Category Archives: Prayer

i need Jesus (my prayer for deeper)

“I need 2018 to be different.” That’s what I said to God in the last hours of 2017. I said it to Him because I know it’s pointless to say it to myself. With age comes experience and I have experienced enough broken promises to myself, so I’ve stopped making them. Promises. Resolutions. Whatever. They are paper-thin and fragile as a young girl’s heart. But. Prayer is a dog with different hair. (Is that how that goes? Doesn’t seem right, but I’ll leave it there for the time being.) Prayer is much stronger than promises and resolutions and determination to change.

Prayer only depends on me to speak and believe. It depends on God to be fulfilled, and God is the most trustworthy Being I know.

When I told Him I wanted 2018 to be different, the word “deeper” echoed in my heart. Different isn’t always something new, sometimes it’s just, well, deeper.

So, here are the top 3 deeper things I am praying for God to do in me in 2018:

  • A deeper commitment to my health. I no longer have the luxury of youth or pretending that eating whatever I want isn’t going to hurt me. It already has. The processed food/junk food/fast food/sugary food way of life I lived for so long has caught up to me and now I find myself having to race the clock to try to reverse stupidity. It’s harder than it sounds. But, I need something other than “I can’t eat this or that” to keep me going. I need to apologize to my body for the way I treated it all these years. This has to be about honoring the only body God has given me, not getting into a certain dress size. I will need endurance, patience, and commitment. I’ll need Jesus.
  • Deeper relationships. Deeper, not wider. To know and be known. To go beyond the shallows with people. I don’t want more friends, I just want to go deeper with the ones I have.  As a high introvert, it will be both challenging and refreshing. Challenging, because my preference is to be alone. Refreshing, because surface only relationships with shallow chit-chat are far too draining for me. But because I am who I am, I know it will require that I do some things I’d rather avoid (besides leaving my house, because I could remain indoors, like, forever). I will need to be vulnerable. Honest with how I’m feeling. And I’ll need to be willing to ask and be asked hard questions. If I want deeper relationships, then I will need to be willing to let someone else go deeper into my life. I’ll need humility and openness. I’ll need Jesus.
  • A deeper fasting and prayer life. I know the power of prayer and fasting. I don’t know why it has power, or exactly how it has power, I just know that it does. Mountains have moved in my life, I believe, as a result of prayer and fasting. But then, you know, stuff happens. Like the ever-increasing grip of a food addiction. And complacency. And possibly the lack of desperation. So I need the desperation that comes from needing Jesus, if that makes sense. I need the hunger and thirst that sends me into deeper places in search of His heart and His power to move another mountain.

I want to know God more. I want to know His presence and His power in greater measure than before. I want my heart to expand to hold more of His love, His compassion, and His mercy. I want to love and serve His people with deeper consistency. I want to return to my first Love and let lesser loves fall away this year.

So I can’t make resolutions or promises. Nothing as wispy and fragile as all that.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:11

My resolution is a prayer because I need Jesus. And He promised I would find Him.

dearly beloved

Dearly Beloved,

I am praying for you. I don’t know why you feel the way you do. I don’t know why your mind is dark and your heart is heavy. I wish I could fix it but I can’t. I am not your healer. So today I approach the throne of grace with boldness on your behalf. Because your Healer is on that throne and He is good and He is mercy and He loves you.

drowningBeloved, you were not made to tread water, gasping to get the air you need as you go under again. This going under and barely making it through each day is not the destiny your Father has for you. Today I pray that He will call you to walk upon the waters that are threatening to drown you. And when He calls, I pray you will stand up and walk.

 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

dry-bonesDry bones are not your portion. That valley is not your home.  So today I ask for the breath of God to blow upon your soul. I ask that life would stir in your bones and in your heart. Today I declare that the thief cannot have you, for you are not his to take. You belong to God and God breathes life and not death because He is alive and has called you to life. Beloved, God Himself is your portion and He holds your future and He is good. I pray that every scheme set against the life God has called you into will be brought down by His mighty hand. Today, I call out to dry bones to come alive.

“Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me.”

 As David cried out, so I cry out. Because you see, I know that your God fights for you. You don’t feel it, may not even believe it, but I know it to be true. Because you are His and your enemy is His enemy and when He arises, that enemy scatters.  So I cry out for you and I ask your Father and mine to rise up on your behalf and contend for you. I pray that His presence will be felt by the darkness, and by you, setting the enemy to flight and giving you rest in your Father’s shadow.

