Today’s blog will build upon a previous blog called The Importance of Prayer. As I mentioned in the first post, I have been listening to a short sermon series on Prayer and I have been sharing what I take away from the sermons.

Many are familiar with the verses above; they are often referred to as The Lord’s Prayer. It offers us insight to how we should strive to pray. Every prayer doesn’t have to sound perfect or be about the same things, but we should always pray for His kingdom and His will to be done in any and every circumstance. Prayer to us spiritually is like oxygen to us physically; we NEED it to thrive! Many Christians today are great at identifying problems around them, yet we aren’t taking steps to change our atmosphere! I’m willing to bet that most everyone reading this has two things in their homes right now: a thermometer and a thermostat. Many of us Christians are the thermometer, we help identify the issue yet we aren’t being the thermostat which actually changes the atmosphere around us. The thermometer will tell us the temperature, but it will not change the temperature. In other words, pointing out what’s wrong around us shouldn’t be our main focus; our main focus should be coming up with a process to better what’s around us. A major key to being a strong Christian is setting priorities in our life. These spiritual priorities come from our beliefs and values and they determine the direction or course of our life. We should be asking God what His priorities for our life are and making it a point to achieve them. By nature most of us tend to think of ourselves, but we should remember to always put God and His will first in our lives.

A kingdom can be described as a king’s domain. The kingdom of God refers to God’s sovereign rule in the hearts of man. We should pray for His will to be carried out by all of us, including those who lead over our country. In the United States, we obviously don’t have a king or queen to rule over us, but a President and Vice President; we also have Congressman and Mayors etc. Whether we are for or against any leader, we should alway pray that they lead us in a way pleasing to God. It is easy for us to place blame on this leader or that leader, but prayer can cause change! Not much, if anything at all, will change until our leaders operate on Godly wisdom instead of political benefit! Pray for your cities as well! One of our responsibilities as Christians is to BE the change we want to see; stop reporting the issues and go out and make the difference. We are called to influence our communities and come against the negatives/evil in prayer.  I personally believe prayer can change anything and that includes our country! Nothing is impossible with God!

In addition to praying for our leaders, we should remember to pray for our families. We should continually pray for any problems we have within our families and especially remember those who don’t know the word of God. Pray to make an impact on those who don’t believe, as we may be the only form of Jesus they ever experience.  May we pray for direction and guidance from God on how to handle any issues within our families and know that it may not always be pleasing to everyone involved, but in the end it will work together for the good of everyone involved.

We should also be praying for our spouse. Pray for our relationship in general; that we are working together to build one another up and to help each other recognize our gifts/talents and encouraging each other to use those skills to reach others and strengthen our relationship with God. We should always want our spouse to excel!

Of course we can’t forget to pray for our children! One thing we can never pray enough for in these crazy times is protection over our children. Let us remember to pray for children to have wisdom in their choices, especially when it comes to the friends they choose etc. May they always have wisdom to tell the difference between people who will help them grow and those who will cause them to wilt. May we pray for the salvation of our children that they may grow in their very own personal relationship with God.

Pray for your church. Whether it’s a church you visit or are a member of. Pray for the other believers and pastors to have spiritual wisdom and understanding and that they all continue to grow in their faith.

Last, but not least, remember to pray for yourself as well.

Pray for your struggles, relationships, fears/anxieties/ stresses; don’t just pray for change in everyone else, but for change in yourself and your life as well. Pray to become more like Jesus and let our joy be our strength! Pray to be the “real deal” showing others through your actions and not just your words! Let others see Him in our lives. As I said before, we may just be the one and only contact someone else has with God! May all we do reflect God’s love, peace and joy so that non-believers question what makes us tick. 💚🙌

I want to pray for everyone reading this, that you all may progress in your own faith and personal relationship with God. I pray we all recognize that we are the body of Christ and in order for the body to move and reach others, we must do more than just speak about the problems, we must become the solution!

Much love and God Bless! 💚

If any of you reading this have any prayer requests, PLEASE don’t hesitate to comment on this blog and I guarantee we will have several people praying for you. Also, if anyone just wants me to pray with them over their comment they leave, please let me know and I would absolutely be willing to do so. My words aren’t perfect, they’re not always the most sophisticated but thankfully our God doesn’t care about that, but only the sincerity of our words. 🙌

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Sundays were always a day I looked forward to growing up, because it would mean attending church. Sunday mornings would be for Sunday School followed by the actual church service with the whole congregation coming together to hear one sermon. My church was definitely one of a kind and I have never found another that can even come close to comparing. It has actually caused me a lot of aggravation and sadness, now that I’m older and living in another state, that I cannot find a church that lives up to my standards and idea of what a church is or can be. Our church was small, but close-knit. It was like a second family for me. Of course not every one person will get along wonderfully in any kind of group, but for the majority I felt we all truly cared for one another. Also, not everyone in a church is non-judgmental, but that also shows they are not extending their faith in the correct way. If you ever encounter people like that in a church while you’re visiting or even outside of a church, please don’t assume that everyone in that church or anyone  that associates with that person is the same. Don’t let one or two cracked eggs ruin the whole dozen!

