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085 | Why We Need to Pray (and How to Do It!)
525 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, we look at what Scripture says about prayer, why it is essential to Christian life, and how to begin cultivating a persevering practice of prayer.
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia Mason-Heimer, and I am here to teach you how to know what you believe, to live it boldly, and to communicate it graciously to the world around you. I believe that women are ready to go deeper in their faith than ever before, and they don't have to go to seminary to do it. I am so glad you're here, and I hope you'll join me on this journey because every woman is a theologian.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello friends and welcome back to Verity Podcast. This week we are talking about prayer. I was thinking back through all of the seasons and episodes that we have done on this podcast in the last two years, almost 100 episodes now, and I realized we've never
00:00:45
Speaker
done an episode dedicated to prayer and obviously I could do an entire series on this we could go so in depth but per my usual I'm going to try to keep it kind of high level and 20 to 30 minutes so we're going to look at what prayer is what the goal of prayer is and
00:01:05
Speaker
how we can pray practically, because a couple of weeks ago I sent out my weekly newsletter, The Conlectio, and talked about how there are several phrases in Christian world that make me crazy, and one of those is just pray about it without teaching people how to pray.
Understanding and Overcoming Struggles in Prayer
00:01:24
Speaker
And I was only talking very briefly about that topic, so I didn't get into depth on prayer in that newsletter, but we got some replies to it saying, well, how do I pray? So I had already worked up the notes for this episode, and I thought, you know what, let's just make sure this one gets out there as quickly as possible. Now, I'll be the first to admit that there have been periods of time throughout my Christian life where I definitely felt
00:01:49
Speaker
like and knew that my prayer life wasn't what it should be, as in it wasn't as strong as I knew would be good for me. Based on everything we see in scripture about prayer, which we'll be reading in just a second, I knew there's better for me. God wants better for me. And so I made a concerted effort
00:02:10
Speaker
to work towards a healthier prayer life.
Reframing Prayer as a Conversation with God
00:02:14
Speaker
Especially in the last few years, as every woman a theologian grew, I just knew that it was so vital that I be a praying person, a praying leader. But it's not just important to those of us who are in ministry. It's important to every single Christian because prayer is the very heart of the Christian life.
00:02:35
Speaker
I think a lot of times we say, well, the word of God is the heart of the Christian life, but I would say that the word of God talks a whole lot about prayer. Jesus gave us the example of how to pray, as we'll see in a moment, and assumed that his disciples would be praying. So it is important to us not only to pray, you probably hear it perpetuate in the background, our cat, she's playing in my office,
00:03:02
Speaker
But this discipline of prayer, because it is a spiritual discipline, it's not easy, it's not natural, this discipline of prayer is what mobilizes the Word of God in our lives, because it connects us to the heart of God, connects us to the Holy Spirit through Christ, and we are becoming more and more like Jesus
00:03:27
Speaker
as we submit to the Holy Spirit's leading. And if you listen to my episode on how to hear God's voice or the episode on how to walk by the Spirit, it's all linked together. If we want to walk by the Spirit and hear God's voice for the decisions we're making, we have to pray.
00:03:44
Speaker
And we will not know how to walk by the Spirit if we don't pray. We won't hear God's voice if we don't pray. So all of this is connected. We have to be praying people. I would say it is absolutely vital. But I would also say that as you journey into dedicating yourself to a stronger prayer life,
00:04:07
Speaker
you will experience such exciting things in your walk with God, you will ask yourself, why did I not begin this sooner? Why did I not devote myself to prayer sooner? Because you will suddenly come alive with a realization that the Christian life that Jesus promised in the Bible is the direct result of your prayer life with God.
00:04:35
Speaker
And I think so many of us miss out on this or we wonder all of these intellectual questions about God and about the Bible because we aren't praying about it. We aren't seeking God in prayer or we try out prayer like it's a car on a used car lot. Well, I tried it out and it didn't do what I wanted it to do or it didn't give me results in 30 days, so I returned it.
