July 7th, 2016

EVFree Fullerton: Encouragement Inc. Members’ Replies about Prayer

ENC INC COMPILED NOTES FROM TABLE TALK 3 July 2016:

If you are someone who has a “war room,” a place where you are quiet/still and spend time with God in prayer, will you tell others about that and how you came to that discipline?

  • Commute to work (sometimes miss an exit!)
  • Before I go to sleep on my bed, reflect back on the day and the concerns and needs which have come up
  • Running, trail walking
  • A downstairs couch, my office, a backyard bench, on my front porch with my coffee… so still there.
  • Having a designated “prayer chair” for the children from the time they were small
  • In the car, or shower, or bathtub (alone, undistracted, quiet)

What are some of the group’s best prayer tips for spending personal time communing with God? …or knowing what to pray for/keeping track of the things you’d like to remember to speak with the Lord about?

  • “Before your feet hit the floor” –asking God to bring to light what He would have for you today. “Before going to sleep at night”—thank God for the things he showed you that day.
  • Have a prayer group for accountability.
  • Reading written prayers by others help us focus on God and not on our feelings of inadequacy at prayer.
  • Look in the Bible for passages that you can pray as prayers (Mom’s in Prayer taught this, Beth Moore has a book called Praying God’s Word). This also helps in beginning to pray aloud.
  • Photos, objects to remind us of the person or thing we are praying for. A map of the world, an excel spreadsheet…
  • Getting out of the house so I’m not distracted.
  • Pray for God’s will.
  • Don’t stop being amazed that we can be connected to God through Prayer.
  • When you hear of something to pray for, pray immediately, wherever you are. If possible to pray with someone when they mention a need, just ask if you can pray with them right then and not just say, “I’ll pray for you.” (Steven Curtis Chapman has a song “Let Us Pray” about that)
  • If you wake up in the middle of the night, ask what to pray for.
  • Keeping a journal of requests and how God answers. “God sightings” journal.
  • Use a smart phone/computer to remember and remind (ie. on your outlook schedule with a reminder, and a text automatically goes to the person prayed for!)  I use iCal in iOS and have set up a separate calendar for prayer–from the computer, it doesn’t work from other devices.  Requests are entered as “all day” events, and show up at the top. I schedule them for as long as I want to be praying for that, or on the day before or day of a time oriented request. This way, it’s accessible on all my devices and I can check to have it showing, or not…only looking at it when I have time for focusing on prayer.
  • I learned from my parents about having a “Day in prayer”
  • Schedule it as part of your day.
  • When you noticed you’ve been “derailed” by a distraction, instead of feeling guilty, pray for that distraction, and get back to it.
  • When your heart starts beating faster and you are nervous, you are probably supposed to be praying about it!
  • You must practice to get more comfortable with it. Praying regularly helps us get past the “list” of things we should pray for, and focus on communion with God.
  • “organic prayer opportunities” being aware of God’s leading and His conversation toward me.
  • Praying out loud also teaches our children how to talk with God (they also can’t read our minds!)

If you used to be uncomfortable praying aloud in a group, why was that and how did you get over it?

  • “I’m still working on it.”
  • Coming up with the words to say used to be difficult. Unless someone models it for us, you feel very self-conscious.
  • Learning how to “add on” to what someone else has been praying about.
  • “popcorn prayer” like conversation, you can interject short prayers of agreement, or petition, or change a subject and not feel the pressure to pray a lengthy prayer.
  • A pastor said he liked to hear new believers pray aloud because it was sincere and was not about eloquence.
  • I need to feel safe with the people whom I am praying with. Prayer is so intimate, I have to gauge whether I can be intimate with God in front of certain groups.

 Besides Matthew 6:9-13, What has been the best teaching you’ve had, or book you’ve read on prayer?

  • ACTS = Adoration, then Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication
  • Modeling by mentors showed us how to pray specifically and out loud
  • The Pursuit of God, Tozer
  • Prayer, Richard Foster
  • Praying Jesus’ Way, (?)
  • With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray (a free or cheap Classic on Amazon. He breaks down Matthew 6:9-13 with written prayers after teaching on every segment. His complete works are great!)
  • What Happens When Women Pray,
  • Practicing the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence
  • Prayer books by Chuck Smith, EM Bounds,
  • The Prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkerson

A Reminder about walking it out…

  1. For sharing with your prayer partner this week: Has Sin, lack of Prayer, or Denial about the war we’re in kept me from my freedom in Christ? How can you move forward?

iCal calendar

You can subscribe to Kimberly’s Put Off / Put On: 31 Days of Prayer for Freedom in Christ (beta). Copy and paste this link below in your iCal /Mac under File>New Calendar Subscription and it will show up at one of your calendars. If you don’t want to see it all the time, deselect the box on the list to the right (on your Mac) or under Calendars at the bottom of iCal on your phone, you can deselect it.

webcal://p07-calendarws.icloud.com/ca/subscribe/1/ejKOT58Z1XtAcXKsAbIzuGKkwQjcEA_Fp6vZpVvL7hCQfloz5Mp4NpcgqLAI-WmZTu3KnyXlJQ2EXPElXPfIjwjJEsVCiCm9UmWK-SOxbs0

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