The most worrying trend I’ve noticed as I have ministered among believing women is how many even long-time Christian women have difficulty with studying the Word of God in a direct way for themselves. And sadly there is a definite correlation between our lack of biblical depth, breadth and fidelity and our inability to respond in faith to our problems, challenges and our culture.
I get that the Bible is intimidating. Believe me! It’s why I wrote my 5 day free email course, DWELL, to address this very thing. It’s why I designed the Dwell Journal and the “Wandel Joernaal”, to help us push through our intimidation, overwhelm and reluctance around the direct study of God’s word. I know first-hand that devotionals are so much easier to understand, with the content often crafted to answer one specific need or question. And especially newer devotionals feel so much more relevant to us, chiefly because they often make us, the reader, the main character in every single story.
The Bible is no lazy man’s book! Much of it’s treasure, like the valuable minerals stored in the bowels of the earth, only yield up themselves to the diligent seeker.
Arthur W Pink
Here are 4 dangers we are consistently exposed to when we don’t learn to read the Bible for ourselves:
Disconnections & Distance:
Biblestudy is not primarily a pursuit of head knowledge, although, as I always say, you can’t trust someone you don’t know. It is primarily a pursuit of God himself. God’s word is his primary revelation about himself. It’s where he speaks to us most directly this side of heaven. Our time in God’s word should grow not just our understanding but also our intimacy.
Think about it this way: There is a marked difference between the intimate relationship between a husband and wife who spend time together doing both meaningful and mundane things and a teenage romance where the communication consists of text messages and memes. The first and most important danger of our dependence on devotionals is the effect it has on our personal relationship with God. When we think that we should get a specific message out of every interaction with God it robs the relationship of its joy and it becomes unnatural – because it becomes all about feelings and experiences. If marriages were dependent on feelings and experiences they would not last very long.
Our reliance on devotionals has created in us a strange expectation when it comes to “quiet time”. Instead of simply enjoying time with God, we constantly assess if it’s “doing something” for us. Instead of seeing it as intimacy and relationship building, we measure it for its “impact” and “self-help”. But when we ditch devotionals and come to the word with the understanding that we are growing closer to God through it, we allow ourselves to be free to enjoy our relationship with God as the gift of grace that it is. That is so much better than the devotional-driven mindset that causes us to be constantly morbidly introspective about the relationship and whether it makes us “feel good” or what it “does for us”. What if we chose devotion to God over devotionals? Devotion reflected in a dedication to spending time with Him regardless of how “personally relevant” or “exciting” that felt.
Deception:
When bitesized theology is all we have, it only takes someone who dresses in a relatable way and speaks in a confident way to convince and sway us. But if you know your Bible, you will not by swayed by tone and trend, but by truth. If you want to know how to test a teacher, know your Bible. Knowing God’s word for yourself is your best safeguard against false teaching. The blame for the growth of movements such as the New Apostolic Reformation (Bill Johnson and Bethel), the popularity of emergent (Rob Bell) and affirming (Jen Hatmaker) teachers, can be squarely blamed on our lack of Biblical literacy. Even though these teachers and their content present to us a version of Jesus almost unrecognisable from his portrayal in the gospels, we remain unable to apply the scriptural proof test to what they say and write because we simply do not know the Bible well enough!
Here’s something crazy. AW Tozer, in his book THE CRUCIFIED LIFE, spoke about applying a Scriptural Proof Test to “phrases and mottos that on the surface look great but are not rooted in Scripture or that mostly bolster one’s self-image,”. Nearly 60 years after his death, as we see more and more “self-help spirituality” in devotionals and “Christian” books marketed to women, you have to wonder, would any of them pass the Scriptural Proof Test?
If you are using human teachers as the sole means of understanding God’s word, by what will you judge the teachers?
John Piper
Dehydration:
Relying on second-hand revelation as the filter through which we get to know the heart and character of God is like relying on predigested food to sustain us in this marathon that is life. Pre-digested truth will not ultimately feed the truest and deepest longings of our souls and they won’t be enough when the trials come. God’s desire is for us to abide in his word, to actually live there, not to always only rent space from other people who live there.