00:04:57
Speaker
That's not how prayer works. Prayer is a long-term relationship with a loving God. A loving and righteous God. And He, here's the thing, He doesn't owe us anything. He doesn't owe us anything. Every good gift that comes from God
00:05:15
Speaker
from our Father of Lights, from our Holy and Righteous Savior, is a gift of grace to undeserving people. We do not deserve the blessings He gives us, and yet He says, if you seek Me, I will be found by you.
00:05:32
Speaker
Jesus said that God is not like a father who when asked for a loaf of bread and said he gives his child a snake or a stone. God is not like that. He's kind. He wants to give blessings. But at the same time, we can't take those truths and then begin to assume that we deserve God to answer us the way we want him to answer us.
00:05:54
Speaker
And I believe a lot of us come to prayer that way. We come to prayer wanting to test God. We come to prayer wanting to get results. And we don't come to prayer with this heart of experiencing God as a person and experiencing relationship with
Exploring Effective Prayer Models
00:06:10
Speaker
Him. And that mindset has to change for your prayer life to truly grow. I was thinking about this a few weeks ago and
00:06:20
Speaker
I realized I cannot accept a person's opinion of the effectiveness of prayer if they do not possess a daily habit of it. Because if someone just prays once and God doesn't jump like a genie, and then says, God doesn't work, prayer doesn't work,
00:06:42
Speaker
It's not that prayer doesn't work. It's that they don't pray enough to know whether it does or doesn't. And their mindset going into it is one of testing God and demanding that He perform for them in order for them to believe.
00:07:01
Speaker
And in the Walking by the Spirit episode, I discussed this and how this is not a game of God proving himself to us. Faith is belief in what you cannot see. And that belief is not in the thing you're praying for, it's in the character of the God you're praying to. We don't seek God's hand, we seek His face.
00:07:28
Speaker
Now, this does not mean that we never have requests of God, and we'll get to that in a second. In fact, I'll move that direction now. I want to give you a few tips for prayer practically, but I want to house the tips that I give you in this mindset about prayer, this shift from seeing prayer as about a list of requests of God to an intimacy with Him, a conversation with Him.
00:07:53
Speaker
listening to him, hearing his voice, reading his word, praying it back to him, and also sharing all of your requests and experiences with him. So it is relationship, but it's not just request because what human relationship do we have
00:08:11
Speaker
that could possibly exist when one person only interacts with the other in terms of requests. So if my relationship with my children was only them asking for things,
00:08:27
Speaker
it would not be a healthy relationship, especially as they got older. Now, certainly at their young and immature stages, there are a lot of requests. Mom, can I watch Bluey? Mom, can I have a snack? Mom, can we go outside? All of those requests are because they're very dependent on me and they're young and they're immature. But as they mature,
00:08:47
Speaker
The litany of requests should grow less, and our relationship should consist of more than that. And the same is for the Christian life. You might be starting out in prayer, and all it is is requests. But as you mature and grow in your faith and in your understanding of God in prayer, your relationship with God should also mature. And you should have a more robust prayer life with Him that has more guts to it than just asking for stuff.
00:09:16
Speaker
So let's look at what Jesus gave us as a model for this kind of prayer life. I'm looking in Matthew 6, and he's instructing, this is during the Sermon on the Mount, he's instructing his disciples on how to pray. And he specifically points out that the Pharisees would come and pray in public where they could be seen.
00:09:39
Speaker
He says in verse 5, When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
00:10:02
Speaker
And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
00:10:19
Speaker
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
00:10:47
Speaker
So in this passage, he gives us a lot of information. He starts by giving us an example of a trend among the religious leaders at the time, which was to pray publicly and elaborately for the attention that they would get. And he says, that's their reward. The attention of people is their reward, but they have no reward beyond that.
00:11:09
Speaker
Then he compares the godly prayer, first he compares it to the Pharisees, then he compares it to the pagan religions of the day. And he says, look, the Gentiles heap up a ton of empty phrases, extra words, fancy words, thinking that that's going to impress their deity, but I'm not asking you to do that. You can say exactly what's on your heart because your father already knows what you need before you even ask him.
