March 2024 Prayer Devotional Blog

“All true prayer should exist for the glory of God, and is based in the worship of God, focused on the face of God, shaped by the Word of God, inspired by the Spirit of God, offered through the Son of God, aimed for the will of God, experienced by true children of God.”
- Daniel Henderson

I want to start this blog post with a check in—How is your prayer life? Praying can be hard! If you are in a dry season, my prayer is that you will be encouraged by these words and it will spark a fire in your own prayer life. If you are in fervent season, may you be encouraged to come along side someone and encourage them also in their prayer life. Besides salvation, prayer is the most important way to communicate with our Heavenly Father. Our personal relationship with Him is key to everything else and prayer is a vital part of that.

So far in this year focused on prayer, we have talked about praise in prayer: praising God for the things He has provided for us, praise for the ways He has brought us through situations, and just praising Him for who He is. We have also talked about repentance of our sins through prayer and our need to come before the Father in humility, through the Son by the Holy Spirit. These aspects of prayer help us to grow closer in our relationship with God and allow us to live within His grace and mercy. We have also explored how there is no formula for praying, though there are tools to help encourage and strengthen you in your prayer walk.  This brings me to the topics of our upcoming retreat—asking and yielding in prayer. These prayer components likewise help us as we grow in our relationship with God and stretch our faith.

Asking…that can be hard to do, as it may make us seem vulnerable or weak. Many times, we don’t want to ask for help because we think we can do it ourselves, or we think we can do it in our own strength, or both. When we bathe ourselves in God’s Word, He gives us knowledge and wisdom, and His desires become our desires. His Word helps us as we ask Him to make clear His will for every decision and request, so that we might submit to Him while bearing fruit, increasing in knowledge, and finding joy in the midst of it all (Colossians 1:9-12). He invites us to come to Him and talk to Him about whatever is on our hearts that concerns, interests, confuses, frightens, challenges, or touches our lives. Whether small or big, it is through our requests that we learn that God is our gracious heavenly Father and we are His beloved children. It can be easy to forget that through our prayers, we are speaking to God, who has limitless resources. When we seek Him from a heart aligned with His, we can confirm His promise that He hears us and wants to grant our requests (John 14:12-14).

A little bit after my divorce, I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to move to a new home. At first it was in small ways, like cleaning out drawers, cupboards, and the like, similar to a purging and cleansing, piece by piece. It was in this season that I learned how to pray bold prayers and utilized the “War Room” strategy of writing my prayer requests on a paper, hanging them in my prayer room, and praying fervently over them. I would see them every morning when I would start my day with our Heavenly Father. Over the course of time many of these prayers were answered, though some were not, and some I am still waiting on.

One of the prayers I prayed was for God’s provision of housing for me. He had answered the prayer of a job which would lead me back to my hometown, but I did not have a place to live. This journey certainly wasn’t without difficult decisions and growing pains; it proved to be a maturing season in which I had to surrender. For several months, my family opened their homes to me while I sold my home and got on my feet to adapt to the changes. Over this time, I prayed that God would lead me to the home I would be in. My prayer request included a list of the things I wanted in a home, and I asked God for each one. While my list was short and not extravagant, it did have some simple pleasures like a gas stove/oven, two bedrooms, wood floors and a few other things. God not only provided my requests, but He provided extras, such as storage in the form of a basement, a double car garage and a back patio to sit and look at the mountains and sunset and listen to the river when it’s full and running. This offered a bit of peace for a small town girl like me, to help drown out the chaos of the city. He provided me with some of the things I asked for and then more than I asked or imagined. I thank God daily for His answer to my prayers for a home among so many other things. God is so, so good! He listens to our requests, and He knows our hearts and gives us more than we ever thought possible. God knows us well!