But so many of us are unknowingly malnourished. And after a while, if we keep skipping meals, a page-a-day devotional here, an inspirational Instagram post there, we eventually do not feel hungry anymore. And it’s when the storms of life come upon us, as they inevitably will, that we realise that second-hand revelation is not enough to sustain us. We should see time in God’s word as a waterpoint, a feeding station for the race we are all called to run. It’s the waypoint we need to persevere because it is where we grow in our (first hand, experiential) knowledge of and confidence in God. That is why David can say Psalm 119 v 11: because I have treasured your word in my heart I can do your will.
Our ability to keep running our race is directly linked to our ability to keep returning to God’s word for sustenance.
Diluted Witness:
The number one accusation made about Christianity is an accusation made against Christians. Against us. That we are hypocrites. And we are. It’s the human condition. Even the people who call us hypocrites are hypocrites. But our inability to apply our faith to how we interact with our neighbours (or the guy next to you in traffic), pay our bills (or don’t pay them), exercise integrity in our business dealings and compassion in our context and, in general, the lack of the fruit of the spirit in our lives, can all be chalked up to us having very little by way of an authentic daily walk with God and a clear picture of what we really need to be obedient to.
This has been my experience. When I have spent time in God’s word and in prayer: It is like putting on a pair of glasses at the start of the day that influence how you see the rest of your day. It changes your expectations, your outlook, and your thinking, and therefore influences your actions, reactions and feelings. When our eyes are opened in that way, we see God operating in our lives more clearly, and we become first-hand witnesses. And our witness becomes authentic, fresh and relevant because it’s not the well-fitting story written by someone else at the start of every devotional chapter but your lived experience of walking with God. What if we tried that every day? Maybe then they will say about us what was said about Peter and John in Acts 4, that we are ordinary people made extraordinary just because we have “been with Jesus” (V13).
A mom reached out to me on Instagram as she was processing disappointment with her child after something they had prayed over just, well, didn’t happen. She ended her message with this statement – why do I keep praying when God has other plans? And I was like, yeah, I so get it!
There is not a mom I know who has not carried the heartache of our kids’ disappointment in them like a wound. And for praying moms it’s a double whammy, right? Because we are at the same time teaching our kids about God and about prayer, wanting to foster faith in them. And let’s be honest when the disappointments (read – unanswered prayers) start stacking up, it shakes our faith, and erodes our resolve to keep praying and Lord God with respect, it makes You a bit of a hard sell. Don’t we all just deep down want a God who will do what we want? There are few things in life that expose our misshaped views of God than our response to unanswered prayer.
We come to everything in our lives with biases and agendas, including prayer, which is simply the nature of being human in a fallen world. And the question, why pray if God does what he wants anyway, speaks to a core lie we believe about what prayer is and who God is. Here’s how Oswald Chambers puts it:
Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God himself.
Oswold Chambers
Here are 4 truths about prayer that can really help us:
Prayer is about relationship more than requests. You will not have a good relationship with someone that you only ever ask stuff of. We hear it all the time, communication is the key to good relationships. That involves not just speaking but also listening. Have your learned to listen in prayer, not just speak?
Listening in prayer is about reading the word and allowing God to inform and guide your prayers. It’s about getting comfy with silence, making space for God’s spirit to minister to you. And that means it’s about planning and patience too! These things do not come naturally to us but they are all a vital part of building our relationship with God through prayer.
Prayer is transformational – Prayer is not about bending God’s will to ours, it is about Him shaping our will to His. Prayer is about partnering with God. Yes, God is sovereign, He will do what He chooses, but scripture is full of examples of how God chose to work through the prayers of His people. Scripture and hopefully even your own life, has examples of how God brings about His purposes through our prayers.
Prayer is about love. We often pray as though prayer is about convincing God of something, twisting his arm to be on our side. This reveals much about what we think He is really like. What if we started praying not with the conviction that we will get what you want but with the conviction that He knows exactly what we need? And then trusting that? To me that in itself seems like it would be transformative.
The late Timothy Keller said something once that has always stuck with me. “God will only give us what we would’ve asked for if we knew everything He knows.” I know right? Read that again! Here is what I always comfort my kids and myself with:
We don’t know everything but God does. And He loves us perfectly. And He is trustworthy. There is comfort for us in light of unanswered prayers or disappointing situations in knowing that the God who knows everything knows what is best for you or me better than we do.