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” 

 Today I am asking that the Healer of hearts will heal yours. I pray that the wounds that have led you here, to this place of despair, will be exposed to the Light and covered by the healing hand of God. I pray that whatever is holding you captive would hear the voice of your Savior pronounce freedom over you today and that darkness would be compelled to release its’ hold. Because the Son of heaven was sent for you and all authority was given to Him. That leaves none for the enemy of your soul.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

 So right here, before the throne of grace, I declare the truth of God. You are not defined by your feelings, but by God’s heart for you. You are chosen and you are holy and you are God’s. I pray that today you will break your partnership with the lies of the enemy that tell you anything other than what God has spoken over you. Beloved, you are not who you think you are, but who God says you are.

You were not made to despair. You were not made to feel hopeless. You were made to praise.

Raining

So today I pray that despair and hopelessness will be overcome by praise rising from the heart of His beloved. I pray that by the Spirit of God living in you, praise will erupt and lies will break and truth will overtake the darkness that hovers over your mind. Because praise is a weapon and it shuts the mouth of the liar and opens the heart of the downcast.

Dearly beloved….

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

John 10:10; Ps 35:1; Isaiah 61:1; 1Peter 2:9; Romans 15:13

dear friend

Dear Friend,

I prayed for you last night and before I could really say much at all He showed me a picture and gave me words.

horse

“That horse was made to run, but he fights the narrow place that is the starting gate, because he can’t see beyond it.

He fights the narrow place because he can’t see that it is the gateway to what he was created to do. 

He fights because he’s afraid of the narrow place.”

I thought about this picture and these narrow places that some horses and some people fight. What I think, my friend, is that it’s mostly about trust.

So I have to ask…do you trust God? Do you trust that in the narrow place what hinders you will be stripped from you because He’s preparing you to run? Because narrow means nar.row. Pride and fear and the need to control just don’t fit in this place.

Do you trust that even though it feels like the sides of this place are pressing you hard and there’s no room to move here, God is in this narrow space with you and He brought you here for a good purpose?

Do you trust that the gate will open? Because it will. And you will run, because you were made for it my friend.

You were made to be more than afraid.

And friend, there is someone else who is afraid of your narrow place. Someone who will do anything to keep you out of it.

Someone who watched as Jesus went into a narrow place called Gethsemane, and watched as He came out of that narrow place headed for the cross and nothing was going to stop Him and just look at what happened.

So you aren’t the only one fighting that narrow place. But you are the only one who will come out of the fight victorious.

Because you have God on your side. He is for you, not against you. His plans for you are good and His plans will prevail and you will live your destiny.  He is before you and behind you and on every side. You will be victorious because the liar and his lies will bow to the Truth that lives in you and in the narrow place a stronghold will crumble.

You will go into that narrow place and there God will prepare you for what is on the other side of that gate and you will come out running.

Because you were made for this.

So anyway, just wanted to let you know I prayed for you last night. God showed up. It was good.

Love,

Your friend

i prayed today

So this morning I turned a table over. I prayed. I didn’t see angels or hear the Hallelujah chorus. I just slipped into the secret place and I talked to the One who was waiting for me there. Waiting to show me something.

“She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13)

I said it out loud, several times. “You are the God who sees me.”

Until I could finally admit that I was uncomfortable with that.

little girl looking in mirror (1)

It’s hard to be seen, especially when we are at our worst. People go to great lengths to look their best when they know people will be looking at them. Some women won’t leave the house unless they are in full makeup and every hair is in place. I count it a good day if my socks match, because frankly, that’s the best I can do.

But I need to be okay with being seen by God. It’s much scarier than being seen by people, because I know that He sees everything I can hide from you.

So that was my prayer today.

“Help me stop hiding. Help me be willing to stand before You as who I really, really am. I want to be comfortable under Your gaze, and right now I’m not.”

And His perfectly aimed response shook the secret place.

“Because you believe that all I see is what you see. “

Nothing is hidden from His sight. Holy and unholy, the pure and the impure. Selfishness and selflessness. Disobedience, and even the smallest act of obedience. Every weakness, every imperfection, and the grace that covers all of it. His eyes miss nothing.

depressed-womanBut here is the truth that can bring a girl out of hiding, and to her knees…

He is the God who sees me, and He doesn’t look away.

I prayed today. It was good.

my money changers

I don’t know how to write about it so I’ll just put down words and see if they make sense.

I think there are money changers in the temple that is me. Yeah..how’s that for a start?

