Developing a broader prayer life

Good evening!

I hope you all are doing well!
I wanted to share with you all some ways of praying that have been very helpful to me over the last couple of weeks as I've been in this prayer class at school. It amazes me how God works; I'm in this class, hear his leading to be talking about attentiveness, and then Rick returns from India and we are launching into a time of prayer and fasting.  Maybe God's telling us something!

Part of the problem I have found in praying is that I don't have enough structure to help sustain a long stretch of devoted prayer.  Maybe it's the culture, maybe it's just me, but I find it helpful to have a plan of action.  Once I have a plan in place, I then have the freedom to "go off the path" if I want.  One other issue I have with prayer is the idea that I have to be on a spiritual high to really be effective.  I have to be caught up in the third heaven to have powerful prayer.  I'm not sure where that came from, but it is dead wrong!! We live our lives as worship when we feel like it and when we do not; why shouldn't prayer be the same?

So! Here are a couple of ideas that might really help you connect with Jesus and help give you a structure and a place to start in prayer.

1. Prayer of Examen - this prayer has been very powerful in being an effective way to discern God's will and become more aware of him.  Basically, you take about 20 to 50 minutes and find a quiet place.  Then, you go back 12-24 hours from your past day and ask the question: Lord, where did I miss you in that hour? And then you simply walk through each hour pausing where God stops and whispers, even pausing when you feel led to linger on a feeling or emotion you had that wasn't resolved.  As I have begun to practice this prayer, I have found that I become much more aware of my feelings (which I don't always do so well with), and that through hearing God speak about the past, leads me to see him in the present much more effectively.

2. Prayer beads!

I know, I hear you saying... Are you going crazy Ben? No I'm not I promise! This has been great.  I made a string of prayer beads, and each bead represents a different thing.  I have one for Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father, and then my family.  I have some generic beads that let me be spontaneous as I work my way around the circle.  I love this helpful prayer tool for a couple of reasons.  I love to pray as I'm driving and I can feel each bead and it is a physical reminder of what I'm praying for.  When I feel the different shape and size of a bead, I know exactly which one that signifies and thus stay on track with praying.

Over the next two weeks, you could make a list of things you want to pray about and then make a set of prayer beads for those things.  You could have ones that we're praying together for as a church, finances, the new campus, - You could even have a Dave Welker prayer bead :), and a bead for the Holy Spirit to come in power.  Lists are great, but a physical reminder for me has been powerful!

Love you all and I will give a couple more ideas in the next week.

Ben