Tag: Prayer

After 9:30 p.m. Mommy Needs a Time Out

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My daughter emerges from her room at 9:30 p.m.

It is now more than an hour past bedtime.

Showers have been taken.  Teeth have been brushed.  I have reviewed my daughters’ Scripture memory verses for the week, prayed with them, read them the Bible passage for the night, kissed them on rosy cheeks and sent them merrily to bed.

Or something like that.Photo by Ruud Morijn;

But she re-emerges at 9:30 to tell me a play-by-play account of the book she is reading.  She is a detail person.  I’m pretty sure she is telling me exactly what occurs on each page of this 200-page book.

At first, I nod patiently and politely.  I do, after all, love her.  And, I do share her passion for reading.

Moms should be good listeners.  Moms should make sure their children feel heard and understood.

After a while, though, I hug her close and slowly nudge her back to the bedroom while she is still giving a steady stream of book-narration, and I promise to listen more tomorrow.

Because seriously, it has been loud in my house tonight.

I have helped with homework for 3 children, fed and diapered and carried the crying baby around the house, made dinner, cleaned up dinner, packed lunches, supervised piano practice for 3 kids, sent 3 daughters in for showers and bathed one baby, combed tangles out of hair, folded laundry, read books, brainstormed ideas for a project on Ponce de Leon, prepped backpacks for the next day, laid out the outfits for tomorrow morning, signed agendas and math logs and reading logs, and threatened older children with punishment for any further bedtime delays.

You know, what moms do at night.

At one point, I had a baby crying, a child watching YouTube videos with bracelet-making instructions, one child practicing the piano, and one child asking me to quiz her on Life Cycles because her science test is in two days.

I know you all probably think when I’m in my minivan, I like to blast that worship music right loud and sing at the top of my singing lungs.

But you’d be wrong.

If I have the luxury of just 10 minutes in a car without a child talking to me, I turn the radio off.

O-F-F

Off.

Because, some times, a soul just needs some quiet.

Jesus knew it.  After days of constant ministry, a needy mob following them around incessantly, clamoring for help and help and help all the time help, the disciples needed a change:

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31 NIV).

A quiet place.

Jesus knows we need that some times.

And it’s not just a break from noise we need.

We also need to come away with Him.

We need to not answer those e-mails, or check that Facebook, or answer that phone.

Our souls need beauty and filling up after relentlessly pouring out to others.  We need Jesus and yet so often we choose to fill that void with anything and everything else.

But as Shellie Rushing Tomlinson writes in Heart Wide Open:

He will ruin you for anything else this world has to offer.  However, it is a sweet ‘ruination,’ because the weaker the hold temporal things have on us, the freer we are to lose ourselves in the One who placed eternity in our hearts.

And here’s the hard discovery, that sometimes when I finally sit in relative silence, it rocks my restless soul more than any amount of noise.

That’s when I know I’m an addict, needing that next fix of adrenaline as desperately as others feel the shaking need for another drink.

I’ve become addicted to the rush of activity, addicted to the pride of feeling needed, addicted to the super-hero powers of rescuing people from crises all….day….long, addicted to noise and distraction and busyness.

So, that quiet falls uncomfortably on my shoulders.  I fidget.  I feel the need to hop up at the slightest distraction.

In my 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, I am taking time to Unplug in March, taking days off of Facebook, off of Twitter, and away from television, and this takes discipline.

I find sometimes that the quiet (in the rare moments when there actually is quiet) is awkward and uncomfortable.

And I find some times that the quiet is refreshing like an ice-cold lemonade after a couple of hours of yard work.

Either way, this is what I know—the quiet is what this soul needs.

Are you taking time to Unplug in March?  How is it going?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below!  Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Unplug’?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

 

Don’t expect a laptop or an iPad for your birthday

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Laptop, iPad, video game, cell phone.

This isn’t my wish list.  This is what my about-to-be-eight-year-old daughter will tell you she wants for her birthday if you ask her.

Seriously.

Her little second grade friends ask her for birthday present suggestions, and this is what she tells them.  Not, “Oh, a Barbie would be nice.  Maybe some new markers and Play-Doh.  I like Legos.”

No, not reasonable requests.

Crazy expensive requests.