00:11:35
Speaker
And then he outlines the Lord's Prayer for us. And if you look at the Lord's Prayer, remember, this is a model. This isn't like, oh, this is the only prayer that you can ever pray. It was a model for the disciples to follow. So, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. This is a statement of reverence and respect for God. It's acknowledging His power, His greatness, and His holiness. Hallowed means holy. Holy is your name.
00:12:03
Speaker
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So here is this submission to God's will and saying what you want, what you direct, what you will. I submit my will to yours. I want earth to be as heaven. And that includes my own personal will and desires. Give us this day our daily bread. So this would be asking for the things you need.
00:12:29
Speaker
requests, just as I spoke about earlier, and then forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. So here is repentance, lament, asking for forgiveness, but also an accountability to God to ask Him, where do I need to forgive someone else of how they've offended me?
00:12:51
Speaker
And then lastly, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. So asking for his protection, his guidance, his discernment, and his wisdom. So this is a model for how to pray, the things that you can and should be praying for.
00:13:11
Speaker
Some people have distilled down these principles of prayer into something called the ACTS model of prayer, A-C-T-S. And
Personal Testimonies and the Power of Prayer
00:13:21
Speaker
it's an acronym for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. And I personally love this quick model. It's not a rule that you have to follow, but I like to use it as a reminder when I am writing out my prayers in the morning.
00:13:37
Speaker
because it reminds me not to get stuck in that litany of requests. It reminds me to continue maturing in my prayer life and to start my prayers by focusing on the character of God, which is what adoration is. And that's what you see Jesus do here, where he says, our Father in heaven, holy be your name.
00:13:57
Speaker
So I like to start my prayers with adoration, with focusing on God's character, his heart, who he is, all of the things we see in scripture about him. The Psalms are great for this if you want to use the Psalms as a base for a prayer of adoration. I also love the book Adore by my friend Sarah Haggerty, which talks at length about how adoration of God changes our daily lives. And that's the kind of
00:14:26
Speaker
prayer that you can pray at any point during your day. You can adore God for the sunset you see in the sky, for the Bible verse that your child is memorizing. You can adore Him for all of the small movements of His hand in your day.
00:14:41
Speaker
So adoration is the very first part of this prayer model. The second is confession. So confessing any sins, but also confessing what's on your heart. Like what are you struggling with? What is a roadblock in your intimacy with God? What do you need to bring to the Lord and ask for his wisdom, ask for his input? And I would say during the confession portion is when I do a lot of time listening to God's voice and listening for him to speak and
00:15:11
Speaker
and listening for how he's leading me and what I need to do with any areas of repentance that he's working on. Do I need to apologize to someone? Do I need to reach out to someone? Do I need to set a better boundary? What is it that I need to do during that confession time?
00:15:29
Speaker
after a three year hiatus, Verity Conference is back and it's coming to Petoskey, Michigan, November 4th and 5th. I am so thrilled to bring back Verity Conference after our short break of a few years for COVID. And this time we are much bigger with two amazing speakers joining me to talk about apologetics and evangelism. How do we share our faith effectively in today's culture
00:15:57
Speaker
in a way that is both gracious and truthful. You'll hear from me, Jeremy Jenkins of All Things, All People, and Priscellis Dominguez, who is going to share with us how to love other people while also speaking the truth. Jeremy specializes in world religions and cults, and he will be talking about evangelism in that context. I am so excited for this event. I hope you can join us. You can grab the remaining early bird tickets on my website, feliciamasonheimer.com, if you click the conference tab.
00:16:28
Speaker
The third point is Thanksgiving, so the T in Acts. And this is just what it sounds like. It's thanking God for what he's done for you, how he's shown himself to you, for who he is. And you can spend as much time in this as you want to if you're wondering, what do I thank God for? I like to start by thinking about my closest relationships.
