Essential Air Support: Why Prayer Is the Lifeline of Spiritual Warfare
By Dave Rudolph, Managing Director, Biblical Ministries Worldwide South Africa
Ephesians 6:18–20
A long time ago—in what often feels like another lifetime—I served in the Air Force. Not by choice, of course. My government graciously “invited” me into national service, and I consoled myself with the fact that being an airman had to be better than life in the Army.
To my surprise, I actually enjoyed it. Life on an airbase was exhilarating. The sights, the sounds, the smell of jet fuel lingering in the air—it was its own world. Even now, I can still feel the thunder of fighter jets as they roared down the runway, engines blazing, tearing into the sky in fire and smoke. No one ever doubted the skill of the pilots who flew those machines, providing essential air support to soldiers on the ground.
I still, to this day, am conflicted by the contradiction of those brilliantly engineered machines being used to perpetrate horrific destruction on the battlefield. I experience a significant amount of outrage over the horrors of war.
But I also recognise this: when a soldier is pinned down in battle, surrounded and overwhelmed, the sound of those distant engines means hope. It means help is coming. It means someone has their back.
There are few moments as powerful as hearing that support arrive at precisely the moment you need it most.
And with that image in mind, we step into Ephesians 6—where Paul describes another kind of essential air support, not for earthly warfare, but for the spiritual battle every believer faces.
Prayer: The Secret Strength Behind the Armour
In the context of this passage, Paul masterfully describes the spiritual armour which every Christian is to put on daily, making him strong in the Lord and accessible to the power of His might. He lists the key components of the armour, which when put on, are sufficient to withstand every scheme of the devil: the belt of truth, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit. Each piece vital. Each piece powerful.
It is at this point that Paul explains the strategic role prayer plays in the life of the believer. He addresses a subject which is essential for enjoying an active relationship with God.
“Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication…” (Eph. 6:18)
It shouldn’t surprise you to know that the important verb in this passage is right up front in the verse, “praying,”“praying at all times in the Spirit.” It is the means by which you directly and personally interact with the Lord. In every situation, every day that you walk with Him, God is with you, desiring to engage with you. He is always listening, and He is always ready to help in your time of need. This is where the victory comes from in the midst of the battle—it comes from engaging in a close and intimate communication relationship with the Lord.
It is prayer that activates the armour. Prayer that deploys it. Prayer that channels the power of God into the life of His people.
Someone once said, “To stand in the battle, you must first kneel.”
Without prayer, the armour is simply theory. With prayer, it becomes power.
And if we are tempted to underestimate prayer, we must remember this stunning truth: Jesus Himself is praying for you right now. At this very moment, He intercedes at the right hand of the Father. That is a staggering reality, and it ought to settle in your mind and heart the value and priority that prayer ought to play in your life.
The One who saved you is also the One who continually advocates for you, carrying your name before your Heavenly Father. If Jesus thinks prayer is essential, how can we not?
What we discover here in Ephesians 6 are the dynamics of the kind of praying that mobilizes the protective armour of the believer. Paul gives four characteristics of prayer—four ways we call in essential air support.
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Prayer Comes in Many Forms
Paul says we are to pray “with all prayer and supplication.” In other words, all kinds of praying. Prayer of worship. Prayer of thanksgiving. Prayer of confession. Specific requests. Deep cries from the heart.
There is no category of life that cannot be brought to God. Nothing too big. Nothing too small. Nothing too ordinary. It seems like Paul is pushing for his readers to have a deeper appreciation of prayer as they intentionally invest more time in prayer than what is commonly seen in the average Christian’s life. Paul wants them to appreciate the unusual value in praying and making specific requests to the Lord.
The word for “petition” or “supplication” means “to want,” or “to desire,” “to long for”; “to ask,” or even “to beg.” It is the cry of personal need. It reinforces what Jesus told His disciples in John 16:24:
“Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
There are those who will only pray general prayers because they do not want to bother God with their own particular needs—how humble of you—but that is not what God desires from you. He wants you to ask those things from Him that are on your heart—both generally and specific.
A strong relationship with God, and the ability to stand strong in the midst of spiritual warfare will not come from a half-sleepy, half-hearted, monotonous prayer life, but instead it will come from a vibrant, strategic, intentional, diverse, and thoughtful prayer life.
The Christian life is not held together by one scripted prayer at one set time of day, but by a dynamic, intentional, varied, living relationship with God.
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Prayer Should Feel Familiar
Paul tells us to pray “at all times.” The idea is that you are to pray every opportunity you can, and that your prayers should naturally flow out of your relationship with your Lord. The word “familiar” describes a close relationship. It suggests being comfortable in someone’s presence. That’s what I mean when I say your prayers should be familiar.
It means throughout the day we “run things past the Lord,” seeking His mind before assuming our own. And we pray “in the Spirit,” meaning we rely on the Holy Spirit to guide, prompt, shape, and even translate our prayers when we don’t know what to say (Rom. 8:26–27). What a wonderful blessing that, even when you don’t know what to say, God’s Holy Spirit communicates your heart to the Father.
So why does Paul want you to maintain this kind of intuitive and interactive communication with the Lord? Clearly it’s because Satan doesn’t take any days off! He’s on his game every day—every moment of every day—as he provokes the spiritual battle.
Because you are a child of God, you have been enlisted into God’s army. Paul describes this fight as spiritual warfare, and it’s raging 24/7. There is no time off for anyone. Every day you wake up, the war continues between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. The spiritual battle never pauses, so our communication with the Lord shouldn’t either.
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Prayer Must Be Frequent and Persistent
“Keep alert with all perseverance,” Paul says. Perseverance literally means be stubborn. Stay at it. Refuse to quit. Spiritual warfare is constant, and so must our praying be.