So, I tell it to her straight yesterday.  Not even mom and dad will get you a laptop, an iPad or a cell phone for your birthday….so when someone other than your loving parents asks you for birthday ideas, think of something far, far, far, far, far…..less expensive.

To be fair, if I take her to pick out a present for her friends when they have a birthday, she always holds up the most expensive item on the shelf (an $80 Lego set or the $40 complete Disney princess collection or a $50 Xbox game) and declare that this is what her friend would like.

I explain that there are presents parents buy you.  There are presents other family members might buy you.  There are presents friends from school might buy you.

And there are presents so expensive, ain’t nobody gonna buy them for you.psalm66

You have to match the request with the giver.  You have to know whom to ask.

And sometimes, don’t we all get this wrong?  Don’t we carry needs to friends, carry worries to Facebook and Twitter, carry sadness to the phone and bitterness to the coffee shop?

But do we carry it all to Christ?

He’s the only One who can forgive and wash clean.  He’s the only One who can care for our every need, deliver us, redeem us, heal us, and restore us.

Yet, there we go, turning to others first and Jesus last.

Why is it that prayer is so often our final act of desperation instead of our first response to trouble?

Why do we so often try every other possible means of escape besides God?  And only after we realize that we have no hope in this hopeless and impossible situation do we finally give it over to Him?

Judas, that betrayer, collected his 30 silver coins.  Maybe he counted each one, stacking the silver into a pile, planning his financial future.

But Scripture tells us there was regret.  There was the deep conviction of sin.

 When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man”  (Mathew 27:3 NLT).

He took that blood money right back, hoping to be absolved of the heavy guilt.

And he confessed his wrong.  “I have sinned….for I have betrayed an innocent man.”

There, he said it.  He was a sinner.  Jesus didn’t deserve that cross.

Shouldn’t confession have shaken the conviction right off his shoulders?  Hadn’t he tried to take it all back, hand the coins over, and smooth right over that sin-laden path he’d traveled?

But the thing about taking our burdens to anyone but Christ is that no one else can handle them.

Those chief priests and religious elite took one look at Judas’s stack of coins and said,

“What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem” (Matthew 27:4 NLT).

He’d rejected, denied, and handed over to death the only One who could have forgiven the very sin he now carried.  No Pharisee or religious leader could cleanse or absolve such guilt.

Only Jesus.

No only that…they didn’t even care.

Do we do this?  Do we expect worldly goods and other people to assuage our guilt, to calm our fears, to satisfy our hearts, instead of taking everything to the only One who can save and redeem and fill us?

The Psalmist gave this testimony:

For I cried out to him for help,
praising him as I spoke.
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
But God did listen!
He paid attention to my prayer.
Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer
or withdraw his unfailing love from me (Psalm 66:17-20 NLT).

God doesn’t turn us away.  He doesn’t reject our requests or shrug us off like they did for Judas,’ What’s that to Me?  That’s not my problem.”

No, He listens to our prayers and does not withdraw His unfailing love from us.

So, we bring our sin to Him.  We bring our needs to Him.  We bring to Him our worries, fears, messes and mistakes, our everyday struggles, and the stress that keeps us up in the night.

He alone can save.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

What she said on the mountain….and why I didn’t expect it

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She stepped right off that bus and kept on going.

The rest of us shuffled off after the long drive and congregated silently on the sidewalk, awaiting further instructions.  No one really knew each other so we generally avoided awkwardness by pretending to be busy getting our stuff together.

Not her.  She pushed right past and flung her arms open into the cool October air.

She even spun around.  I’m not kidding.  It was just like Maria from Sound of Music only she didn’t break into, “The hills are alive…”psalm19

But she could have.

Instead, I heard her say it and it stopped my self-obsessed heart right there:  “It’s so beautiful!  How could you see all this and not know God?”

That’s what she said.

It’s the first time I really noticed her.  I mean really noticed, more than the passing glance and distant, friendly nod in our college history class.  We’d spent a whole semester together and I think perhaps by the end I’d at least learned her name.

But here she was, declaring the glory of God in the mountains of Western Maryland as we spent a weekend at a leadership retreat for college students.  She was bolder than I had been all year, didn’t care what anyone else thought, just threw herself into a declaration of faith and worship while everyone else looked on.

I didn’t know about her faith, didn’t know her heart at all.

Sometimes we think we know what’s inside the hearts of others.  We think we can tell—-who knows God?  Who doesn’t?  Who is close to salvation?  Who is “hopeless.”

