angel gave these instructions to a barren woman. He not only announced that she would have a son, Samson, but he also informed her that this would be no ordinary son. This child was to be filled with the Spirit from the moment of conception. The Ephesians passage draws a parallel between the work of the Spirit and the stimulation of wine.
For a Nazarite, the mother merely needed to abstain from certain foods and from wine. We can go farther by preparing the womb with the joy of the Lord. There are countless stories of women adopting a child only to immediately get pregnant after years of not being able to conceive. Doctors have found that sorrow, frustration, desperation, grief and related emotions inhibit a woman’s ability to conceive. Joy enhances it. With the adoption, the joy of finally holding a child in her arms gave the emotional release necessary for the woman to conceive.
So ask the Lord to give you eyes to see His fingerprints on all the big and little things of each day. While your heart’s desire may be for a child, do not let the waiting period go by in vain. God is present in your life. As you see His love gifts to you and celebrate them, it releases the joy of the Lord in your life and literally changes the biological environment of your womb.
Besides that, enjoying God is just plain right!
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Psalm 138:7-8
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, with your right hand you save me. The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever - do not abandon the works of your hands. Psalm 138:7-8
Consider a number line from minus 100, through zero, to plus 100. On the negative end of the scale, the devil is trying to damage us. At zero, God has rescued us from the attacks of the devil. After you have been the object of the devil’s wrath, being at zero feels wonderful. But it is not the end of the story. God preserves our lives from the devil’s destructive attacks so that He can fulfill His plan for our life.
He has a purpose for designing you the way He did. You are the product of God’s skilled labor. He loves His original plan regardless of what you have done with your life in the interim. And He still desires to see His plan for you fulfilled, even more than you desire it.
So begin by making some proclamations. Scroll through your own life and your wife’s life from conception to the present and remind the devil of every single time he attempted to destroy either of you and was unsuccessful. Remind him of all the ways that God has protected you. Then go beyond the defensive posture and tell the devil about a hundred or so good things God has done for each of you that prove His love and His commitment to your walking in dominion.
Then after you have presented those two lists of evidence in the heavenlies, proclaim that God has not finished His work yet. The fact that you are alive means that God still has unfinished plans for you, and He is partnering with you in getting those plans fulfilled.
Then bless your wife’s womb with life as part of God fulfilling His plan for your marriage.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Psalm 145:15-16
The LORD upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. Psalm 145:15-16
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12
There seems to be a direct connection between a woman’s fertility and her sense of fulfillment. A huge number of supposedly infertile women conceived shortly after adopting a child. The frustration over desire for a child actually closed the womb, while the joy of receiving and caring for the adopted child opened the womb.
The desire to have a child is God-given, is excellent and is not meant to be easily silenced. When a couple believes that God has planned for them to have children, they should press in for that gift on a sustained basis. Yet, pursuing that objective only to have it deferred month after month can cause a real emotional heaviness and accumulated hurt.
Part of the solution is to find fulfillment in the other parts of her life. A woman is more than a motherto-be. She is a wife, a helpmeet, a member of the royal priesthood, an ambassador of reconciliation, a part of the Bride of Christ, a vessel filled with unique and valuable anointings from the Holy Spirit, a friend, a daughter, a masterpiece of God’s creativity. In all of these roles and many more there is room for vast fulfillment. And in each of these, there are lessons to be learned that will make the woman a more skilled mother when her time comes.
Ask the Lord to show you, as a couple, the areas where He has designed the wife to find fulfillment at the present moment. The husband should begin to bathe those endeavors in prayer, asking that God’s blessing would flow to and through his wife in those areas. He should seek to position her in the natural and in the spiritual realms to experience great fulfillment of all the other godly desires already resident in her soul.
The wife, for her part, needs to overtly look for the finger of God in her life, and make his presence in and through her a cause of great celebration. Do not just observe that good things have happened during your day. Use the dinnertime and the evening of each day as a time of enthusiastically celebrating what God has done and is doing. As you bathe your soul and spirit and body with the joy of the Lord, it prepares your womb to receive the seed of life in a wholesome way.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Psalm 147:2-5
The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit. Psalm 147:2-5
All our technology has not enabled us to map the heavens. There are vast stores of data about the stars in our computers, but we are simply unable to map and name all the stars in even one galaxy, let alone all of them. It is such a comfort then to see God use this measure of His greatness as the yardstick for His power and for His ability to heal.