So, as I am older and living in another state I did not grow up in, I find it difficult to find that kind of church family again. People who welcome you with open arms and love you for who you are and want to help you grow in your faith. Since I have yet to find a church family, I often listen to sermons online from a church I used to attend back home…not one I was a member of and not my original church, but one I did enjoy going to. Today I listened to the beginning of a sermon series on prayer and the importance of it in our lives. I always like to share the message I received with others, so you can guess what this blog will be about!

Many of us believe in praying. We pray before meals, we pray before traveling, we pray when we have problems in our lives…but are we truly putting ourselves into those prayers, or just going through the motions? Are we sincere or has our prayer life become more of a tradition than anything else? Most of us have all learned a prayer or two as a child. “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food, Amen!” “As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” We all have learned those prayers or some versions of those prayers and have even memorized our own unique family prayers for bed time and meal times. I am not knocking any child’s prayers or saying we shouldn’t hand those down, but there comes a point in our lives where we need to break free from the routine prayer and speak more from our hearts. God isn’t interested in big words and fancy speech, He is more concerned about sincerity, honesty and humility. In other words, He craves us to be REAL with Him. He knows everything about us, but He wants us to come to Him and express our concerns or thankfulness. Of course He knows how we feel, but He wants to hear it from us!

Prayer plays a tremendous role in our lives; more than we give it credit for. Prayer can determine the level we rise in all areas of our lives. We can only go as far as our prayers take us. Prayer should be taken seriously and it should make a difference in our daily lives. When we treat prayer as some sort of tradition, we aren’t letting it make a difference in our lives after the prayer is over. Prayer should be of great importance and a top priority in our lives and after we pray it should change how we go about our days; it should impact how we interact with others, how we approach our problems and how we live life in general! It should be helping us grow as a person and also grow in our faith.

Taking the act of prayer seriously allows us not to lose heart. When we lose heart we want to just give up and give in and this is something that pleases Satan! He would love for that to happen to us! If Satan can get us to lose heart, he can get us to doubt and in turn lose faith, which makes him closer to his goal of destroying the gospel! Steal, kill and destroy, that’s what Satan wants to do. Prayer enables us to not only identify Satan in our lives, but it can help us to evade and escape from whatever he is attempting to do in our lives. It shines a light on his deceitfulness!

As I have blogged about before, prayer had helped me (and still does) during my extreme anxiety break downs. I always say I believe in the power of prayer! When we pray we should believe our own words and that God is there to hear us and answer our prayers according to His will and what is best for our lives. I’ll be the first to say that unanswered prayers can sometimes be the biggest blessings! It doesn’t mean we weren’t heard, it means God said no because He had something better for you and your life. We cannot see it at the time, so we wonder why God isn’t listening to us…but He is! Now anxiety and worry can consume us! We are in a constant fight whether we want to be or not and the enemy keeps on attacking; he’s relentless! We experience more worry and stress due to our wanting to be in control and believing we are in ultimate control of our lives. We take on all of our issues alone and forget that our God waits for us to bring that baggage to Him! We shouldn’t be carrying any of our own baggage! We should be going to God in prayer and handing it all over to Him to handle. He isn’t like a friend who says vent and unload to me and then they too become overwhelmed; He can truly carry your burdens now just as He did at the cross! He wants to take that weight from us and allow us to breathe easier and stress less. When we go to God in prayer we shouldn’t give Him our problems only to take then right back after we’re done praying; we should have faith that when we give those things to God, He is solving our problems for us and we no longer have to worry about them. It’s not saying to never come to Him over the same concerns, but we should believe that He is working for us! We don’t have to fight alone; God is our strength!

Prayer will allow us to become closer to God and that is a huge reason we should make a point to make prayer a point! Let prayer be a part of you and your daily life! Come to Him with words from your heart and not just words of tradition or routine. Come to Him in good times and bad. Prayer isn’t just about coming to God in times of need, but also coming to Him with thankfulness of all He has blessed you with! I pray that all of us take charge of our prayer lives and make prayer an important habit that we treat with respect. Let us not just go through the motions, but really put our whole hearts into our prayers to God. I pray even families start a prayer time together and put emphasis on the subject. May we all grow closer to God through our prayer life!

Much love and God Bless!