00:16:51
Speaker
I also like to thank God for the things I see in nature. Nature is something that always moves me to worship, and I like to thank God for the beauty that I see in nature. You might thank Him for the smallest provisions that He's given you. I was able to put gas in my car. Those things are all examples of Thanksgiving prayer.
00:17:14
Speaker
And the last thing, the last letter of Acts is supplication, the S word supplication. And what this means is requests. So this is when you're asking God for things. Obviously asking God for things is a big part of prayer.
00:17:32
Speaker
I have seen so many amazing answers to prayer over the course of my life. But the key to supplication, in my opinion, is, again, that mindset that God doesn't owe me anything, right? He is all-powerful and he's all good and all kind.
00:17:49
Speaker
but he desires to give me what is best for me. So I ask him for things on the basis of my limited wisdom and his good heart. So I'm asking for something that I may not know is the best thing for me, but maybe I think it is. And I'm trusting that his heart is good because that's what I see in scripture. And how he answers that prayer
00:18:13
Speaker
will be based on His complete wisdom and His kind heart. This is how I can pray confidently and specifically. And I say specifically because vague prayers get vague answers. If you are praying vague prayers, like, dear God, please bless my husband today.
00:18:32
Speaker
Well, what does bless mean? What do you mean by that? What are you really asking for when you pray that prayer? Dear God, please find us a house that is perfect for our family. Well, what do you mean by that? What does perfect mean to you? What are you truly asking God? You can't hide what you really desire from Him. He already knows. So you might as well tell Him and interact with Him and go on the journey with Him.
00:18:59
Speaker
The house that we're living in now, our farmhouse at Willow's Bend, is what I call our miracle house. I knew that one day we would want to move out of our town and we're downtown and into the country, but I figured it was pretty far off. And this was in 2019. And in 2019, I had broken my leg and went into surgery and I have a plate and eight screws in my knee.
00:19:23
Speaker
And then just as I began walking, we were planning Verity Conference for that year. So this was the last Verity Conference was in 2019. And we were planning that and I was, you know, on crutches. And we were also going out of town to visit Josh's family in Virginia. So it was just a lot going on. And at this particular moment,
00:19:45
Speaker
While I'm sitting in a wheelchair in my house, I decided to just hop on Zillow and look around and see what was for sale. To this day, I do not know why I did that. There was no reason. We did not need to move. We did not want to move. We were always hoping one day, but we had no reason to leave at that time with two small kids, me in a wheelchair, and all of this on our plate.
00:20:10
Speaker
But there was this house in Willow's Bend. This house is a house I grew up driving past my entire childhood. And I always thought it was just the prettiest house with all of these willows around it. I just thought, wow, if I ever lived somewhere, I would love to live somewhere like that.
00:20:25
Speaker
So this house is for sale and it's been on the market for 10 days. And we began to pray about this house. Should we move there? Is it bad timing? Is this foolish? This doesn't seem like the right thing. And I just began to pray very, very specifically. And I don't want to get into all of the details because it's a very, very long story. I have the highlight on my Instagram. It's called house story or home story.
00:20:49
Speaker
But essentially, we prayed very specific prayers about the amount of money that we could spend, about the timeframe that needed to happen, and for the peace of the process. Every single one of those prayers was answered. But the journey to those prayers being answered was incredibly unexpected, sometimes difficult, sometimes disappointing, and sometimes utterly crazy. But in the end, it was God's will that we had this house.
00:21:19
Speaker
And there's a lot of reasons why I think that the Lord has called us to steward this house and to steward where we live.
00:21:26
Speaker
But I got to see God's faithfulness and His kindness through that process. And I got to see His faithfulness and His kindness before I ever knew that we were even going to be in this house. There was a point during the process when it looked like we just weren't going to get the house at all. We weren't going to move. And I was content with that. I was content with staying in our 1,400 square foot cottage in town. It was a precious house and we loved it.
00:21:55
Speaker
But God also answered that prayer, that desire of our hearts. And he did it in a way that absolutely blew our minds. But we saw what he was doing because our hearts were tuned to see it by praying specifically.