Prayer-JournalEvery time I walk into my prayer room that hasn’t heard much prayer lately, I see my prayer journals that haven’t been written in much lately, sitting on the table. They stare at me. I stare back. Sometimes I stick my tongue out at them and walk away. I am a prayer-less woman with a prayer room and prayer journals. And guilt. Lots of guilt. Because I love prayer and I know the power of it, I know the importance of it and I haven’t been very engaged in it.

But God. He’s not one to just let a thing go now is He? He stares too, just like those stupid journals and I haven’t the nerve to stick my tongue out but I do walk away. But then there is my bible, sitting open right next to my keyboard. Open to this passage…

“When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said,’Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!’ His disciples remembered that it is written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.'” John 2:13-17

While there are probably several reasons for Jesus’ anger, I believe the fact that they were in the temple courts, the only place the Gentiles could pray, is one of them. In the other gospels Jesus is recorded as saying that His Father’s house is to be a house of prayer. The money changers were in the place of prayer.

And then this came to mind…

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” 1Corinthians 3:16

And that’s when the thought seeped it’s way into my frontal lobe.

“I think I have money changers in the temple.”

Things that have set up shop in the place they should not be, in the place of prayer. I can name a few of them.

Complacency. Fear. Worry. Unbelief. Busyness. Escape.  I’m sure there’s more. Maybe some of them are even good things that have taken the place of the better thing. My money changers.

And you know what grieves me the most? It isn’t just that I have stopped interceding for other people, or that my journals have empty pages.

It’s that I’ve stopped talking to my Father. That’s why I wept tonight. Because I know He desires to hear my voice. He leans in for it. I know He waits for me to cry out to Him, to come to Him. He waits to answer what I’m not asking.

So I think there are some tables that need to be turned over. I think a little zeal is in order.

Thanks for letting me talk all of that out. It may not have made much sense to you, but talking about it helped me. Thanks for listening.

the prayer that changed my prayer

“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—”

This is Paul’s opening to chapter 3 of his letter to the Ephesians. And then he goes off-roading a bit, with the explanation of his calling to preach to the gentiles. This is why we have to connect Paul’s prayer in chapter 3, not to the 12 verses above it, but to the ending verses in chapter 2.

So it would look like this:

“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

“For this reason I kneel before the Father…”

templeHis language points back to the Old Testament and the building of the temple…the dwelling place for God’s glory.

And then he prayed for power. Power to trust Christ so He could dwell in their hearts. Be at home there. Settle down and ‘dwell fixedly there’. (Vines Expository Dictionary)

He tells them that they are rooted and grounded in love. The words speak of a foundation. The foundation for the gentiles being included into the family of God was love.

{We, you and I, are laid upon that same foundation. Love is why we are His.}

He prayed that God’s power would enable them to grasp the dimensions of Christ’s love, how truly expansive it is, and to know that love.

And I heard God speak to me words that began a quaking in me.

“How wide, high, long and deep was the chasm that sin created between you and Me? I want you to intimately experience the love that poured into that chasm, filling it completely and beyond, until it was a chasm no longer.”

{This grasping has me gasping for air.}

..and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.

gnōsis. It is the general knowledge of the Christian religion.

{Take what you think you know about the love of Christ, throw it as far as you can and see where it lands. His love will go beyond it. That is love that surpasses knowledge. It is beyond what we can know with our minds, no matter how much we investigate and study.}

He LOVES more than we can KNOW.

Power for faith. Power to grasp love. Power to know love.

{Everything needs the power of God. Everything.} 

Why was he praying for all of this?

So that God, and His glory can fill the temple…the Church…you. me.

Paul didn’t pray what he prayed because it sounded good, and maybe had a shot at being answered.

{He prayed what God breathed.}

But it is God’s next breath that has changed my prayer life.

Ephesians3-20-detail-150x150More. IMMEASURABLY more. Exceedingly above and beyond more. More than I can ask. More than I would even consider asking, could imagine asking.

My prayers do not set the boundaries for God. They are not His finish line, they are His starting line.

Ephesians 3:14-21; Ephesians 2:19-22; 2Timothy 3:16

for you i pray

I wanted to tie 2012 up in a nice bow, bid it a fond goodbye, wax poetic about lessons learned and new beginnings and such. But my heart keeps turning away from all of that, bidding my mind to stop chattering long enough to just listen. And the weight of what I hear bends my heart, bowing it low. Voices from this past year. Conversations I’ve heard, words I’ve read. And I feel the Holy Spirit in this little room, this prayer room. I feel His weight on my heart as He reminds me to step out of my small story. And so I enter yours, with prayer…

hanging_by_a_threadFor those who spent this year hanging on by a thread. Maybe it’s a thread of hope. Maybe a thread attached to the hem of His garment, but a thread nonetheless. For you, I pray you will stop trying to trust Him. Trust is not something you try, it’s something you choose. He wants so much more for you than a thread of hope, a thread of trust. He wants handfuls for you. I pray that you will not be content with a thread in hand, but that you will let go of His garment and grab onto Him, and find your hands overflowing, unable to contain what you hold. For you, the thread holder, I pray ~

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

A year of both hands full of Christ, holding on to all of Him with trust and confidence, and hope that overflows. Both hands, beloved, grab onto Him with both hands, and let go of the thread.

