PRAYER PROMPTS

P.R.A.Y.

There are many prompts which can help one with the structure of prayer. 

The one I've been most familiar with is.... 

Praise

Repent

Ask

Yield

This morning I found a new P.R.A.Y. on Lectio 365, a devotional my dear Ukrainian friend, Katya shared with me.

Possibly it's because I seem to find it difficult to first be still  and Lectio's P. stands for Pausing---as a gerund, a verb used as as the head of a noun phrase. Pausing is difficult for me.

Pausing to be still......I need to remember. 

Rejoicing....with a Psalm, my go to Scripture and Reflecting on Scripture gets me right into God's Word. Okay so it's 2 r's but it's a GR-R-E A T idea!

Asking God's help not only for self but for others.

Yielding to his will in our lives, come what may.

The prompt one chooses doesn't matter...but prayer does!

“P”erfect “P”airing

7/5/11….and I’m not talking golf here. Today I received 2 books that have really piqued my spiritual interest. One by a pastor. One by a pray-er, as in one who prays. Unable to decide which one to read first, I dove into both and began to extract “plums” from each.

A Positive Life is written by Shane Stanford, who is set to become the senior pastor at Christ Methodist this month. It’s basically “his” story of living with HIV (from a transfusion) and how it taught him the simplicity and contentment of a life shared in a community of laughter and love.

• Positive Life plum---God’s healing passes understanding; it gets down on the floor with us and wipes away our tears and holds us, especially when the aches and pains of life seem too much to bear. (Positive Life, p.44)

Paul Miller’s, A Praying Life: connecting with God in a distracted world, is the focus of a 5 week book study that Kathy T. is leading in the east Memphis area for a group of like-minded women. She was drawn to the book on Fellowship Memphis’ pastor, Bryan Loritts recommendation as more than another “how to pray” type book.

• Praying Life plum---What does an unused prayer link look like? ANXIETY. (caps are mine) (A Praying Life p. 70)

With pink highlighter in hand, I’ll keep you posted as I partake of more of these powerful, though personal, plums/treasures.