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A Brief Word About Prayer

 For so many of us, prayer is a challenge.


Maybe because it can be hard to find the time for an extended prayer session. Or there is a lack of guidance to help us as we pray. Sometimes the prayer meeting can feel more like a gossip meeting, and that has never helped anyone to grow a healthy prayer life. We may not even know what, exactly, we can and should pray for and about. 








I don't want to make this one bit more complicated, confusing or challenging.

What I do want, however, is to see more people pray more prayers and receive more answers.


This blog post won't be written perfectly, and there is no well-mapped out flow for what I share here. There is just my heart for God's people and my belief that He is still in the prayer-answering business. So here I am, in all my imperfection, to offer you this brief and somewhat untidy word about prayer.


Thought #1 - 

     God's promises are long lasting. They are imperishable. And they have a very long shelf life... as in, an eternal shelf life. What might change in our praying if we kept that truth in mind? 


Thought # 2 - 

     Sometimes life is so hard, it actually seems painful to pray. But one of the most detrimental things we can do in those hard seasons of life is to stop praying. The devil wins a victory when we cease to pray. It's okay, it's totally normal, to pray with groans and tears and brutal honesty. What amazing and miraculous things might happen if we were to pray through the hard times, to pray and not give up?


Thought # 3 - 

     Since my diagnosis of heart failure in 2016, I have been asking God for physical healing. The last couple of months I have upped the ante as I've prayed - and praying bigger, bolder prayers has made more hopeful about God's healing for my heart. Whatever nervousness I had about really, truly asking God for miraculous healing has sort of flown out the window... and I hope I can encourage others to pray for physical healing in their bodies, too. 


Thought # 4 - 

     In the month of July, I will be starting an in-depth look at the book of Acts to learn all that I can about prayer in the early church. And I am pretty sure that as I study this New Testament book "on the hunt" to learn more about prayer, the Lord will teach me. Probably, a whole lot of teaching will take place. What will happen to my prayers after I do this intense study? I'm excited to find out!


Keep praying, and don't ever give up.

Now more than ever, I am fully convinced that God hears and answers prayer. 

I'm waiting to see Him move in this world, in my life & in yours, in ways both big and small.

Let's be known as people who pray and never give up!


~ Jan L. Burt


A 60-Day Prayer Journal for Parents - available at Amazon

     

     

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