Matthew 7:7-8 says to ask, seek and knock. The Word of God shows us that we should ask not only for our needs, but the needs of others as well. It is important to keep in mind that the things we are asking, seeking and knocking for may or may not be in God’s will for our lives. Trusting that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, we must humble ourselves before Him and ask Him to reveal it to us. It may come in little steps, but He will reveal His direction to lead us in His will. Scripture advises us to cease striving and be still, resting in the knowledge of who God is (Psalm 46:10). When we knock on the door of His heart through prayer and thanksgiving, He opens Himself up to us. He delights in giving us good things, not just material, but His blessings. Colossians 4:2 says devote ourselves to prayer. This also invites us to be humble before the Lord, as we seek His face to talk with Him, listen to Him, and allow Him to speak to our hearts through His Word. We receive wisdom, knowledge, and direction in our obedience to Him. What amazing blessings and answers have and will come from this!

Asking and yielding (surrendering) to the Father—to say YES to His will and not our own—are key to allowing Him to fully handle what we cannot. God’s plan, purpose, and timing are all His, and we fully surrender to Him. During the time I was praying for a home, I wholly put my trust in God and surrendered every detail of my finances, my expectations and each of the burdens that were heavy in the process. Yielding and surrendering it all at the feet of the Father brought peace and hope that could only be found by releasing my grip. Countless stories from my life can be told of how He has moved mountains and still does today, in all areas of my life. I’m certain you too, can recall petitions you have requested and asked God for that He has answered your prayers in unexpected and abundant ways.

Yielding…that also means being vulnerable and not in control. Peeling our fingers from the things we know we should give to God, but may not be quite ready to relinquish our control over. That is a hard place to be. How do we surrender and yield our requests and desires to God? This is a place where we use the Holy Spirit’s guidance, help and promptings. The Holy Spirit directs us in the following ways:

• The Holy Spirit can warn us of dangers ahead, equips us for the tasks we are called to do, and gives us strength, wisdom, discernment and resources for our needs.
• He enables us to become the person God created us to be.
• He is available always and constantly working in and through us.
• He is dependable to get us through our circumstances, and uses them to teach us about God’s love, wisdom, and power.
  
  

“Prayer is not asking God to do my will. It is bringing myself into conformity with His will. It is asking Him to do His will and to give me the grace to enjoy it.”
- John MacArthur

Asking and yielding anything in faith to the Father can be hard. We would be wise to fully trust Him. In my obedience to Him I trusted that He would and could make a way, and He certainly did just that, just not how I expected. He can and will do the same for you. He opened doors I did not think could be opened, He made pathways in the desert that seemed dry and hopeless. He opened my eyes to see through His perspective and He totally changed my world and provided exactly what I needed at exactly the perfect time to meet my needs and beyond. He provided in ways that could only be summed up as miracles and outside of how I thought it would be done. His way to refine me in the waiting and also answer my prayers and petitions was drawing me in closer relationship to Him. The beauty of that season was not only receiving a home, but knowing that my faith, trust, surrender and obedience to the Father was growing and strengthening my confidence and testimony to show who He is and that He deserves and gets all the glory. God will do the same for you when you ask in faith and fully surrender to Him.

My hope and prayer is that you will be encouraged to pray fervently and boldly with not only you and God, but you and other believers. Prayer is a powerful resource in our connection with God and when it is used in its full capacity, it can break the strongholds that Satan has on God’s people, it can start revivals, and it has power beyond our comprehension. It is a powerful weapon when fighting small or big battles. As believers, our prayers can change things now and for generations (2 Timothy 1:5-14, Numbers 6:24-26, 1 John 5:14-15). Let’s be prayer warriors together!

Resources for encouragement and growth for your prayer life:

• Praying the Word of God! The Bible is always a good place to start. Some good verses/passages to start with are Isaiah 40:8, Colossians 1:9-14, Ezra 7:10, Daniel 6:10-11, and 2 Thessalonians 3:1.
• Transforming Prayer by Daniel Henderson
• Fervent by Priscilla Shirer
• The Power of a Praying Woman by Stormie Omartian