But we can be wrong

God isn’t.  He declares,

But I, the Lord, search all hearts
and examine secret motives (Jeremiah 17:10 NLT).

He knows.

So, when we feel like giving up on someone and think no way will they ever believe in God, remember that only God knows.  Maybe we stop that persevering prayer for their salvation because it just won’t ever happen, but maybe they are just one moment away from faith.

Or we think all this depends on us.  Our words, our prayers, our testimonies make salvation happen.

But really, God is at work.  He grants us this privilege to be part of His love for others, but it’s never all about us.

We just share our heart.  We live out Christ.  We love others like Him.  And we pray.

We obey Him and trust Him with the rest.

And we can get all tangled up in worry over, ‘What about the people who never hear about Christ?  How can a good God deny them heaven?”

But the truth is the same…It’s All About Him….and He is more than capable.  He knows the hearts of every one of us, knows who is close to faith, who needs to hear the message, whose heart is made ready for the Gospel.

Rahab lived in that pagan town Jericho.  No one would have expected her to be a God-follower, not a rescuer of Israelites or the one person in Jericho who was closest to salvation

She was a prostitute.  Hopelessly lost, for sure.

Maybe that’s what any human would judge with all the external evidence we could muster against her.

But God knew her heart.  He knew that of all the people in the city, she was the one person who heard the testimony of the miracles God had done and would think, ‘This is a God who I can trust to save me.”

That’s what she said in a whispered conversation with two Israelite spies she hid on her roof:

For the Lord your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below (Joshua 2:11 NLT).

She believed.

Who would’ve thought?

God, that’s who.  He sent those spies straight to her door because He knew she would save them…..and He knew that He would save her.

He knocked down a seemingly impenetrable fortress of walls around Jericho, but kept her one lone house standing.

He moved heaven and earth to save a woman whose heart was ready for grace and faith.

This is our God with His heart to save, with His power to do the impossible and to share the Gospel with those who need to hear because He does not want “anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NIV).

Lord, forgive us when we’ve given up praying for salvation for others.  Help us to persevere in prayer. 

Give us a heart for others and the boldness and compassion to share our testimony and display Your love and truth.

Remind us that only You can know what is in the heart of another.  No one is ‘hopeless’ or so far from You that salvation is out of reach.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

This is All His Story (A Lesson from The Theater)

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Looking at that stage, you would have thought that there were 40 little stars in the show.

From gingerbread cookies, to a mysterious gypsy, from village peasants to silly hobgoblins, forest sprites, and a bridge troll who wants payment from forest travelers, you couldn’t tell at a glance who was telling the main story and who was telling an aside in the performance of  The Story of Hansel and Gretel.076

My husband says that everyone on the stage has the job of telling their story.  Some get to have a name and some dialogue.  Others don’t.  But no one is simply there for background noise.

Every actor acts as if his character’s story is the main story.

But this is the life lesson that stings as it tramples down over our pride—We aren’t the main story in this world.  None of us are.

This story isn’t ours at all; it’s God’s.

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

All of our life is a struggle between self-centeredness and God-centeredness.  We know our lives are supposed to revolve around Him and His will, yet we have so many personal dreams and goals.

It’s not that our story doesn’t matter to God or that He views us as just “one of the crowd,” a random human in a sea of human need. 

To God, each person matters.  Each of us is a treasure.  Each of us is beloved and worthy of sacrifice.

Our personal story always matters to Him.

But sometimes we think we know how our story should go, never considering how our life connects, overlaps, and intertwines with the lives of those around us.

This self-centeredness, thinking it’s my story and that God needs to bend His weighty will to my own personal plan, always shows up in my prayer life.

I tell God, “Here’s what’s happening to me and it’s yucky.  I’m hurting.  I need you to answer my prayer and provide…..and here’s how You can do that.”

I’ve given God three-step strategies to provide for me or rescue me.  I’ve created mental timetables, agendas, and budgets and called out to God as if I presided over a boardroom meeting and He was the lackey in charge of production.

Foolish me, prideful me, self-centered me…I forget.  I forget that He is always the main event.  He is the hero.  He always knows my need and the best way and time to provide.   He knows how my story fits into His story.

You can pray for that specific job, at the expense of someone else who needs it and who God designed for it.  Or you can pray for the perfect job God has planned for you.