Intercessory and Perseverant Prayer
00:22:12
Speaker
I did the same thing when I was praying for my future husband. I prayed very specifically about the kind of man I was looking to be with. Now, I didn't pray about physical characteristics because I wanted to be open and open to whoever God may have and not be judging people by physical appearances, but I was praying over character. I was praying over shared interests and passions and vision.
00:22:36
Speaker
And even though Josh and I have had a marriage that has been hard at times, and we talk about that on the marriage series of the podcast, even though there have been hard moments, I know for sure that the prayer that I prayed as a single woman is fulfilled in this man that I married.
00:22:53
Speaker
We pray specifically not so we just get what we want. We pray specifically to share our desires with God and allow God to shape those desires as He answers what we pray. So a couple of the verses I wanted to look at regarding prayer that give us some guidance on what this is supposed to look like.
00:23:15
Speaker
I wanted to look at 1 Timothy 2. This is the Apostle Paul writing to young Timothy, and he says, first of all, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
00:23:44
Speaker
When we're talking about praying specifically and supplication or supplications to God, we're talking about intercessory prayer. So sometimes we intercede for ourselves for things that we want, but intercessory prayer is usually, you're mainly focused on praying for other people. You're interceding for someone else. You're praying on their behalf. And that's what is being talked about here.
00:24:09
Speaker
I would say intercessory prayer is, again, one of the most important kinds of prayer that there can be. Over and over throughout the New Testament, especially, we see these letters saying, please pray for me. Pray for me. Lift me up before God. Why? Because when we do that, we go to war against the powers of the enemy.
00:24:33
Speaker
This is a spiritual world with spiritual warfare happening. And that is why, if we page back a little bit, we see in Ephesians, right after Paul writes about the armor of God, he adds an additional piece of armor.
00:24:53
Speaker
We leave this one off. So he says you need to have shoes on your feet as the readiness of the gospel, a shield of faith so you can extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And then this is what he says.
00:25:09
Speaker
Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.
00:25:30
Speaker
So we often stop short with the armor of God. We have the shoes and the shield and the helmet and the sword and all of that, but there is no specific piece of armor for prayer. And yet he lists it as an essential to spiritual warfare because it is. So we usually stop short of, you know, sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. But he then says, pray at all times in the spirit,
00:25:58
Speaker
with all prayer and supplication, keeping alert with perseverance. I really want to focus on this passage because this is important. He is saying that you have the word of God right in your hand. It's the sword.
00:26:10
Speaker
but you also need to be praying in the Spirit. You have the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, but you are to be praying in the Spirit in prayer and supplication. So you're speaking to God in intimacy with Him, and then you're also giving Him your requests. He also notes something else. He says, we need to keep alert with all perseverance.
00:26:37
Speaker
This tells us that our temptation will be to apathy and distraction and laziness. Even back then, to the early church, keep alert with perseverance, which implies our nature is to not be alert and to not persevere. So if prayer comes difficultly to you,
00:27:03
Speaker
This should not be a surprise because the Apostle Paul is saying you have to pray and I'm encouraging you to pray not because it's easy or it comes naturally to you, but because it is essential for you to fight the battle of your generation. It is essential for you to know what God is asking you to do. It is essential for you to know how to live the Christian life effectively.
00:27:29
Speaker
For you to do that, you must pray at all times and keep alert with perseverance in your praying.
00:27:38
Speaker
Perseverant prayer, I think, is what is lost on my generation, the millennial generation, in my experience working with them. It seems as if something takes discipline or time or work, we don't wanna do it. We think something's wrong. We would rather make a meme about how we can't get up in the morning or we fall asleep during it or we don't wanna try or it's really hard for us or all of the reasons why we can't do it instead of just saying, you know what, it's hard.
00:28:07
Speaker
A lot of things are hard, but it's worth it. And the Word of God says I need to do it because it is the way to walk with Jesus. It is the way for me to grow up in my faith and change my world. If you knew that prayer was the way, the only way to abide in Christ, to know God's will, to
00:28:35
Speaker
grow in maturity and to actually walk the word of God out in your daily life. If you knew that was true, would you do it? No matter how hard it was. And that's the question we have to ask ourselves. Because it's not a question of whether or not we should pray. We know we should. It's now a question of will you do it?
