Prayer. To be honest, I’ve never been good at praying. Mediocre at best. I always felt like there was so much to pray about that I would never actually get through all I needed to, and I perceived it as failure before I even started. (I’m a type-A person, if you can’t tell) I felt burdened to pray instead of using prayer to lift my burdens up to God – to connect with God in a real way. I mean, praying without ceasing…that’s a complicated thing, yeah? Do I need to feel ‘guilty’ if I’m not spending countless hours in prayer every day? No. However, challenging myself to do NEW things with prayer has helped me grasp better what this concept of ‘praying all the time’ means.
Last year I was taking some time to pray and I asked God…”What are things I need to work on this upcoming semester?” and I ended up with a list. So each month of this semester – I am going to be tackling a new challenge.
January = Prayer.
I think one of my biggest problems was my small mindset on what prayer needed to look like. I like routine, but I don’t want to get bored of doing the same thing over and over again. So, I created a list of what can “prayer” look like in my life.
Here’s my list:
–Have a prayer board: write petitions down of things to pray for. Pray for one thing a day or once a week for the requests. It’s a good way to pray for others routinely. You can also see how prayers get answered easily!
–Daily Gratitude: God shows us he cares for us in little ways. God can appear in a beautiful sunset, a meaningful conversation with friends, sitting quietly and reading, or eating a healthy, delicious meal. Writing down things we are grateful for or where we see God daily helped me recognize the ways God is with me daily.
–Prayer walk/Be in nature: Sometimes it’s just easier to walk and pray! Seeing God’s creating is powerful.
–Prayer Journal: Okay…I hate journaling. I know it’s so “in”, but I couldn’t bring myself to sit and write. After telling myself, “Lydia…just write a page. Thank God for who he is and what he’s doing” the words just kept coming. And it was so much easier to stay focued.
–Praying out loud: Once again…helps me stay focused! Plus, it helps make praying out loud more natural.
–Write a letter to God: as if He were a friend. A little “Thank you note” or “Just saying hi” note.
–Pray with people: find friends and share your burdens and praises with them. We’re not in this alone! It helps to share our requests with people and pray for others – it gets me out of my ‘me’ mindset to be able to pray for others with them.
–No Phones/Stillness: Just that. Unplug and connect with the creator.
–Praying through the Bible: Choose specific verses and recite those – meditate on them – ask God how you can apply those verses in your life. Or pray for people who might be in a situation similar to the one you are reading about.
–Praying for a place in that place: Work, your house, a coffee shop – pray in those places for the Holy Spirit to encounter people there. Or you to encounter people there. Or just simply for joy to resonate in that place.
Ultimately, there are SO many ‘deep thoughts’ or ‘theological stances’ about prayer, but the biggest thing I learned was that prayer happens best when I actually DO it. The action of resonating and resting with God through prayer. So, here are practical, creative things I have learned in January. And I hope some of these ideas inspire you to connect with God in a new way.
One book that I found really helpful during this month was, “Too busy NOT to pray” by Bill Hybels. Very good stuff in there. Check in out if you want to learn more about prayer in a practical way!