Do you battle financial fear in your everyday life? I think, at least post-pandemic, it’s real for most people on some level ( I dunno, maybe not so much for the people who manufacture sanitisers?) The pandemic, for most of us, was like having the carefully placed chess pieces of our lives all thrown up into the air, with every piece coming down in a different place, and many falling on the floor.
The Bible has a lot to say about financial fear. But I think, as is often the case, the way we approach these scriptures sometimes hinders us from truly extracting the transformational value God has for us in His word. Because, as is often the case, we come to the Word of God looking for it to say something about us, looking to it to affirm us and tell us something about ourselves that might help us. When really, what would likely help us most, is not knowing more about ourselves, but knowing more about God, the one we are truly called to trust. As I always say, you can’t trust someone you don’t know! The fact is that we cannot find the solutions to the problems that plague our inner lives with more truth about us. Most of the time, we are the problem. Our inner lives are the problem. Our hearts are the problem (Jer 17 v 9) and we certainly can’t be on the right path by following it. Truth and wisdom are not found in more of us but in more of Him (Prov 14 v 14).
I recently turned to Luke 12 v 29 – 32 to seek comfort for the fears that have plagued me about my own uncertain financial future.
“Don’t strive for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don’t be anxious. For the Gentile world eagerly seeks all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his Kingdom, and these things will be provided to you. Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the Kingdom. “
Luke 12 c 29 – 32
Sure, if I were to look at this verse trying to figure out what I needed to do, I would easily see that I needed to NOT STRIVE and NOT BE ANXIOUS. Have you ever tried to tell yourself/ your mind to simply stop worrying about something? Me personally? I have never managed it with any success. And if you have you must be mentally far stronger than me. In my experience, it’s like telling a toddler to stop doing something. Sometimes it just makes them want to do it more. But what if I looked at this verse to tell me something about God? Then this is what I would see, a list of powerful truths about the character, nature and abilities of God:
1. God knows I have fear around money. That is why He tells me to not strive, not be anxious, not be afraid. His knowledge of me comforts me, because through that I know, He sees me, He knows what it’s like inside my head (Ps 103 v 14)
2. He is my Shepherd, that’s why He calls me His flock. If I am the flock and He is the shepherd that means I can look to Him for guidance to pastures that would feed me, and I can say like David in Psalm 23, that if God is my shepherd, I lack nothing that I need.
3. He is my Father. That means I am his child. I have kids, and just like I, an earthly parent, know what my kids need and try to give it to them, God, who is a perfect parent, knows what I need and I can trust Him (Luke 11 v 11 – 13).
4. He is my King. Because, according to this verse, He delights to give me the Kingdom. Only a King can do that. A king can take all the resources of His Kingdom and apply them in accordance with His will. He is able to exert power and sovereignty over all that is in His Kingdom on my behalf. If you, like me, work for yourself, with your work dependent on support and opportunities, then this is immensely comforting.
5. He is generous. The verse tells me that He “gives” me the Kingdom. He doesn’t rent it to me, or lend it to me. He doesn’t wait to see if I qualify. He is generous, thus He gives freely.
6. He is delighted to do it. The verse actually uses that word. I do not have to convince Him, He is not reluctant or unwilling. Actually, this word in the Greek (eudokeõ), means He thinks it’s a good idea, an idea He is well pleased with.
I don’t know about you, but for me, financial fear is an almost daily battle. I am not a salary earner. Neither is my husband. We both experience huge fluctuations in our monthly earnings, which can be nerve-wracking. So when I talk about a battle, that is what I mean. It’s not something I just struggle with occasionally. And when you are in a battle, you need a form of attack. You need weapons, and you already know, that because this is not a flesh and blood battle, the weapons need to be different too (Eph v 12 – 17).
That is why I have found these 6 truths to be a powerful antidote to my daily battle with financial fear.
Dear friend, may this truth also minister to your heart today, and every day that you battle financial fear. That God is a shepherd who can guide you, a Father who knows what you need, and a King who can exert authority over your circumstances, and He is and does these things with generosity and delight.
Teaching kids about prayer in times of uncertainty
In this year we have faced trauma at school, family members threatened by a dire drought, and now, Covid 19, it’s effects reaching into every corner of everything we do, have, own, trust in. Never before has it been more important to be able to pray. And I was confronted through all of this with this question: Do my kids really know how to pray? Do they know why we pray? Do they truly have access to the power of prayer in times of loss, uncertainty, worry, fear and trial, or do they just know how to pray before they eat or before they sleep?
