Hey everyone, it’s Philip Organ starting our blog thought for the week. Robbie is taking care of his beautiful family who needs him today.
What do you pray for? I know it seems like a simple question, but as I ask it of myself, I noticed that I pray for my family and our situations and stressors, I say a ton of “thank you for…”, and we pray for friends and family, especially when in need. One thing I noticed is that I don’t pray for the body at the Journey as often as I need to. Paul inspired me through Ephesians 3 (v. 14-21) in his prayer for the church in Ephesus, and showed me the importance of praying power and strength into those we serve at The Journey. I do pray for this team each week that we bring a servant heart, and a spirit of love and compassion as we have the privilege of leading. Likewise I need to be praying for those who receive the offering we give, that their hearts may be softened and open to the spirit of the Living God and respond to his overwhelming love, to have courage and power and walk away changed each and every week.
As Paul closes his prayer, his thoughts are so powerful? If God is able to do so much more than we can ask, or even imagine, then my simple prayers for our church, combined with all of yours, can bring profound change in this area of middle Tennessee to the glory of our Father in heaven, both now and in future generations. I commit to each of you today, that I will pray each and every week that our gathering of believers, both guests and regulars will receive the power of the Spirit.
So again I ask, what is it you pray for, and how does this passage speak to you?
Great post, Philip. This scripture speaks a lot to me. First, Paul prays that through God's love, we would have the power to remain strong in Him. This is a big deal to me. We are constantly being bombarded by the world to give in to the things that we desire, instead of what God desires for us. It's a major struggle for all of us, I know. The only way we can continue to walk in His light, is if we constantly go to Him in prayer and walk with Him daily.
ReplyDeleteI pray for lots of things. And I'm reminded by Jesus how we are to pray. If you look at the "Lord's Prayer" Jesus gives us an outline how we are to pray. I'm going to go into a little depth here, but please bear with me. I think this is extremely important. We are to acknowledge Him, first and foremost: "Our Father who art in heaven, HOLLOWED BE THY NAME". When I pray, I always praise Him first for who He is. I think this is a key element of our prayer. Then we are to pray for the things that are His agenda. "thy kingdom come, thy word be done on earth, as it is in heaven". Then we are to ask for the things we need, "give us this day our daily bread". Then we are to ask for forgiveness for where we fall short, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us". Then we are to ask for His guidance in our lives, "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
I believe that once we've done all of those things, we are in the place that God wants us to be for us to come to Him and truly engage Him in conversation.
As a side note, Tiffany and I pray with Cason every night before he goes to bed. When we do, we try to walk Cason through these steps. Obviously we don't try to explain what we are doing, but by leading him in this prayer time, we have seen him start to follow suit. It's amazing to hear him pray and do these things. And the scriptures say to raise a child in the ways of the Lord and when they grow older, they will not falter. Make sure whatever you are praying for, when you do it with your kids, teach them HOW to pray first, before you actually pray with them!
Great post Philip. Thanks for taking the reigns today for me!
-robbie
I think this is true with everyone, but I find myself praying more when there is something wrong. I am trying to "praise the Lord" more when everything is fine AND when everything is not.
ReplyDeleteEvery week after I finish getting Communion ready, I pray for the people who receive it to receive God as well, whether they are saved or not. I ask that He blesses every person at the service and that He brings them closer to Him.
I pray much more now than I ever did before, because God is the only person who will listen to me and not interrupt! It may sound silly and even though I don't hear Him talk back, I know that He heard me, every word, and is working for me 24/7.
I pray mostly for things that make me happy, friends, family, weather, time, etc.. I also try to pray for Worldly things I think need God's attention. I really enjoy the time we take to pray after setup is done so we can decompress and prepare for worship. We are all running crazy and this helps me get ready to help deliver the product God is wanting me to.
ReplyDeleteThis does encourage me to pray for the body of Christ. I wonder how different the church would be and how much more impacting our Sunday morning services would be if every regular attender committed to pray. This is something I don't do often enough and feel quite challenged. Thanks for the challenge!
ReplyDeleteThis is an area I personally struggle with. Not because Im hesitant to pray for others, but because in the hustle and bustle of everyday life it's easy to ask for blessings on whats closest to me and my family and forget to think about what other families may be going through. At our womens group we always close with prayer requests and I always see one of the women writing them all down and it occurred to me that if she didnt do that and send them to me would I have remembered who needed my prayers?? I need to be more attentive to what people say. Even if they don't come right out and say "pray for me" if they tell me something they are struggling with or something that happened to them or something they are worried about I need to take inventory of those things and add them to my prayer each day.
ReplyDeleteGood topic, Phillip. In the past few months, I have been trying to make a change in my approach to praying. The change came for me when I read Ecclesiastes 5:2-3. "Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with business, and a fool's voice with many words."
ReplyDeleteI catch myself trying to come up with some great oration when I am praying, not just in public but when I pray with just me and God. I realized that I am missing the point and the full effect of prayer when I try to make a perfect speech to God. God knows our heart, he knows what we need, he knows what we want. Prayer shouldn't be just a time to thank God and ask for more from God, and it definitely should not be a speech to God. It should be a time for meditation and growth. I have realized that my time with God needs to be a conversation and God can't talk to me if I won't shut up.