You can pray for that specific spouse you want to marry.  Or you can pray God brings you the perfect husband or wife at just the right time.  romans8-26

You can pray that God blesses your ministry efforts here.  Or you can pray that God directs your steps to the ministry He has designed for you.

We bring to Him our problem.

We leave the solutions up to Him.

That’s how we yield our story to His and allow Him full reign over our life’s direction.

This is why Paul told us more than just this verse that we like to quote so much:  “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose”  (Romans 8:28)

The verses immediately before that say:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).

Then, yes, when we’ve allowed the Spirit to intercede for us according to God’s will, He works everything out for our good.

And not just for our good.

But for the good of the person to our left and the one to our right and even those so far off to the side of the stage we can’t even see them.

He sees us all and knows the perfect plan that will work for our benefit and for His glory.

But we yield our story to Him, we lay it low at His feet and let Him take center stage in our life, in our dreams, in our needs, and in relationships.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Does God Listen When We Pray?

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“Listening is an act of love.”

That’s what she told me years ago as we sat around the table in our Bible study group.

She said it with a laugh, because she was a talker.  She liked chatting, chatting, chatting.  Listening was the sacrificial gift she gave to others.

Sometimes one phrase like that sticks with you years later.  It presses that impression deep into your clay-heart and you can trace your finger along the imprint over and over, to remember, to act, to transform, to put it into practice.

It changes you.

Listening.  That’s the act of love we give to others.

We quiet our own renegade thoughts, stop trying to think of what we want to say next, stop tuning others out in order to turn our selfish eyes inward once again.

We listen.  Really listen.  We listen so we can pray and ask the right questions.  Yes, we listen so we can show love.

I take this to heart.  Me, the mom perpetually in the minivan.  Some days, my kids want to babble on so.  I live in a world of noise.

But when I start to nod my head without hearing and insert appropriate “Mmmm—hmmmms” at well-timed pauses simply to pretend like I’m listening to them (while I secretly revel in my own private thoughts), I stop.

Now I choose to listen, choose to value who they are and what they have to say.

And I remind myself of this: Listening is an act of God’s love to me.

He doesn’t just ask me to give this gift to others.  He gives it first.

I don’t always feel it, of course.  Sometimes I push out those breathy prayers and feel like nothing is changing.  He isn’t listening, isn’t understanding my need or even caring about my little self in my desperate situation.

Those prayers sure feel at times like they are hitting that proverbial ceiling.

The Psalmists understood.

David wrote,

“Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth“ (Psalm 54:2)

and

“To you, LORD, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit” (Psalm 28:1).

Asaph prayed the same:

“God, do not remain silent; do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand aloof, O God” (Psalm 83:1).

That’s what we feel perhaps, and yet we’re assured that God hears our pure hearts when we pray.

God doesn’t tune us out or ignore us.

Psalm 10:17 says,

“Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts.  You will listen carefully” (HCSB).

He listens.  Not distractedly, absentmindedly, or halfheartedly.

God listens “carefully” to the desire of the humble.

Indeed, the Psalmist could say, “You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh”  (Psalm 38:9 NLT).  Even when we can’t cram our needs and feelings into words, God hears the very longings of our heart and every sigh of our overwhelmed soul.

When Jesus stood outside of Lazarus’s tomb, surrounded by wailing mourners who blamed him for Lazarus’s death, He prayed with these words:

Then Jesus raised His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You heard Me. I know that You always hear Me….” (John 1:1:41-42 HCSB).

Jesus prayed boldly on the basis of the promise of God’s character:  He is the God who always hears us. 

In Beth Moore’s book, The Beloved Disciple, she issues a prayer challenge:

Every time you pray for the next week, begin your prayer with Christ’s words straight out of John 11:42, “I know You always hear me.”  Then conclude it with Christ’s words in John 11:41, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.” Practice God’s presence!  Pray as if He’s really listening because He is!”

This is my prayer practice this week, the way I am pursuing the presence of Christ through my prayer life.

This week, I’ll continue breathing out those short 5-word prayers from last week.

But  in my longer prayer times, I begin each with: “I know You always hear me.”  And before I say, “Amen, ” I pray, “Father, thank You that You have heard me.”