So here is what I told my kids about prayer:
We should pray because it’s a conversation with God:
Imagine living in your house with your parents and your siblings, and never talking to them. Imagine going to school and flat out ignoring your friends. That would be so weird. It would make you feel awkward and it would make your friends and family feel awkward too. Talking is one of the things we do to maintain, foster and build relationships. And prayer is talking. With God. That is why prayer must be honest, just like any conversation between you and someone you love whom you know loves you back. Just like when you talk to that person, prayer doesn’t have to be full of fancy words, not flowery or over the top. Prayer is a conversation, not a sermon, a monologue or an eisteddfod performance. And just like talking to someone who you know fully accepts and loves you, prayer can change the way you feel, the way you see things and even the way you act. And that is why prayer must go both ways and include talking AND listening, just like any conversation. Otherwise, you are just making a speech. The problem is that we are all better talkers than listeners for the most part, and that is true when we are around people we can see and hear! So listening to God, whom we can’t see and whose voice is not audible, is even harder. But it’s not impossible, and prayer can be a time of talking and listening if we do exactly what we would do if we had a friend we wanted to listen to, which is to intentionally keep quiet.
Set aside the time and create an opportunity for God to speak to you. Yes, you can pray any time and anywhere, but setting aside disciplined prayer time where you are not just venting to God means you are creating space for Him to speak to you.
We should pray because it’s a command from God:
And just like all other types of commands, God insists on them because he knows they are good for us. God through prayer wants us to keep the channel of communication open between us, because He knows that without communication, relationships don’t survive and thrive. And if prayer is a command, that means when we pray we are being obedient, right? And before you think obedience is boring, think about it this way: Another word for obedience is trust. So every time we obey God, we are also trusting Him, and when we trust someone, we share our hearts with them, everything about our lives, the good and the bad. And that is what prayer is, and act of obedience and an act of trust. And that is why prayer is so powerful
We should pray because Jesus did it:
Which shows us that it must be a very important thing. And when we start copying Jesus, the more we will become like him. And the great thing is that Jesus, in the way He himself prayed with and for His disciples, shows us exactly how we should pray
Faithfully (Rom 12 v 12)
Even for our enemies (Matt 5 v 44)
In watchfulness about what we notice and gratitude for what we have (Col 4 v 2)
With the help of the Holy Spirit (Eph 6 v 18)
We should pray because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. And also because God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking God for these gifts and thanking Him for them.
Heidelberg Catechism
We should pray because it’s powerful and releases God’s power into our lives and the lives of others:
The Bible tells us that the prayer of the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5 v 16), and thanks to Jesus dying for us, we all are “righteous” because we have Jesus’s righteousness. God uses prayer in the lives of us and of others because His desire is always for a relationship, to partner with us in bringing about His will on earth.
The Bible we read about many instances where the power of prayer overcame enemies (Ps 6 v 9 – 10), brought about healing (James 5 v 14 – 15), conquered death(2 Kings 4 v 3 – 36) and defeated the power of the demons (Mark 9 v 29). God uses prayer to bring healing and restoration, to give us wisdom and to open our eyes. It is a way to draw on the infinite resource of power that is the God of the universe!
Note to parents:
Prayer is a posture, it’s a conversation, it’s correcting and it’s a contribution to the work of the Kingdom, and in The Mommy Diaries I expound on how to journey with our kids on this and also how to teach them to pray. All orders of The Mommy Diaries during lockdown will come with an amazing free resource by Rev Leigh Robinson called “A solid foundation: Biblical Truths our children must know by heart before the age of 12”. Perfect for discipling your kids and using all the time at home to sow eternal seeds!
For blog subscribers, there is also a handy infographic with an easy rhyme that teaches kids about praying anytime about anything, some quick crib notes to help you answer those tough questions on prayer (if God knows everything why should we pray?) and how to use the ACTS acronym to teach your kids how to pray.
The sobering news about having kids is in the realization that you are not as in control as you thought you were. And few seasons in life attune us to this reality like sending our kid off to school. There our child encounters a thousand situations, relations, temptations that we will not even be present for, won’t even know about, cannot choose or control. In that, prayer is not just a comfort but a call. It is the admission, the submission, that there are things our kids need that we can’t provide, situations they will be in we can’t control and that there is a God who is God over it all. How humbling to be a parent!
