Radically Remake Your Prayer Life With This Simple Tool
It’s a foggy almost-winter morning as I join the other women at the table with my Bible and tall pink mug. We are here to dig into Scripture and talk about how to be consistent when we pray. I know my prayer life desperately needs an overhaul, but I’m too tired to come up with a reasonable plan for the remake.
We take turns sipping our respective beverages and talking about what God is doing in our lives, and then the conversation turns to how to be more deliberate in prayer.
How to Connect Your Prayer Life With Your Thought-Life
And then it happens. The dear older woman sitting next to me says something that goes like this:
“We often think that the thoughts that float through our minds are coincidental. Most of us brush them off and think they’re just the product of our imaginations; however, this is often God’s way of asking us to pray. We think we’re just ‘randomly’ thinking of a friend, but it’s actually God nudging our hearts to uplift specific people in prayer.”
Her words forever change my life.
While I’m well aware that plenty of my thoughts are birthed from my own imagination, there are times when the names and faces of friends, acquaintances, and family members pass through my mind.
I can count these thoughts as “random,” or I can live more intentionally by seeing these thoughts as reminders to pause and pray for these people, even if for less than ten seconds.
How to Have a Strategic Prayer Life in the Quiet Place
It’s been years since that foggy morning with the wise, water-sipping women, but the encouragement received among that group of multi-generational believers has shaped my life.
In addition to training myself to pray for friends when they come to mind, my time with the wise women inspired me to be more strategic in the way I pray for others.
Convicted that I was not very deliberate in the way I prayed for the people in my life, I began the practice of making prayer lists and praying for others directly and intentionally.
My prayer list is simply a piece of paper with the names of about fifty people for whom I want to pray written on it methodically.
If you would like to be more intentional in the way you pray for the people in your life, try this simple method . . . #intercessoryprayer #prayer #prayerlife Share on XHow to Create a Prayer List
1. Using different colors of markers, I write the names of the days of the week across the top of a piece of paper (the longer side of the paper).
2. Under each day of the week, I create a color-coded group of names. Each day receives a group of people from a different area of my life. There is a day for praying for extended family members, a day for praying for adult friends, a day for neighbors, a day for church leadership, and on it goes.
3. I also create a “Daily” heading at the top of the page and list the people for whom I will daily pray, including my husband, children, and those closest to me.
4. The prayer list goes on a wall where I will see it daily. For me, this is the wall beside the elliptical where I workout most mornings. I spend five to ten minutes praying over the names on the list, based on the day of the week, every morning.
For a few years, praying over the names on the list was a cumbersome task. I labored long over each name and wracked my brain over how I should pray.
As time passed, the Lord led me to simply imagine lifting each person on the list before his heavenly throne. He led me to “place the person in his presence” and wait to see if he impressed anything on my heart. Sometimes, nothing came to me, and I simply lifted the person into the presence of God for a fraction of a minute.
Other times, a thought floated through my mind about sending a message to the friend and offering an encouraging word or asking how I might pray.
Commune With God in Times of Intercessory Prayer
This is how I pray over the names on my list daily now. I lift each of the day’s names into the presence of God and wait to see if I sense a nudge to reach out or pray a more specific prayer.
There are times when I sense a nudge to text a Bible verse or write an email. Sometimes, the friend responds that my message came at a surprisingly appropriate time. Other times, nothing surprising happens and I simply enjoy an opportunity to bless someone else.
The Lord has placed certain people within your sphere of influence for a reason and a purpose. Taking time to pray for these people holds the potential to break up the hard ground of resistant hearts and prepare these people to encounter Jesus in deeper ways.
A Free Devotional to Breathe Fresh Wind Into Your Prayer Life
If you would like to be more intentional in the way you pray for others, click here to receive your free copy of my devotional Change Your World through Prayer. This resource contains practical ideas for praying for those in your life as well as a free template for creating an artful prayer list.
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