Because He does hear me.  I just need the reminder and reassurance at times.  This great God, so Mighty, so Awesome, loves me and chooses to listen to me as an expression of that merciful love.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below!  Won’t you join me this month as I focus on Praying Simply?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Making a Prayer Pail: How to get out of that same-old prayer rut

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prayerpail

My four-year-old always manages to surprise me with her prayers.  She keeps them fresh.  What rolls off her tongue is what is just rolling out of her heart and mind.

But she’s the exception.

We do this nightly round-robin of prayers as a family.  Mostly, my family slips easily into a rut of prayers.  I can tell you what one of my daughters will pray almost word-for-word every…single….night.

Not only does she stick to the same verbal prayer routine, she has taken to praying at lightning speed, like she gets extra spiritual bonus points for crossing the finish line of “Amen” in record time.

Prayer should be more than that, right?

This message is for me.  I don’t want to trek over those same prayer grooves night after night.  I don’t want to pray out of “should” or “must” or spiritual duty, doing little more than checking off that sacred to-do-list.

Prayer should be this great passion.

Too often, we forget this: That we are granted access before the very throne of our Mighty God by the grace of our Savior.  Prayer brings us into His presence.  It’s beautiful and intimate and it should knock me right off my feet really to realize that a God so great could care about the tiniest needs of my simple soul.

So, how to help us all shake off the routine of prayer?  How to remind myself and my kids that we should be praying for our missionaries, our church leaders, our government, our teachers, our friends and family in addition to our own little needs?

I saw this idea shared at The Women’s Bible Cafe and had this moment of, “Oh my goodness, this is the best idea ever.”  It’s not something I could just pin on Pinterest and never turn into reality in my own home.  This was something that needed to actually happen.

Delfina Salas, the mom who inspired this awesome idea, gave me permission to make my own prayer pail and share the results with you.

She let her kids decorate a tiny bucket and some Popsicle sticks.  Then they wrote on each stick a prayer prompt—a missionary name or something like ‘government leaders.’

At dinner, they choose one Popsicle stick and pray for whatever is written on it.

Some of you might use prayer calendars in a similar way to help you remember to pray for a variety of needs.

But me?  A mom with four young kids?  Popsicle sticks with prayer requests seems like a good fit!

So, here’s our prayer pail….015

We included each family member, extended family, soldiers, government leaders, teachers and schools, pastors and church leaders, and three different missionary families we know from our church.

My heart is to make this happen:

 The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live (1 Timothy 2:1-3 MSG).

Thank you so much, Delfina, for the suggestion and allowing me to share this idea with others!

Have you found ways to revive your prayer life or help your kids learn how to pray for others?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

How to Pray When You Don’t Have Time to Pray

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praying

 

“Why’d you have to say that aloud?”

That’s what my husband asked me and I knew it the moment I said those words I should have kept them shut up inside my head.

Foolish mama, to say, “If I can just make it to mid-March, the rest of the year will be easy.”

It’s like painting a big target on yourself with a sign saying, “Please hit me HERE.”

Of course, my daughters carried home three different invitations to join this team and that club and this after-school activity that very week.  And my tiniest girl comes to me with two birthday invitations.

That cathartic breath of victory, the kind you gasp in when you’ve crossed the finish-line of a suffocating race with your muscles screaming in pain and your head pounding, but you’re feeling accomplished—-that breath just got knocked right out of my breathless soul.

Why’d I have to go and say that aloud?

I pray out this whispered apology to God in my minivan:

“I’m just so sorry I’m rushing, sorry that 15 minutes of quiet in my car is the closest I get to really pouring it all out here with you, God.  Please forgive me.”

It used to be…

In those pre-Mom days, I commuted at least an hour each way and amused all the New Jersey drivers as the woman talking to herself and singing in her Dodge Neon.

Every day, I spent two hours in prayer and worship.

And now?

I’m disciplining myself through Bible study and I’m grabbing every last second to flop down all exhausted at the feet of Jesus.

There are days when I’m panting like David:

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water  (Psalm 63:1 NASB).

I have been that dehydrated and parched.

This morning, I read it here:

In panic I cried out, “I am cut off from the Lord!”  But you heard my cry for mercy and answered my call for help.  Psalm 31:22

I have felt cut off from the Lord….Cut off from His presence.  Cut off from that sweet intimacy of rambling conversations and long soul-talks with my Savior.