But has this ever happened to you: You sit down to pray and you have nothing to say? By your conviction of the power and importance of prayer you come to pray for your children only to find you have dull words, mundane requests and circumstantial insights that don’t make a dent in the eternal, true needs of your child and do not spiritually connect you to God’s vision for them. I have felt like this many times. In these moments I have found God’s word to be a great tool to direct my prayers to be more powerful and effective.
Pray Expectantly
I have written a lot about expectation, and that we, especially as moms, often have a very high expectation of ourselves and a low expectation of God. Moms are the “do-ers” in the lives of their children, and we often mistakenly get into a mode of “if I don’t it won’t” when it comes to parenting by faith. I know, I’ve been there. But what if we placed all our expectations on the promises of God instead of our own abilities in the life of our kids?
“If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith.”
Charles Spurgeon
Pray Persistently
Luke 18 v 1- 8 must’ve been written especially for the parents of teens! It’s the parable about the persistent widow. When prayer becomes a practice, it encourages persistence that actually guards our hearts against discouragement. And let’s face it, parenting can be discouraging at times. An attitude of persistence &perseverance in prayer springs from a heart that acknowledges that God’s love for us is a fact that exists above and often despite what we see in our circumstances. That’s faith. Our steadfastness in praying for our children declares that we know God loves them. Set an alarm of your phone if you want to, pick a day of the week, find a way to make persistent prayer a habit.
“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”
Samuel Chadwick
Pray Insightfully
Some of the most touching and beautiful prayers in the Bible where written by Paul, but here’s one thing I’ve noticed. In all his prayers for those he loved, he never requested a change in their circumstances. Now as parents we all want the same things for our kids, for them to be well adjusted, you know, not sociopaths. For them to be kind, happy and hardworking. But more than that I want them to encounter Christ in a real and relevant way, follow him with passion and perseverance, see the world through the eyes of His word so they can face their personal challenges and the challenges of their day with courage and character. That is why I wrote The Mommy Diaries. And that is why when I pray for my kids my prayers focus on these areas:
Their faith
Their character
Their hearts
And their future.
By subscribing to the blog today, you will receive a free printable one week prayer calendar along with a template to make your own. Print it out, pop it on the fridge or in your journal or planner. It focuses on praying God’s word over these areas of your children’s lives!
Pray Thoroughly
I keep what I call a “Warrior woman’s book of prayers” – I know, what an ambitious name! It’s actually just a little ring bound notebook. But in it I have written down scriptures and prayers for all of my loved ones, including my kids, my family members, my friends. And as I sit down to pray for them, my heart and my prayers are guided by God’s word and that way I know they are guided by His will. I do it this way most of the time not because I’m such a clever excellent Christian, but actually because of the opposite. I am a doubtful, worrying, wondering, perpetually distracted ants-in-my-pants Christian with a desperate desire to be a faithful prayer. This way really helps me.
And let me tell you the truth, I have seen more accomplished in the lives of my loved ones through prayer than I have ever seen accomplished through my own efforts, cleverness or ability to turn situations around.
Why do I use God’s Word to help me pray?
So much of what is written in the bible match our circumstances. It gives us words when we don’t have any. Even Jesus used the Word to pray – for example when he prayed from Psalm 22 in Matt 27 and Mark 15.
It helps me focus. Often I find my worries, anxieties, my concerns and my “lists” become the highlights of my prayer time with God. They take up so much space that aligning with His will in prayer, reordering my priorities and desires to line up with scripture, praising and worshipping Him get crowded. Praying God’s word is an intentional way of making those things a more weighty part of my conversations with God.
It helps me pray with confidence – especially in situations where I don’t know what to pray. It contains God’s will, reveals his character, explicitly lays out His promises.
It instructs my heart – actually praying through the Word changes the desires of my heart as His Spirit ministers to my spirit.
It helps me fight earthly battles with heavenly weapons. God calls us to pull down strongholds (2 Cor 10 v 3 – 5) and for that, we need a spiritual arsenal. That is what the Bible is.
Pray Together
Praying God’s word with our kids, lays for them a foundation of understanding about what truly matters in life. God’s word is applicable to every area of challenge our kids face, from bullies, to worries, to friendships and everything in between. In the next blog I will share some insights from my book about how to talk to your kids about prayer and teach them how to pray.
