2 Chronicles 33:10-13 (CSBBible)
10
The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they didn’t listen.
11 So he brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria. They captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.
12 When he was in distress, he sought the favor of the Lord his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors.
13 He prayed to him, and the Lord was receptive to his prayer. He granted his request and brought him back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom. So Manasseh came to know that the Lord is God.

Man ought to always pray declare Luke 18:1 while 1 Thessalonians says to pray without ceasing. Prayer is toil and travail; battle and agony as uplifted hands grow tremulous long before the field is won.
We are dependent on God for every good; without Him, we can do nothing; if we always feel that dependence we will always be in the spirit of prayer and those who feel this spirit will, as frequently as possible, be found in the exercise of prayer.
When we pray ceaselessly, we are in effect, sowing into the future a preventive measure to counter whatever the enemy may bring our way.
We take certain medicines and precautions to prevent a medical problem, affliction and possibly death.
When we pray, we are partnering with the Lord to change, divert, stop, and minimize the effect of a challenge but when we don’t pray, things happen that could either have been averted, changed, or stopped.
Sometimes, like Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, we have to pray for years to see the result of our prayers but imagine if she had not prayed.
Manasseh ignored the Lord and refused to pray but verse 12 says when he got into trouble, he had no option but to pray.
How often do we do curative prayer instead of preventive prayer? Why do we wait until the affliction is upon us to seek the Lord in prayer?
Prayer is not only to get God to do something for us, it also includes us receiving strength for the journey, the wisdom to act, the direction to go and the ability to overcome but we only get these through preventive not curative prayer.
Imagine the presiding angels shutting the gates and windows of prayer in heaven, lest your curative prayer should be heard?
In times of need, in the first instance; almost everyone will pray then. Moses stood on the shores of the Red Sea in Exodus 14:15-18, surveying the panic of the Israelites when they realized that the chariots of Pharaoh were thundering down upon them, “Why are you crying out to me? Who else was Moses meant to cry to? He hadn’t prayed into this; he had no idea of what the Lord was leading them to, but he was still acting in faith.
“So I prayed to the God of heaven.” Nehemiah made preventive prayers for the difficult journey and task ahead of him, even before he made any plans.
We face daily challenges without the sublime energy that preventive prayer supplies or the restful confidence it gives.
Like chicken little, we wait until the sky is falling to begin to pray. Why not pray before the sky falls.
Abraham’s servant in Genesis 24:10-20 made a preventive prayer before embarking on the important journey of wife selection for Isaac.
The time you put in prayer, preventive prayer in your closet as Matthew 6:6 prescribes is the prayer that prepares you for battle before it comes, it’s what gives you hope of victory and it’s what anchors you so that the storm of affliction does not drown you.
Manasseh could have avoided capture and agony if he’d only prayed. But when we come to the Lord in repentance, the Lord is receptive to our prayer and answers us.
Pray always to prevent and not to cure.
Shalom