But the biggest enemy of prayer?
Not disbelief, but busyness.
If you’re honest, many of the obstacles you face which cause you to be distracted, come from the busyness of your schedule. These are the imposters, the culprits which invade your time and energy, distracting you from praying both general prayers of praise to the Lord, as well as prayers of petition.
The church is weaker than it should be because of this neglect. If you are to have victory over the spiritual battles, if you hope for God to move in your life, then you must stubbornly protect your prayer life. This is an area where it is respectable to be stubborn! It is okay to say “No!” to the other pressing issues in your life in favour of investing in your prayer and supplication with the Lord.
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Prayer Is Essential for Your Fellow Believers
Paul urges the Ephesians to pray “for all the saints, and also for me.”
He isn’t asking for his chains to be removed—just that he would be bold with the gospel. This is a general instruction for the Christian to be faithful in praying for other believers. Praying for each other is a strengthening mechanism for those for whom you pray. Paul implies that their prayers for each other, and for him, will result in boldness for the work of the gospel.
I find it quite compelling that Paul connects your intercessory prayers with the faithfulness and fruitfulness of others. When you pray for someone, you are literally strengthening them for battle. That’s quite a responsibility! The objective is that they, the ones for whom we pray, will open their mouths to speak the mystery of the Gospel of Christ. That’s a remarkable outcome.
Spiritual warfare, or victory over the enemy, or ministry on the mission field, will neither be won by big personalities, nor by human ingenuity. This once again reminds us how much we need each other, and how the Lord has ensured our success, at least in part, through the intercessory prayers of others. We cannot do the Christian life on our own. It was never intended to be that way.
You are of course dependent upon the Lord and the power of His Spirit, but you are also dependent upon other believers and their intercession on your behalf. That’s pretty serious stuff. Your prayers are spiritual air support for the people you love.
Calling In Support for the Mission Field
Paul asked the Ephesians to pray for him as he faithfully served the Lord. He asked them to pray that he and his ministry team would have the words to proclaim the gospel of Christ with boldness. Because Paul was a church-planting missionary, his request carries special weight for those serving cross-culturally today. Missionaries need the armour of God just as much as Paul did. Satan and the forces of evil were in Paul’s day, and they are in our day actively at work attacking those who carry the gospel to the nations. Our missionaries also need boldness, protection, unity, and spiritual endurance.
Their children need prayer as they grow up in unfamiliar cultures, with fewer resources and more pressures than children in established churches.
Sometimes relationships among missionaries can become strained with the pressures of living and ministering in another language and culture. They’re human beings, after all! Pray that your missionaries who work with other missionary families would be gracious and patient towards one another, and that they would preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And missionaries need prayer for spiritual health—that their love would abound, their discernment deepen, and their lives overflow with righteousness (Phil. 1:9–11).
And while we pray for those who have gone, Jesus commands us to pray for those who will go:
“Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers…”
—Matthew 9:37–38
Missions can be a daunting task due to political barriers, spiritual warfare, difficult living conditions, or remote locations. Many hard mission fields still exist on our continent, and even today, these people and places are being overlooked for the Gospel.
The needs are daunting. The opportunities are thrilling.
God cares about the lost souls of Africa, and He will faithfully open doors to the hard places if we will respond to His call—and so we must go, we must send gospel workers into these difficult fields.
Not too far from us, in sub-Saharan Africa, our BMW SA mission has identified a region which is crying out for missionaries.
A Burden for the Central African Triangle
Our BMW SA team has felt a growing burden for a region we’ve called the Central African Triangle—stretching through eastern Tanzania, eastern Malawi, and the Comoros. Though it is predominantly Muslim, thankfully, radical Islam doesn’t have a stronghold here. The governments are more secular than religious, which allows for a more relaxed freedom of religion. This naturally allows easier entrance for the gospel of Christ.
We are currently surveying this region with the view to create a missionary church planting strategy. Such a vision document will form the basis for recruiting more missionaries.
Once we have a firm foothold in this region, we will have a platform from which to reach into several other challenging parts of eastern central Africa such as the interior of Tanzania, the DRC, Kenya, Madagascar, and beyond!
We already have one BMW SA couple committed to move to Dar es Salaam —a vibrant city of 8.6 million—by the end of this year. And we are trusting the Lord to burden the hearts others to join the team.
We are praying for at least six more South African families to join a long-term strategy that could eventually springboard into the interior of Tanzania, the DRC, Kenya, Madagascar, and beyond.
Please also pray for the spiritual health of the South African independent Bible believing churches, who are the key to such a missionary thrust into Africa. Missionaries will come from those churches, churches just like yours, and together they will supply the resources needed to get the job done.
Would you pray with us?
Pray for the missionaries, their families, their teams, and the churches that must send and support them. Pray that God would raise up more.
This is essential air support for the front lines of the gospel.
“Praying at All Times…”
Paul ends Ephesians 6:18 by using the word ALL four times:
- at all times
- with all prayer
- with all perseverance
- for all the saints
It is a sweeping, comprehensive vision of prayer—one that echoes Jesus’ command that we “always pray and not lose heart.”
Praying without ceasing means we breathe prayer.
Morning, noon, and night.
In joy and in sorrow.
For personal needs, for families, for communities, for churches, and for the nations.
It means living as though God is always near—because He is.
Someone Needs Air Support Today
Fellow believers—pray for yourselves, for each other, for your community, and for your missionaries. Pray that the gospel would go forward in power, that hearts would be prepared, that nations would hear.
Somebody in your life needs essential air support right now.
Don’t leave them waiting.
Your Father is listening. Your Saviour is interceding. The Spirit is prompting. Call it in.
“Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication…”
It’s your opportunity, your responsibility, and your privilege.