Most recently we have prayed persistently for rain in the Eastern and Northern Cape. It showed my kids not only that God cares about the everyday challenges we face and is deeply invested in the lives of those He loves, but after a time, it showed them how powerful prayer can be and how amazing it is to see your prayers answered. Thank you Lord for the rain in those drought-stricken areas!
Be encouraged mom, your prayers are heard by God himself (Psalm 4 v 3), and your words of supplication move the heart of the King of the Universe (Matt 21 v 22) . Prayer connects you to the strength of God – and which mom could not use more of that! And prayer prepares us to be met by his blessing (Matt 7 v 11)
Do you need help explaining prayer to your child and teaching him/ her about it without all the “christianeze”? Check out the chapter on prayer in The Mommy Diaries – ideal for kids between age 7 and 15!
(or lost or frazzled or disorganized or distracted or overwhelmed..basically, if you’re a modern-day woman)
I get it!
I am fairly confident that if you are reading this, you have a strong cerebral conviction that you MUST pray. Prayer is good. But sometimes you find yourself in a season where your prayers are trite, one-way conversations that sound allot like shopping lists and allot the same and that happen in the car or in the few minutes before you go to sleep. Or you find yourself disillusioned by a season of pleading desperation that didn’t actually “work”, and didn’t make you feel any more connected to God. Can I get a witness? I know what it’s like to suffer from distraction, frustration, lack of urgency, discipline and motivation in my prayer life. I have had to claw my way back into better habits and rhythms only to fall back into losing prayer in the blur of countless stressful days strung together. So here are some tips, from one struggling, distracted woman to another:
Determine your why: We have a ping pong table at home. It’s become a great opportunity for quality time between my husband and our boys. But my husband, God bless him, once made the fatal error of offering one of our boys a reward if he beat his dad at a heated game of ping pong. This, sadly, set a precedent whereby our son would only play when there was going to be a reward at the end. What my good husband was after, was quality time with his son. What my son was after, was a reward. It came to a point when I had to ask him a tough question: “do you spend time with Dad because of who he is to you or because of what he can give to you?”
Sometimes this is what our relationship with God is like. And this can be most evident in our prayer life.
There is no point in my starting off by saying “You must pray” if you’ve lost your “reason why”. And if you have lost your reason why, ultimately all I can tell you, is that our prayer life (or lack thereof) will reflect what we truly believe about God (eish, I know, truth bomb right!), whether we seek Him out because we have realised that in Him we live and breathe and have our being (Acts 17 v 28). Or whether we only hang out with Him if we can get something/ need something out of it. So first start off not by asking yourself, why don’t I pray, but asking yourself, what do I believe about who God really is?
Direct your thoughts and words: I have confessed before that my brain is always going in a thousand directions at once. I am like a laptop with too many tabs open. That is why “getting in the zone” to pray is hard for me. I also sometimes battle with praising and even thanksgiving beyond the tired, thoughtless phrases that I’ve so overused, and I’ve battled to find the words to pray for the people I love in a more directed, focused way.
So I cheat. I’m not even joking! I use a cute notebook with dividers in it, for all the areas of my life and people that I pray about and for. In fact, my prayers for my kids come in a whole little notebook of its own. I use it during my quiet time (if you struggle in that area, here is my cheat sheet for that too).
In here I write down scriptures, promises to pray for them, affirmations and praises to help me fix my mind on God.
So go on honey, head out to Typo, I am giving you permission to indulge your stationery fetish. Call it an investment in your prayer life. Buy something that can lie open in your hand (that is why I use ring-bound notebooks), that you can easily and quickly add to. I have found that without a firm foundation in scripture, my prayers are just like shopping lists. On the other hand, God’s Word is like a prayer vocabulary and when we use it to shape our prayer language (so to speak), prayer becomes a deep, rich, two-way experience, instead of a one-way list of requests. And having something written down to pray through, for me, is a concrete move against my own internal noise which I battle to quiet down.
One of the purposes of prayer is that it aligns us with God’s thoughts and desires, and when we pray scripture we have the opportunity to internalize His very character and for our daily life to be framed by it.
Actually writing down your prayers is also a way of staying focused during your prayer times. Even if you just have 5 minutes, use them to journal your prayers, giving substance and depth to even the shortest bite of time you are spending with God and inviting Him into your world.