I have come to a whole new understanding of "let your words be few" and what you can gain when you speak less.
Great insight Kyle. Thanks for the Eccl. reference!
ReplyDeleteAfter going through the sudden loss of my grandmother, I have personally seen the strength of the comment, "You are in our thoughts and prayers". This statement has almost become cliche- it's the first thing that comes to mind to say to someone when they are struggling with something. It's what we say when we don't know what else to say in situations where we witness others experiencing grief. It's become such and endeared term, that it's in virtually every Sympathy greeting card that you find on the shelf. But does everyone actually act on it, or has saying the statement or putting it in writing taken the place of the actual prayer? I will be the first to admit that I have said these exact words to individuals and although they were in my thoughts, and my intentions were to do so, I didn't act out the part of putting them in my actual prayers.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I need to tell you first-hand what a difference it makes when the prayer is put in place. Although watching my grandmother's life slip away, literally before my eyes, I was at peace, because I felt this overwhelming sensation of love, compassion, and strength. These were all feelings that I couldn't have mustered up on my own in a time like that. I was receiving these feelings because they were graciously given to me from my Creator at the request of all of you. I want to be part of the answer of others being able to feel these same things in their deepest times of need. Although I feel I have always done a good job of telling God how thankful I am for the amazing life I live, this experience has completely reconstructed how important I feel that the act of praying for specific things for others is. And I would love to witness what a difference in our Church, as well as what a difference in our walks with Christ it would make if we all committed to doing this more.
I mean, just think how much safer the "Boaters" are this season because of one little prayer! :0) The possibilities are endless!
Very good topic, very good comments. I know that I am like many others sometimes in prayer and can be self centered. Or maybe its the me me disease. I agree with Jessi in that the regulars be committed to pray for the movement of the spirit in the church. Kyle reminded me of something I was always told as a musician and maybe this is true for prayer. "Many times less is more." God has given me the tools I need to work toward advancing the kindom. I just need his guidance in how to use them.
ReplyDeleteI love this topic!! My prayers every day are the same. I wake up in the morning and I do the following. I thank God for another day of sober living and I ask him to remove my desires for those things from me. Then I make my BEST effort to turn my entire day over to him to do with as he pleases. I pray for patience, love, tolerance and forgiveness. Most of all I ask God to make the husband/father that I need to be for that day. Gets me through a lot of stuff!!!
ReplyDeleteAs I read the scripture and read the comments, I realized I'm not praying as frequently as I should. I tend to spend too much time talking and less time praying. Sometimes at school it gets so hectic that I just don't put forth the effort to connect with God and truly talk with Him. It's crazy because when I do spend intimate time with Him, I learn so much and understand what He is telling me in His Word! I automatically want to say, "I'm a human, a teenager no less, I mess up..." but what Erik said two weeks ago really hits it where it hurts most. I use the "age" thing as a barrier between God and I so many times. I'm a teenager in a culture where everything is automatic and I get frustrated when I don't get an "automatic" answer from God. All I have to do is shut my loud mouth and listen. Thanks for the insight everyone!
ReplyDeleteI definitely pray a lot, but usually for myself or situations that are directly related to me. I've really been trying to get away from that and to include other things which I am not so directly related to in my prayers, such as the church body, missionaries, etc. I also tend to fall into the habit of praying similar prayers every day. Sometimes I have to force myself to say a different prayer. I know that God does not want to hear the same thing every day, and when we have variety in our prayers, it shows that we really care what we're praying about and that we are not only concentrating on ourselves and our problems.
ReplyDeleteWow, Molly. How incredible that God worked in your heart in such a powerful way even in your time of grief. That is exciting to me because our God is so powerful and compassionate that he turns our sadness into our testimonies and draws us nearer to Him.
ReplyDeleteI love this passage and have heard it/read it many times, but I wanted to see something new in it and what stuck out to me most was "to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine." I mean think about that! Immeasurably MORE than we ask or can even fathom! I have a group of girlfriends in Nashville who I pray with almost every time I see them. The last time we prayed together we just kept going and asking God for restoration for the brokenness and selfishness in our lives. We asked Him to rebuke Satan's hold on us- our cynicism, fear and rebellion - and make us His servants. God really stirred each of our hearts and it was just a really amazing time to meditate on God and plead with Him to turn our hearts towards Him and then praise Him in advance. These girls have really encouraged me to continue to be bold in my prayer life. I admit, it is a struggle for me to take time away from the noise and high frequency of life, but I know that consistent and heart-felt prayer is rewarding, so I know I should do it more often.
This is something I really hope we can all boldly and directly hold one another accountable for.
I've been spending a lot of time lately praying for purpose. I pray for needs that I know of, friends, the sick, etc. I haven't been good about praying for the bigger things that carry greater implications, like our leaders, Sunday service, people coming to the service. I pray that God will give me a greater desire to pray for these things.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to become so self-consumed that I don't pray for other things. I appreciate the challenge to commit to praying for the team throughout the week. Sometimes I think about it on Sunday mornings when we're rushed and by then it's just an afterthought.
I'm thankful for this group and everyone's transparency! You all encourage me to be better.