But…

The Psalmist tells me God hears that cry for mercy and call for help.prayer quote

And He answers.

I can dream about used to be’s or feel the heavy burden of failure and mourn the loss.  No more two-hour-long ‘quiet’ times in my tiny commuter car.

But here’s the thing….I’m working harder than ever to be there with Him.  Perhaps that’s even more precious to Him?

There’s this blessed reality, this beautiful Mom-life.  The beauty of interrupted thoughts and sweet hugs, of digging seeds deep down in the fertile souls of these four babies.

Maybe I can’t slip away for hours of prayer, but it’s because I’ve got my hands sunk in the soil and God’s there with me, patting down the dirt, watering and weeding, pruning and tending this garden of my home.

I read this grace:

“God gives more in a moment than in a long period of time, for His actions are not measured by time at all… Know that even when you are in the kitchen, our Lord is moving among the pots and pans.” – St Teresa of Avila

and this:

There are moments when you don’t have time for long, wordy prayers to God.  You’re in the trenches.  You’re at the end of your rope.  You’re in the middle of life and just can’t push the pause button….Simple prayers from a person whose heart is bent towards God can be just as powerful as the poetic prayers of David   (Emily E. Ryan, Guilt-Free Quiet Times).

I think of Nehemiah, who prayed and fasted for months, but had this one moment of great need and wrote simply, “So I prayed to the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 2:4).  Just one sentence.  one quick prayer for help when he needed it most.

That’s what my prayers are like now.

Emily E. Ryan teaches me 5-Word Prayers to Whisper in the Moment (from Guilt-Free Quiet Times)

Not my will, but Yours.
Not my timing, but Yours.
Not my day, but Yours.

This week, as I pursue the presence of Christ by Praying Simply….I practice these 5-word prayers.  Sometimes less.  Sometimes little more than, “Help!!” or “Jesus!!” or “Have mercy on me!”

I wash the dish and pray thanks.
I make the bed and pray for my marriage.
I drive the minivan and pray for our activities.
I tie the shoes and pray for the feet that wear them.

I feel His presence as we work that soil and I remember that I’m ministering with Him, not apart from Him.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below!  Won’t you join me this month as I focus on Praying Simply?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Five Simple Ways to Remember to Pray for Others

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“The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.”
1 Timothy 2:1 MSG

“I’ll pray for ya!”

That’s what we promise.remembertopray

But do we really remember?  When life crowds in, do we keep our promise to pray for surgeries, doctor’s appointments, marriages, infertility, job interviews, ministry events, concerns about children, or direction….not for ourselves, but for others?

Because truth be told, so often we’re selfish, attending to our own needs and forgetting the needs of others.

Or maybe we’re distracted. Far too busy.  Simply forgetful.

We need, though, not just to say we’re going to pray, but to truly bow down at the throne of God and lift up our friends, family, and church members, interceding on their behalf. 

Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them.  In this way, God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.“

God does not appoint one person in a group to pray for everyone else or call one person to intercessory prayer and give everyone else a “Get Out of Prayer” card.

He invites all of us to His throne room on behalf of the people we meet in “everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence.”

Perhaps God sent you through that particular line at the grocery store so you could meet and pray for your cashier.

Maybe the hairdresser who checks your name off the list and calls you back to the shampoo bowl was God-appointed so that you could pray for her.

That interruption in your day that sent you to the store unexpectedly may have been so that you could meet up with a friend from small group who needs prayer.

So then, how do you combat forgetfulness and busyness and self-centeredness and make praying for others a consistent reality rather than a broken promise?