“Don’t just read the Bible. Start circling the promises. Don’t just make a wish. Write down a list of God-Glorifying life goals. Don’t just pray. Keep a prayer journal. Define your dream. Claim your promise. Spell your miracle.” Mark Batterson – The circle maker.
Dedicate time: I know that many of you are in a life stage where even a simple quiet time is a challenge, much less dedicated time to pray (are you a young mom? Check this out) I am not saying there is anything wrong with praying in the car, or praying when you make the beds – we are supposed to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes 5 v 16)! But when I am talking to my husband while driving to an event we might be talking, but we are not necessarily connecting, right? It wouldn’t be considered “building intimacy”, right? To build connection you need to be fully present. To build intimacy you need to take time – ask any husband who has tried to rush it an failed! And so in my marriage, I may not be able to dedicate time and resources to a full-on date night, but we can sit down and have a cup of coffee, be present for and with one another and listen/ talk for as long as a cup of coffee takes. And if you are in a busy and distracting season and it’s all you have, believe me, that is all it takes: 15 minutes in which connection is rekindled, in which time is given to sharing and listening, and we find ourselves walking away anchored in, steadied, heard, connected. So set it out in your mind for your coffee break at work, or the quick lunch you grab before fetching the kids. Put your phone away as you sip that coffee, and instead of being filled with the highlight real of someone else’s fake life (yes, I know you’re are scrolling Facebook when you’re waiting for the kettle to boil!) , open up your prayer book or journal if you have one, and allow yourself a few moments to be present with God and to be filled with the real sustenance of the gift of rest.
Dump Perfect: in fact, apply this across the board to every area of your life! We often approach the disciplines of our spiritual life (devotions, prayer, fasting etc) the same way we approach diets, fatalistically. We go at full tilt, knuckling down for a time, until we fall off the wagon (thanks Cinnabon!) and then, instead of saying, “aww man, I shouldn’t have eaten that whole thing, but ok, I am picking up where I left off”, we say;”Aww man, this day (weekend/ week) is a write-off, I am giving in and I will start again on Monday!” In our spiritual life, we have this set idea that our interactions with God should look a certain way, take a certain shape and amount of time, make us feel x,y or z, and if we can’t have/ do that, we might as well not even attempt anything. And in that we lose our unction, we lose sight of the importance of the spiritual realm and its impact and then we wonder why we feel like our prayers hit the ceiling. I love the saying: “perfect is the enemy of done”. Because surely a simple, sincere prayer uttered in a moment of awe, understanding, desperation, is better than a perfectly crafted doxology left unspoken?
“If in prayer I come before a throne of grace, the faults of my prayer will be overlooked.” Charles Spurgeon
Dare to be honest: I hope you also have a group of friends in your life where you know you can be your authentic, uncensored self. Friends who love you in such a way that they don’t make you feel like your too much, or not enough, for whom you don’t need to dumb down or dress up any part of yourself in order to feel at home. I am blessed to have a few like that. And if I compare how I feel when I am around them with how I feel when I am around people in front of whom I can’t be myself, I know who I would rather hang out with, and I appreciate the authenticity of those relationships all the more. It’s no different with God. We are bound to seek Him out all the more if we experience the truth about His loving character and nature to us if we enter in with a conviction of His grace. We are bound to avoid Him if we have allowed the burden of sin and shame to pile up like dirty dishes in our soul, bound to skirt formally around Him if our picture of Him has become affected by half-truths and earthly wisdom and religiosity.
You have permission to be unhappy before God, desperate, ungrateful even, superficially joyful, just plain you.
Just take a stab at praying through the Psalms if you don’t believe me.
In Genesis Hagar refers to God as El Roi, as she experiences God as One who truly sees her in a world where she feels utterly unseen. You are seen darling, and loved, chosen, sought out not just despite of who you are, but because of it. That is the God we draw near to when we draw near in prayer.
Can I encourage you in whatever season you find yourself, to make small shifts in your schedule and perspective to have your daily life transformed by prayer?
“To pray is to change. All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives. For those explorers in the frontiers of faith, prayer was no little habit tacked onto the periphery of their lives, it was their life. It was the most serious work of their most productive years. Nothing draws us closer to the heart of God. “ Richard Foster