00:28:56
Speaker
because it gets easier as you do it. It's not going to get easier if you never do, if you never try, if you never persevere. Perseverance by its very nature means you are pushing through opposition. You are pushing through your own opposition, your own nature, your own tiredness, your own whatever.
00:29:17
Speaker
and saying, I am not going to continue circulating these thoughts in my mind without directing them to the Lord. I am not going to start my day without aligning my heart with Christ because I say He's the most important thing to me. I say that He's my King.
00:29:37
Speaker
I was just studying the Great Commission for a Verity conference next week because I'm speaking on evangelism. And something that I notice is during the Great Commission, Jesus says that
00:29:49
Speaker
His first command to them is to go and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And when he says to baptize people in the name of the Trinity, it literally means into the name of God, which implies they are being initiated into the service of a king.
00:30:15
Speaker
They are giving their allegiance to this king. So if you have been baptized into Christianity, if you've been baptized into Christ, you have been initiated into the kingdom of Christ, the king. And the king gets to tell you what to do. I think this is lost on us a little bit because we live in a democratic society, we live in a republic.
00:30:46
Speaker
we don't remember that Christ's language around the Gospel is that of kingship and authority. And he actually precedes the entire Great Commission by saying,
00:31:03
Speaker
I have authority on earth and in heaven. I have all the authority. Go therefore and make disciples. So what does that have to do with prayer? It means that we have to understand ourselves rightly, that we are servants of the king, and we need our marching orders. We need to know what to do.
00:31:24
Speaker
And to know what to do, we have to pray. That is how we get our specific marching orders from God. But the beautiful thing is we don't have this unloving king, this king who's distant and doesn't want anything to do with us. We have a personal and loving father who also happens to be the king. And because of that, we can go to him and trust his affection when we bring our requests and also when we ask him, what are you asking me to do, Lord? It's a both and.
00:31:54
Speaker
It's both the intimacy of prayer to our Father and understanding the authority of God as King. It is both supplication and confession. It is adoration and thanksgiving. Intercessory prayer on behalf of other people is an example
00:32:20
Speaker
of that kind of perseverance. Because sometimes you'll pray for somebody for 20 years and you won't see any outward fruit. Or maybe you'll pray for your city and you'll feel like things aren't changing. But I promise you the more specific you are and the more perseverant you are, the more your eyes are open to what God is doing.
00:32:41
Speaker
The last thing I want to mention about prayer is the idea of unceasing prayer. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul says to pray without ceasing. You might be thinking, how is that possible? I can't pray every single minute of the day.
00:32:57
Speaker
Probably not, but you can remain in constant connection to Christ through prayer, which, interestingly, is exactly what he said to do in John 15. He said, I am the true vine. My father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
00:33:24
Speaker
abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in
Maintaining a Prayerful Life with Practical Tips
00:33:33
Speaker
me. I am the vine, you are the branches." He goes on to say that apart from him you can do nothing, nothing. And yet we try so hard to do the Christian life apart from abiding in the vine. And how do you abide in the vine? Through prayer.
00:33:52
Speaker
You abide in the vine through a constant connection to Christ. You abide in the vine by taking every single circumstance, stress, and burden of this life and immediately talking to God about it. And not just venting to Him, but actually asking, and what would you have me do, Lord? So, for example,
00:34:19
Speaker
I have a temper, and having kids has definitely made that something that is harder to control. But something that I have noticed is that with all things in the Christian life, the more you submit it to Christ,
00:34:40
Speaker
And the more you allow God to work the fruits of His Spirit in you, especially self-control, the stronger your muscle of obedience grows. And so my kids got to an age where suddenly they just started bickering, just
00:35:00
Speaker
bickering like nothing I've ever seen before and it's pretty typical for that age I've learned since but it's not something that we want to cultivate in our home so we're constantly correcting it we're constantly teaching through it
00:35:16
Speaker
And it's very emotionally triggering for me, if you will. It is overwhelming. The noise, the discussion, the dealing with it so often can be very overwhelming. It can make me very angry. And in those moments,
00:35:35
Speaker
I know I have a choice. I can deal with it in my own nature, right? I can just deal with it as I think I know best. Or I can walk like he has called me to walk. I can abide in the vine so that I can do something of eternal value with my children in that moment. Because apart from him, I can do nothing.