  1.  Mark it on your calendar: Mingled among doctor’s appointments, ballet lessons, and cookouts, prayer requests dot my calendar.  Surgery dates, job interviews, baby due dates, and court appearances are marked on the squares so that I will remember to pray on the very days necessary.
  2. Pray right away: If someone calls me with a prayer request, I may very well pray right there on the phone.  If not, I pray as soon as I  hang up.  I may be cutting onions, stirring pasta, washing dishes or folding clothes while I’m doing it, but I’m praying while it is fresh on my heart and mind.  If I receive an email with a prayer request, I pray over it as I read and as soon as I’m finished.1timothy2
  3. Pray as you read Scripture:  As I read, I ask God to reveal Scriptures that I can pray for those on my prayer list and He does.  Right there in that moment, Bible in my hand, I pray for the person who has popped into my mind in association with that verse. ” God, place a new song in her heart” (Psalm 40).  “God, fill her with the knowledge of Your will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Colossians 1:9).  Every time I open my Bible, I begin a conversation with God that often includes requests for others.
  4. Stop, Drop and Pray: We’ve all had those moments when we’re running through our day and a friend appears in our thoughts for a moment.  “I need to call her,” we might think.  Or, “I need to remember to pray for her later.”  I’ve learned to obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit and pray right then and there.  I don’t need to wait until my quiet time to lift up a friend to God.  I stop where I am, drop what I’m doing even if only for a few seconds, and pray—-before I forget and before urgent things distract me.
  5. Post It:  I’ve tried keeping a notebook of prayer requests before and it hasn’t worked for me.  What I have done, though, is find ways to post the prayer requests so I see them all day and pray for them often.  I have a prayer list for my kids on my refrigerator door.  I’ve posted index cards around my desk with prayer requests for others.  I have a prayer card in my Bible and another in my car.

Too often we try to confine prayer to specific times, meetings, sacred places and holy moments.  But prayer can happen right here and now. As soon as the Holy Spirit nudges our heart, we can offer those prayers up to Him on behalf of others.

Originally posted as Pray for Us, Part II, 5/25/2011

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Does prayer really have to be that complicated?

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I don’t remember the first time I talked to God, but I remember the moment I decided prayer was personal.

It’s funny how you don’t recall most of life when you’re three or four years old, but you can have these few vivid memories that play back like a well-worn movie.

I don’t remember how I knew my father had left us.  I don’t remember how I felt about the whole ordeal of divorce.

But I sat on a swing-set in my backyard one day when I was about four and I said this,

“God, You’ll have to be my Daddy now.”

That I remember.

And prayer’s always been that for me, not some awkward attempt to wax poetic before a stern God.  I’ve never felt like my prayers have to ‘measure up’ or ‘sound holy.’DSCF2151

Because it’s always just been me, a simple girl talking to Dad about life on a swing-set, about making tough decisions, about life as a mom, about life….

I found a prayer journal years ago with categories and lists, a calendar of prayer planning, verses and notes, bookmarks, quotes, all spiral bound for easy writing.

I’m a little surprised that it didn’t light up or play music.

But the thing about that super-duper-deluxe journal is that I never could use it.  All those bells and whistles complicated prayer, made it so cumbersome and bulky.

I’d been chatting with God all day, every day for decades, and I couldn’t cram all that intimacy into a multi-step method in this how-to of prayer.

Maybe formulas and fancy systems work for you.

Or perhaps you’re like me, who simply wants prayer to be communion with God, the recognition of His presence here in this place.

Samuel Chadwick wrote:

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying.  He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion.  He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray” Samuel Chadwick

There’s such power in this prayer, and yet too often we avoid it and neglect it because we over-complicate it.

We act as if we’re not really praying unless we pray for two hours straight, on our knees, in a prayer closet, with a prayer journal, and maintain an adequate ratio of praise-to-petition.

And, since we can’t do all that, we simply don’t pray at all.

But God doesn’t regulate prayer with some hierarchical system of holiness.

That’s Satan, complicating things so that we give it all up all-together, feeding us the lies:

Prayer is too hard.
Prayer is for the holy.
I get bored.
If only I could pray like her.  I guess I’m just a failure.
Surely God hears her prayers, but not mine because I don’t know how to start or what words to say and what if I get it all wrong?
I don’t have anything to say that’s important enough for God to hear.

Perhaps that’s how the disciples felt, when they overheard the Pharisees praying Shakespeare-quality performances every time they bowed their heads in the synagogue.

So, they asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray….”

Maybe they expected a formula or a long lecture about the process of prayer or a complicated prayer  cataloging system.

But Jesus did the opposite.  The Lord’s Prayer fits into five simple verses, which Jesus prefaced with this:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6:5-8 NIV).

Don’t pray to show off. 

Don’t feel like you need to pray for a long time.

Keep it simple.  Pray what’s on your heart, because God already knows what you’re thinking and feeling.

Over the years, I’ve kept prayers on Index cards, prayers in beautiful journals, prayers on my fridge, prayers in a Word Processor on my computer.