So Father, I invite You to bring your infinite power and compassion to bear on all the issues related to my womb. Heal the heart wounds, then bind up the wounds in the womb. Whether the issue is demonic or biological, your power is vastly greater than the problem. As You identify each star by name, so You can identify the root issues here. As You spoke the stars into existence, so You can speak healing and life into my body and soul.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Psalm 57:2-3
I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me. He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me; God sends his love and his faithfulness. Psalm 57:2-3
It is in the very act of submission that we find our greatest spiritual authority. Scripture is clear that God opens and closes the womb. Just as using abortion to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is wrong, so it is wrong to demand conception when it is not God’s will or His time. When God closes the womb for a season or a lifetime, it is not a capricious, malicious act. It is part of His master plan for our good.
But once we submit to Him and invite Him to fulfill HIS purpose for us, then we can cry out to Him for protection. So submit your womb and your time line for conception to God. Invite Him to do what is the very best for you. Then ask Him to give the order that will release a wholesale assault by heaven’s hosts against everything and anything evil that is hindering or damaging conception. If conception is delayed, let it be only because it is the will of a holy God and not because the devil has any influence over your womb. Then move beyond spiritual warfare and ask the Lord to bless you with His love and His faithfulness. It can be emotionally difficult to come in total submission to God’s will, especially when His will might run counter to our will, and worst of all when we don’t even know what His will is. So we submit as an act of our will, not an act of emotional peace.
But having submitted, ask the Lord to bathe your emotions with His love and faithfulness, so as to bring your peace and confidence to high tide again. Ask Him to give you a greater sense of wellbeing because of His presence in your spirit, than you would have in your soul if you already held a child in your arms.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Psalm 141:1-2
O LORD, I call to you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. Psalm 141:1-2
Imagine this scene. You are in the doctor’s office and he is about to do a procedure that you know will be painful. You are tense, bracing yourself for the pain. The doctor sees how tense you are and tells you to relax because the more tense you are, the more the procedure will hurt. You try to relax, but it is irrational for your conscious mind to tell your subconscious mind to lower all defenses at the very moment that pain is about to assault you. You try, but it is usually a feeble effort.
We encounter the same syndrome in our soul. The desire to have children is intense. So we pray intensely. And the tension very quickly becomes anxiety, and each month becomes saturated with the pending disappointment of not having conceived again. And this emotional tension directly, chemically reduces the possibility of conception.
So the objective is to “relax” emotionally while you wrestle with one of the biggest issues in life. And to do that, you will need God’s help. That is what this verse talks about. There was clearly a sense of urgency. He wanted a response quickly. There was also some anxiety over whether God was even going to hear him, let alone respond. So in light of that emotional intensity, he asked God to make his prayer be like incense as an antidote to the anxiety that was budding out of the intensity of his emotions.
The smoke and odor of incense are gentle. You cannot force the smoke to follow a specific pattern. You cannot hurry it up. It is not violent, harsh, intense or disruptive. Yet it is intrusive, powerful, inescapable and effective.
The Hebrew word translated “prayer” is a broad term covering all kinds of communication with God. It goes far beyond petition. I suggest that for one month the mother-to-be should only offer praise to the Lord. Let her spirit be saturated with the goodness of God and the unrelenting joy of the Lord for one month as she shares glory stories with others and celebrates with her Lord His endless loving kindness.
During that same month, her husband should do all the praying that involves petition, warfare and anything else that is intense. And one of his most regular petitions should be that his wife’s prayer life is transformed from intensity of battle to the sweet passion of praise.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Hosea 11:8-9
My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man - the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. Hosea 11:8-9
In much of our spiritual warfare, we are pleading a legal case with God. There is demonic active in our life because of sin, rebellion and iniquity on our part or because of our ancestors. We confess that which is wrong and we receive cleansing. This disempowers the demons. So therefore, we have a legal right to command them to leave.