00:36:00
Speaker
And as Thessalonians says, I need to pray without ceasing. So in that moment, I want to cease from praying because I want to yell, or I want to get angry, or I want to just deal with the issue. And prayer seems like a really inconvenient thing to do in that moment. It seems really impractical. But prayer is an action step. And it is the best action step that I can take in that moment because
00:36:26
Speaker
It is like plugging into the power source for the fruits of the spirit. Now we always have the indwelling spirit with us. He's always at work, but we have a choice in whether or not we submit to his leading and his power. And when we do not pray,
00:36:43
Speaker
We effectively cut ourselves off from what the Holy Spirit is attempting to do in our lives because we've ignored his voice. We're not asking for his voice. We're not seeking his voice. We're not listening for his voice. So how can I receive the fullness of what he wants to do in my life if I will not pause and ask him for his help?
00:37:06
Speaker
So when I feel overwhelmed and angry in that moment, I must stop or take myself out of the room even for 30 seconds and ask the Lord for the power of the Holy Spirit abide in the vine that he may bear much fruit through me and that I have the strength to do something of eternal value.
00:37:30
Speaker
That is what prayer in an unceasing fashion can look like. Or maybe it's anxiety. I went through a period of time earlier this year. Some of it was physical that we later realized and were able to find supplements to help with, but a lot of it was also just the pressures of
00:37:49
Speaker
leading every woman a theologian and different pressures our family was experiencing this summer, and I was struggling with a lot of anxiety like I had never experienced before. And while we did find the physical things that were contributing to it, I saw those bouts of anxiety as an opportunity for me to grow my prayer life. Because both Jesus and Paul said,
00:38:14
Speaker
cast your anxieties on him. Be anxious for nothing. Look at the lilies of the field. They're saying, when you are anxious, when this happens, you have a choice to submit to the anxiety or to submit to what I want to give you in the middle of it.
00:38:36
Speaker
And so I had a choice to let the enemy capitalize on that physical anxiety by adding on an element of spiritual anxiety and social anxiety, or to invite Christ in to overcome it. And that was a daily hourly thing for quite some time and still sometimes is. And that is praying unceasingly.
00:39:04
Speaker
And it takes perseverance. It's not easy. Sometimes I just wanna be mad. Sometimes I just want to worry. Sometimes it actually feels good to do those things. And I have to remind myself that the truth of my feelings, that's not trustworthy. The truth of God's word is he's told me what to do with anxiety and anger. He's told me that I need to pray and that I cannot do anything of eternal value and true value with my life if I do not abide in him.
00:39:32
Speaker
And so to abide or remain in Him, to stay with Him, I have to pray. As we conclude this episode, here are a few practical tips for prayer. I feel like I've given you some practicals, but I want to give a few more things that work for me. So if you find that you're very easily distracted during prayer, two things that help me. One is to keep your planner or notepad nearby. And as things pop in your head, like
00:39:59
Speaker
need to get groceries, need to fill the car up, et cetera. Write it down in that list and then turn it over or push it away and move back to your focused prayer time. Another thing that helps me is to have a list of people I'm praying for, people, situations. I love Val Marie papers, prayer journals. I use them every six months. I get their six month version.
00:40:23
Speaker
and I absolutely love them. Val also has a book called Pray Confidently and Consistently. That's excellent if you want more on this topic.
00:40:33
Speaker
Now I don't just pray down the list, I also write out my prayers. So if you tend to be easily distracted when you pray, which I am, it may help to write out your prayers. So as I'm praying in my head, I'm writing out what I'm praying. I'm literally just handwriting what I would be saying out loud.