And you know what?  All of them were prayer.  All of them helped me rest in the presence of God, learning to trust Him with my needs and learning to listen to His voice.

As I continue this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, I choose this month to linger here:

In the end, what matters about prayer isn’t how we pray, it’s that we actually do it.

That’s what I’m thinking….Now it’s your turn:

Has prayer ever seemed complicated or difficult to you?  What do you want to learn most about prayer?  What’s the best advice about prayer you’ve ever been given?   What have you found that works?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below!  Won’t you join me next month as I focus on Praying Simply?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

It’s When They’re Quiet That You Need to Be Worried…

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It’s when they’re quiet that you need to be worried.

That’s parental advice passed down through generations, usually learned from personal experience.

I learned my lesson, too.

My oldest girl did this thing when she was three years old called a “tantrum.”  Maybe you’ve heard of them?  Maybe you’ve seen one . . . or thrown one.

After a particularly rowdy tantrum on the car ride home one day, she stomped into the house still screaming, ran into my bathroom and slammed the door.

Unfazed, I took my time setting her baby sister down for a nap and tossing my keys and arm-full of papers and baby paraphernalia onto the kitchen counter.  I breathed in deep breaths of Mom sanity.

Then I realized that the banshee wail had subsided into silence, frighteningly loud silence.

Throwing open my bathroom door, I saw my red-faced preschooler crouched on the carpet, her hands covering her head as she sobbed.

On the floor next to her was her hair.

Her hair!

Her long, totally beautiful, golden curly hair.  In her rage, she had climbed onto my bathroom counter and dug through to the bottom of my makeup case where I hid the hair scissors.  Then she had systematically snipped off the two pig-tails on the tip-top of her head.

She was bawling.  I was bawling.  We raced to the local hair salon and plopped her up in the chair for a rescue mission.  Our superhero that day sported a comb and some clippers.

Sometimes we think silence means inactivity and stagnation, abandonment and loneliness, but instead it’s often a sign of focused activity.

With kids, that might mean trouble.

With God, though, as heart-wrenching and full of despair as His silence is, we needn’t fear the quiet.  It’s often a promise that He’s at work right there in the middle of your circumstances, deeply involved in your life.

This was me not long ago.  I thought I had it figured out, what God was doing and how He was at work and how He planned to bless and care for us, but I was wrong.psalm55

The thing about cramming God into boxes is that He shatters the confines of the cardboard.

So, when life didn’t go as I had planned, I cried out to Him: What are you doing?  What does this mean?

Why can’t I hear You?

The silence is so oppressive and filled with overwhelming sadness.  We just want to hear His voice, His quiet voice or His booming command, His encouraging cheer, or His tender whisper.  Whatever He wants to say, we’re desperate to hear it.

Because we feel afraid.

I drove off that night on an arbitrary errand, alone in my car, praying away in the quiet.  Then I hit the play button on the CD for our church Christmas cantata:

“Peace, oh my soul, weary from the struggle
Don’t be afraid, Love knows your deepest need.
There is a light shining in the darkness.
There is no shadow where it cannot reach.
Peace, peace, Jesus has come
O soul, be still, receive your King”

The song faded and one lone voice cut through the silence:

“The Lord is with you . . . Fear not, Mary ….For nothing is impossible with God….Joseph, fear not.  Fear not!  For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given…Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy…Fear not!  They will call Him Immanuel–which means, ‘God with us.’  Fear not, for I am with you”

My husband asked me when I flopped on the couch later, “Were you crying?”

How could I do anything but cry?

I had been desperate for the slightest trickle of His voice and He had drenched me in His Word.

But even when I didn’t hear Him, God was still there, still active, still with me. That hadn’t changed.

In his book, Greater, Steven Furtick writes:

God is often working behind the scenes of your life, orchestrating His destiny for you.  Even though you don’t have a clue what He’s up to.  Just because you haven’t heard God call your name or tell you specifically what to do with your life doesn’t mean He’s not conspiring great things for you.

Sometimes we feel like Job: “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me” (Job 30:20).

But even in the silence we can hold to the promise:

As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice
(Psalm 55:16-17).

He hears you.  And when He chooses to speak, the wave of His voice might wash over you and knock you off your feet and carry you to safety.  For now, just keep listening, keep waiting, and don’t be afraid of the silence.

Originally published October 5, 2012

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!
To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King