Prayer

I watched Beth Moore’s Livestream podcast yesterday.  Beth Moore always inspires me.  I have done a few of her bible studies and have come away from all of them refreshed and renewed.  When I have committed myself to her bible studies, studying and being in the word has helped me so much.

She has just started doing live podcasts and I am loving them.  Yesterday’s was about prayer.  Beth talked about how she prays and asked others to share how they pray on her blog.  I have been wanting to start being more intentional with my prayer life.  Currently, I just pray randomly whenever.  I do talk to God a lot throughout the day.  {I tend to talk to myself a lot, too – so it’s nice to know someone is listening.}  I do not, however, set aside a specific time just for Him and me.  One of things that I wanted to change this year to be my best self was to talk to God more – to listen to Him more and to pray more.  God sure does listen, doesn’t He?  I asked for help in doing this, and He sends me Beth Moore.  Talk about perfect timing.

Here’s a summary of what I learned from Beth.

Beth says she prays first thing in the morning because it helps her start her day.  When she doesn’t start with prayer, she says she finds that she is more “irritable, self-centered, hard to please, or lazy.”  Have you ever been there?  I know I have.  To fix one of these days, I usually have to stop myself and pray – asking God to remove whatever is going on in my own mind.  I think, like Beth, I need to start my day with prayer.  For me, this means, I am going to have to get out of bed before my son wakes up.  I’m usually already awake – I just don’t get up – I always think I can sleep for just a few more minutes, but I never can go back to sleep.

Beth uses a prayer journal to help organize her prayer time.  I like this idea.  I like journaling {obviously, huh? or I wouldn’t have a blog…}.

She suggests choosing a passage of scripture to read and then letting that passage guide your prayers for others.

For long term prayer needs, Beth suggests searching for scriptures about the topic.  Copy the scriptures down (or print them out), and add them to your prayer time.

Beth also recommends praying out loud.  She says that sometimes when she prays aloud, she’ll start talking about things she didn’t know where prayer needs – things will surface that she didn’t know bothered her.  I’ve had that happen.  I’ll start talking to God and then feelings and thoughts will just start pouring out.  It’s rather therapeutic and cleansing for me.

Beth reminds us to pray throughout the day – have that ongoing conversation with God.  Pray for people you pass on the street.  Pray for things that come up throughout the day.

Lord, I pray for prayer to be a desire in my life.  I pray for it to bear fruit.  Please continue to teach me how to pray.

You can watch Beth’s Jan. 12th podcast about prayer here.

Ashley from The Shine Project challenged us this week “to find courage within yourself to accomplish something that needs to be done, but is terrifying to do.”

I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do.  I hadn’t really felt anything placed on my heart until I listened to Beth Moore.  What I’ve chosen to do does take courage, and it may be a little scary to see what will change in my life.  I have always let time get in the way before.  Today, I am choosing to start my day with prayer – to have a conversation with God – to listen to Him – to help change myself so I can know what He wants me to do – what he wants me to change in this world.

I know God has big plans for me.  I feel it in the very depth of my being.

Seeking Him and looking forward to change,