00:40:53
Speaker
And this is the same as praying out loud. This is just as good as praying out loud. You're just writing it out so that you can stay focused. This is also a great strategy for kinesthetic learners, which I also am. If you process information better by doing it, handwriting can be very helpful. Now it slows you down a bit. So
00:41:14
Speaker
you can do shorthand or you could do some handwritten and some out loud either way but I find that handwriting my prayers is very helpful and then I can go back and read them if I want to read them. Another great strategy is actually praying out loud because when you hear your voice it helps you also stay focused and stay awake. So I will pray out loud in the car
00:41:36
Speaker
I will pray out loud over my kids. I'll pray out loud even in those moments of anger and anxiety with my kids in front of me. Sometimes if I'm feeling very angry, I will pray out loud in front of them about what I am struggling with. Not blaming them, but just praying about it.
00:41:54
Speaker
Another practical thing that we've done in corporate prayer when I'm praying with other people is writing out a short prayer on a note card and reading it out loud. If you're not comfortable praying with other people, that's a great way to begin getting more confident because that's something you want to really grow in in corporate prayer.
00:42:12
Speaker
You can also pray what your requests are if you're with another person. Pray out loud your personal requests and they listen and agree with you in prayer and then they pray back over what you just prayed out loud in their own words. That's a great way to share requests without it devolving into distraction and then you're doubly lifting it up to the Lord.
00:42:36
Speaker
Another thing a friend of mine taught me is prayer doodling. So this could be another great method for your kinesthetic learners or those who are ADHD or easily distracted. You can take a piece of paper and begin drawing a picture and you draw different portions of it. And as you draw a portion of your picture, you write the name of somebody that you're praying for or the topic that you want to pray for.
00:43:00
Speaker
And you pray for that person as long as you're drawing that portion of the picture. Then you move to another portion of your picture and you write somebody else's name or a different topic and you draw that portion. So you can just keep going around your picture until you've completed it and you have prayed over however many people you want to cover in prayer. So that was a new method to me. I thought it was so cool and so fun. You could also use a coloring book, kind of like Bible journaling. And as you use a coloring book, you could pray
00:43:29
Speaker
You know and write somebody's name in that too.
Conclusion: Prayer as the Lifeline of Faith
00:43:32
Speaker
So there's a wide variety of ways to pray I've not at all covered all the different ways to pray I love the book prayer by Richard Foster which talks about I think 50 different types of prayer and short chapters
00:43:47
Speaker
beautiful and inspiring to cultivate a prayer life that is very diverse and trying different types of prayer as well. I hope this was an encouragement to you and and if you're starting out and you're like okay I don't know where to begin I know this is important I know I need to do it.
00:44:03
Speaker
Where do I begin? Just begin with the ACTS model of prayer. A-C-T-S. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. I think that is a fantastic place to begin because when you have mastered that, not mastered it, but you've practiced it, you can then move on to more intercessory prayer. You could move on to more spiritual disciplines, pairing, fasting, and prayer together, things like that.
00:44:30
Speaker
the Acts model is a great place to begin as well as prayer journaling. Thank you for listening, as usual. I hope that this inspires you to look at what Scripture says about prayer and to let it bring you closer to God. To see that prayer is not a checkbox, it's actually your
00:44:50
Speaker
life source. It is your connection to God. It is your connection to the strength of the Christian life. It is how you will be able to walk by the Spirit, to hear God, and to know God's will for the decisions that you're making. And I know that as you cultivate this discipline with perseverance, you will see what Jesus promised in John 15.
00:45:14
Speaker
because you will abide in the vine, and by abiding in Him, you will bear much fruit.
00:45:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Verity podcast. If you enjoy this episode, would you take the time to leave us a review? It helps so many other women around the world find out about Verity and about every woman a theologian as a ministry and a shop. We appreciate you and I hope you'll be back next week as we continue to go deeper into God's word and the heart of Jesus Christ.