While this is good and right and proper and we need to master the art of standing on the blood covenant we have with Jesus Christ, there is a higher plea. We can transcend the legal issues and appeal directly to the heart of God. That is what the prophet does here.
God acknowledges that His holiness is beyond anything that we can achieve. Our confessions are paltry because we are so accustomed to sin that we don’t even recognize the things that need to be confessed. When He brings His holiness to bear on our lives, the only proper result is for Him to come to us in wrath.
But then God Himself presents the argument that balances out His intense holiness and that is His overwhelming compassion.
So if you have grieved over barrenness or death in your womb, present all that grief to God in detail. Tell Him your hopes and dreams. Remind Him of the painful memories and the wounds in your soul. Share your fears and even your imperfections - your unholiness.
And then cry out for His heart to change and for His compassion to be aroused so that He speaks life and holiness and safety into your womb. There is no force of the devil that can stand against the compassion of God in any form. Call it forth.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Hosea 2:14-15
Therefore I am now going to allure her, I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth. Hosea 2:14-15
The Valley of Achor was where Achan and his family were stoned to death after his sin at Jericho caused Israel’s army to be routed and 36 soldiers to be killed. The word “Achor” means trouble or disturbance. That valley was forever associated in Israel with sin, shame, judgment, death and destruction.
Similarly, both barrenness and death in the womb can cause deep emotional turmoil in a family. At times we can trace the cause to a generational iniquity which can be addressed. Other times there has been sin in the current generation that can likewise be released. Sometimes there are identifiable biological problems that need to be treated. And sometimes we can only point to the sovereignty of God.
Regardless of cause, known or unknown, the loss of a child in the womb causes distress. It can cause us to retreat into a defensive posture, struggling to push away the encroaching fingers of fear while we pray protection and plead for a normal pregnancy.
God has a higher standard though. He wants to meet you at the very point of emotional trouble and insecurity and turn that into a place of hope, joy and abundance. With the visual, physical and emotional images of a miscarriage burned into your memory banks, it seems that security in pregnancy will be an illusion until your child is born full-term and lies in your arms, a picture of health and vitality.
Against that lie, bring this verse. Ask God to root out fear. Ask Him to restore to you the young wife’s vibrant anticipation of pregnancy. Ask Him to restore your joy so that it is like a mother who has never known loss. In the specific desert spot in your soul, invite Him in to do a miracle of healing so that the new life that will come to your womb will be wrapped and bathed in anointed hope and extravagant songs of joy.
The Lord of Life can do this. Furthermore, He wants to do this.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Hosea 2:18-19
In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. Hosea 2:18-19 NIV
But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. I Timothy 2:15 NASB
A Christian midwife who has trained many other midwives once said that Christian women are ten times more likely to experience difficulties in childbirth than non-Christians. This should come as no surprise to us. Each child born of godly seed brings into the world a package of generational blessings and a potential to inflict great damage on the kingdom of darkness. So Satan fights us on this issue.
In this passage, Hosea the prophet speaks of a time when the sanctity of man’s relationship with the animals will be restored. This will return us to the status of the Garden where there was no conflict between man and animals. Man had dominion and the animals submitted to that. In the future, God will restore that dominion over nature by establishing a new covenant.
Similarly, the war in the womb is an aberration since the fall of man. It is not God’s original design. God’s design is for the womb to be a sanctuary where there is no need to do battle. So if your womb has been a place of battle in the past, invoke the New Covenant you have as a believer. Ask God to abolish the bow, the sword and battle from your womb. Then ask Him to make it into a sanctuary where righteousness, justice, love and compassion are dominant.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Joel 2:25-26
I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten - the great locusts and the locust swarm - my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Joel 2:25-26
For us, the loss of a child or the loss of a year during which a child was not conceived is an irreparable loss. There is nothing we can do to replace life or time, once it has slipped through our fingers. Having another child after a miscarriage does not replace a child that was taken to be with the Lord earlier than we expected. Each child has its own place.
