See the Power…Become A Prayer Warrior.

This last year of waiting on the Lord here in Killyville has drove me to my knees and it held a surprise for me. I experienced God's work in a powerful way. I know it because I logged day after day of prayer for many months. Some entries were wonderful and inspired and some were blech and half-hearted. I know God's work because I plodded along day after day finding my knees in the morning, sometimes at noon, sometimes in my minivan (pity those other drivers) and any other time too.

I was intentional with my prayer notebook. I drug out my 5 subject notebook (I got mine for only $1 at the dollar store) and scribbled prayers. I hauled it out when I wanted to pray about something specific. I made a list of things to pray for my husband, another list of things to pray about a new church, a list of things to pray for my kids and so on. I prayed for our president, our government, those who don't know Jesus, church leadership, extended family, my personal desires, neighbors, my own faith, failing appliances, clothes, gusto to share the gospel, food, weather, those I barely knew or had just met, those I have known for a long while but forgot to pray for, missionaries, and the faithful ministries of others. The really great thing was that I really prayed for the people I had committed to praying for. I also prayed fervently for people who didn't know I was praying for them and it was a robust and plentiful exercise for me to pray for them anyhow. I just prayed and prayed and prayed and made prayer a habit. I found myself frequently stopping and praying in the middle of the day for anything and everything that crossed my mind.

I used the notebook anywhere. I would grab my notebook and sit out back on the patio surrounded by trees and quiet. I would take it and plop face down on my bed and be still. I would use it for early morning devotional prayer time. Sometimes it took me a little while of just being quiet and asking God to get me started with my prayers because I'd rather be doing something else. It was a wonderful refuge for me to be honest and bare before the Lord.

I would seek inspiration as to how to pray for the things that weighed on me as if it was my job to find inspiration. If something from my morning Bible reading struck a chord I purposed to nurture that impulse and use it as a springboard for committing to pray about it. Along with Bible reading, morning news, Facebook comments, political events, speeches, and conversations of varying topics were all potential for prayer. Whatever hung around and weighed on me was turned into prayer topics. I dug through scripture for verses to pray about those weights and I even googled inspiration on prayer for certain things (like how to pray for your husband) from people I trusted (like Nancy Leigh DeMoss.) I was in a time of waiting on the Lord and I had lots of time to set aside to research ways to pray.  I know this is not an easy assignment. Now that I'm busy with many things again I find myself not able to dig dig dig like I did last year. It's a joy to be busy and a pity to be busy.

And now when I'm busy and when I feel I can't find the words I find the notebook and re-pray the verses and thoughts that inspired me before. I lug that notebook to Bible study and keep my study gal-pals in there too so all the things I committed to pray for are in one spot.  Lately life has gotten really busy for me (but ask me if I know how to get a rough website up and running) so I have not been quite as quick to fill up a new 5 subject notebook. I still jot down prayers and relevant "pray-ey" verses to encourage my heart when I don't feel like praying. So this post is to encourage me as much as it is to encourage you. I want to continue to accumulate these reference books day by day which turns into months and years of reminders of God's faithfulness. I look forward to accumulating tomes of 5 subject notebooks with God's work in my own handwriting.

I saw God work through this Prayer Warrioress time in my life and I want you to see God work and be blessed by prayer as well. See if logging prayers is spiritually rewarding for you too. This can be a supplement to your devotional (or lack thereof) time. I'm sure some of you do this kind of thing already but if you don't, I encourage you to give it a try.

• Grab a plain 5 subject notebook.
• Choose one section just for prayers.
• Be Quiet. Set aside time. Ponder the things that weigh on you or the exciting things happening.
• Commit to pray about those things instead of forging ahead without the Lord.
• Write your prayers no matter how much you feel like it.
• Show up again tomorrow and do the same thing. 
• If you miss a day don't give up.

I started out finding a verse for the first page of my prayer section that reminded me of the benefit of prayer. I began thoughtfully writing out my prayers all nice and neat with various colored pens and fun lettering. Eventually if I was hurried or disheartened I scratched one worders or sloppy quick prayers. Sometimes I was overflowing with praise or things to pray about and I scrawled my prayers quickly. Some moments I even just wrote the date and the words, "I prayed."

I know some of you are prayer warriors and all this talk of prayer may have you wondering about how to best pray for us now. (Like that smooth transition there? *smile*) We certainly would appreciate prayer throughout our transition to Watseka as well as in the future of Amazing Grace Church. I have some various topics for prayer. This week I'm committing to pray fervently about:

The hearts of the people in Watseka. 

If you are interested, I'd love it it you prayed for this with me. You can pray for this however you feel led but the gist of it is we want God to go before us now and be at work in the hearts of those who don't know Jesus in Watseka. We want to be ready to ask and invite. We want to be willing to be rejected but quick to offer the gospel to those in the community. And so we need God to be at work now preparing soft hearts in Watsekans (I don't know if they're really called that but I like the ring) for this essential good news. Now go, get your notebook and your knees! Pray with us wee killys please!