7 Days, 7 Ways

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know from this post that prayer is not exactly my strong suit. You also know that I have felt a call to make a greater investment in prayer and that I am actively pursuing what, exactly, that looks like. Well, at annual conference, I attended a workshop on prayer which motivated me (hopefully through divine inspiration) to establish a new prayer discipline.

One of my barriers to prayer is that I get easily overwhelmed by the vast amount of needs. Because there is no way to pray for EVERYTHING, I rarely pray for ANYTHING. This is, indeed, a faulty approach for several reasons, not the least of which being that God has commanded me to pray. So I asked God to help me discern what and how He would like me to pray, and the answer came almost instantaneously. He broke my assignment down into 7 things to pray, 1 for each day of the week. Here's my new regime:

On Sunday I pray for FRANCE as a nation. I ask for God to draw the hearts of the French to Him.

On Monday I pray for my FAMILY. I ask for God to ever increase in the hearts of David, Graham and Chandler and I ask that their lives be spent for His glory.

On Tuesday I pray for FRUIT. I pray that God would take the work of our ministry in France and use it to build His kingdom. I acknowledge that WE can't produce the fruit, we can only bear it. I also pray that we would do everything by His power and for His glory.

I call Wednesday WARFARE-day. I ask God to break down the spiritual barriers to the gospel that have gripped France since the days of the so-called "enlightenment."

On Thursday I pray for FAITH. God says that with faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. I ask Him to strength our faith and and then enable us to use it to build His kingdom in France.

On Friday I pray for FRIENDS. I ask God to help us build genuine relationships with unbelieving people so that we can share His love with them. I also ask that God would use friendships all across France to build networks that will become the basis of a church planting movement.

On Saturday I pray for FEET. This one needs some explaining! I pray that our family would be the hands and feet of Jesus in France. I ask God to open our eyes to ways that we can "wash the feet" of the French people by meeting tangible needs.

In order to help build prayer into my life as a habit, I decided to attach this discipline to one that is already well established. For the past few years I have been working on scripture memorization. I keep my memory verses on 3x5 cards that are spiral bound (thanks Niki!) and I review them daily. I decided to write out each of my weekday prayer focuses on one of the 3x5 cards in the BACK so that after I go through my verses, I can flip to the back and pray for that particular day's theme. So far, it is working great.

I don't get down on my knees, and sometimes I don't even close m eyes. I probably only pray for a minute or two each morning, but then I find that as I go through the day God brings the theme for the day back to my mind frequently, and I end up praying for variations, nuances, and specifics pertaining to that theme all day long.

I know that none of this is earth-shattering or revolutionary. But then again, it might be. Because I really DO believe in the power of prayer. I really do think that God has chosen to enact His will through the prayers of His people. So I look forward to walking in this new discipline and watching to see what God will do.

I am almost starting to get excited to pray. That just might be the first miracle!

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