A second more serious issue is the loss of our relationship with God when tragedy strikes in such a tender spot. We become like Job who wrestled with the split between his faith and his emotions. On the one hand, he proclaimed his faith in God through the immortal cry, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). On the other hand, Job spent chapters 26 through 31 protesting that it made no sense whatsoever than God should do this to him. His emotions were in full rebellion against his faith.
God’s promise to Israel was not just restoration of the finances that had been lost over the years, but it was also a restoration of emotional intimacy and security in Him. He would restore them miraculously. And the process would cause Israel to have an emotional response of praise coupled with the confidence that they would never be shamed again.
So continue to press in asking God to sanctify your womb and to prepare it to be a sanctuary for the masterpiece He will create in that special place. But also ask Him to heal your emotions by causing the very process of your bringing forth children to be bathed in the supernatural. Ask Him specifically to bridge the gap between what your head says is true theology and what your emotions feel about Him. Ask Him to fill you to overflowing with emotional peace, joy and anticipation for what He has in store for you.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
Isaiah 26:3 & 12
You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you.
LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. Isaiah 26:3 & 12
A couple who are friends of mine were recently preparing to lead a ministry group to Israel. Funds did not come in as expected. Things went down to the wire, and there were appeals for funds from every possible source. I seriously considered sending them money, but I felt a check in my spirit that I was not to. When the last day came and went, there was money enough for the wife to go, but not the husband. Before the wife left for the trip, a number of things occurred that made it perfectly clear that God had protected the husband from going because there were things he needed to do here in the States during that time frame.
I once applied for a job as head of maintenance for a military base that contracted out the maintenance to a civilian company. The local boss wanted me, and I really wanted the job. But when the corporate chief came in from outside, he hired someone else. I was crushed. Shortly thereafter, the entire base was awash with two feet of mud and the dream job became a nightmare. I was so glad God kept me from getting that job.
Paul left on a missionary trip and wanted to go east. Every time he tried to go right, God blocked him until he ended up in Philippi where he established one of his favorite churches.
Repeatedly not conceiving can bring disappointment and agitation on a sustained basis. Why not spend an evening as a couple reviewing all the closed doors in your life that were momentary points of sorrow, but which eventually became points of great joy. Praise the Lord with 20/20 hindsight for His great wisdom in giving you the right things in His timing, even when it was not yours.
Then by faith praise the Lord for His perfect timing in the conception of your children, and bless the womb and your souls with God’s perfect peace.
Prayers to Prepare the Womb for Conception
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
One of the basic principles of reproduction is that nature reproduces after its kind. Chickens don’t produce blue jays, they produce chickens.
We also reproduce after our kind. Each child is a blend of the parents’ physical, emotional and spiritual characteristics. One major point of comfort and encouragement is that fact that God can and does draw from our generational lines and not just from the parent’s generation. Thus, as you see in the kings of Judah, God frequently produced a godly child who had ungodly parents because God drew from the Davidic anointing that was in the family line to go beyond the heritage that the parents provided.
However, while God has that freedom in designing our children for us, we have no guarantees that God will overrule our character weaknesses and give us a child that is more godly than we deserve. Hence, it behooves us to focus intently on our own lives in order to provide the best possible heritage for our children. In fact, one of the many reasons why God may delay conception is so we can grow in character.
If a woman feels anxiety each month, followed by disappointment and anger, those emotions release chemicals that detract from the process of conception. By contrast, when a couple can receive from the hands of God “eternal encouragement and good hope,” it will change their view of the circumstances that are beyond their control.
Specifically it will “encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” This is so important because of the impact that a mother’s emotions have on the child in the womb. When there are unexpected crises during a pregnancy, and the mother reacts strongly and negatively, this can mar the child’s soul.
Sometimes, God in His wisdom and mercy is trying to prepare a mother-to-be. He is allowing the mother to master the art of walking in hope regardless of the circumstances, so that this piece of godly heritage can be passed on to the child in the womb.
So thank God for His wisdom. Resubmit yourself to His perfect plan for your life. And ask Him to show you how to receive encouragement and good hope from His hand even while you are not receiving the child you want on the timetable you choose.
Copyright by Arthur Burk
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