PENTAX ImageFor those who suffered great loss and spent time in the ash heap of mourning. For you, the one now familiar with great sorrow and what surely feels like unquenchable pain. I pray you will know His comfort, like a balm, for that pain. I pray God opens His hand and pours forth joy, like oil over your mourning heart. I pray that at just the right time, His time, He will invite you to dance. Yes, beloved, you have known the time to mourn, but there is still a time to dance. I pray that this year you will receive grace to comfort others with the comfort you have received. I pray for all of your pain, all of your grief, every tear to be used, nothing wasted. And I pray that His promise will strengthen you on those days when grief attempts to hijack your heart ~

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

I pray that you will emerge from the ashes, steadfast and sure that all of this, the pain, the tears, the death, are all temporary conditions. That you will know and give others the hope that a reunion will happen, a holy hand will wipe away the last of the tears, and never again will you know this pain.

For those who spent the year afraid. Afraid something will never end, or perhaps that nothing will begin. Afraid of too much or not enough. Afraid that you didn’t hear Him right, or that you did. Afraid of what you feel, or of the fact that you feel nothing and maybe you never will. What if nothing changes? What if everything changes? For the one tormented by fear, I first pray peace for your wildly beating heart. I pray that this year He will lead you on a journey of letting go of fear. A journey of cliff jumping into faith, arms wide, heart fully expecting to be caught by His hands. I pray that you will know that He is with you, always, and that He will not drop you. I pray that your heart will come to know perfect love in the deep places where fear often hides. For you, the one who lived this year full of fear, I pray you will hear the voice of your Savior ~

“Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

I pray that this will be a year of increasing faith for you, the year where belief in the power and love of your God leaves no room for fear.

For the one who lived with disappointment. Unmet expectations that took the wind out of your sails throughout the year. Hopes and plans and dreams that fell apart. Your heart grows weary. I pray for you, dear one. I pray that this will be the year of renewed hope in God, and lower expectations in people. I pray that all of your hope, every last drop of it, will be in God and God alone. I pray for strength to hold on, and strength to let go. To let go of people and hold firmly to God, where your hope will find no disappointment. I pray that this year will find your prayers being answered, for God knows what hope deferred does to our hearts.

“But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love…”

Hoist your sails again, friend, and lift your voice in prayer with confidence that your God hears, your God sees, and your God will answer. His love will not fail.

For the one who tried. You tried being good enough. Tried praying, tried church. Tried to read the bible full of words you don’t understand. Tried to be nicer. Tried saying the right things the right way, tried fitting in. You followed the list of do’s and don’ts. You tried, but your life is still a mess. Your heart is still empty and so are your pockets. Your addiction still rages, and your marriage is still broken. And you just don’t get it. For you I pray that this was the last year.

The last year that you remain pinned to the ground by the enemy. The last year that you live unaware of Love. Unaware that there is a Father in heaven who created you, longs for you, and gave up His Son so that you could know Him.

I pray someone will be brave enough to walk up to you and tell you the truth; that what you need is grace and trying isn’t currency to buy it with because grace is free, and only grace can put us back together and Jesus has the grace to give if you will just come. Come, while you are yet a sinner. While you are yet broken and messy, with all that rages in you and against you…come. I pray they tell you that trying won’t save you, it takes dying and Jesus did that dying for you.

cross1

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

For you, my messy, broken friend, I pray that this was your last year of trying. I pray this is the year you cry out to Jesus in faith that He is who He said He is…the only One who can save you. I pray this is the year you find freedom in Christ, and you find out just how loved you really are by Him. I pray this is the year someone tells you.

To all my friends, family, and those I encounter through the written word…I pray for you, and for me…

Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Happy New Year!

Romans 15:13; Ecclesiastes 3:4; Revelation 21:4; Ephesians 3:17-18; 1John 4:18; Mark 5:36; Psalm 33:18; Romans 5:8; John 14:6; Matthew 6:9-13