Pray more in 2024

Here we are…again… at the end of another year. Where does time and my life go? Again, we are going to be asked to pick a guiding word for 2024. I actually picked mine a couple of months ago, because my word for 2023 failed miserably. If you read my post from January 2nd of this year, you will see that my guiding word for this year was “whole” or “wholeness”. Well, I am still just as broken and messed up as ever before, maybe more so. I was expecting a miracle but did not get it.

I know only God can make me whole and thought He would perform a miracle and heal me in every aspect: spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I don’t think I ever stopped to think what my part entailed, so I didn’t do much but somewhat pray.

That brought back to mind (not that it is ever too far from my mind) that I really don’t pray much or well. I think “thought prayers” asking God to help me and my kids be safe and well, and the same for other family and friends. I’ve always been afraid to pray out loud because the enemy can then know what my fears are and use them against me. I’ve been taught that he cannot hear my thoughts like God can, so I just “think” my prayers. In previous posts, I have written about my fears and how I was raised with them. I’ve been a fearful person most all of my life and I do not like it. By just “thinking” shallow prayers, I’m saying I am terrified that God will allow the enemy to do bad things to me and my family if I say my fears out loud. It also means (and this makes me look and feel horrible) I’m not trusting that God has our best interest in mind, and maybe even He’s not as all powerful as I want to believe.

One would think I would then choose “fearless” as my guiding word, but not this year. “Pray / prayer” is my word for 2024. I want to learn to PRAY:

• more often, continually
• more boldly
• more effectively
• more ferverntly
• more powerfully
• bigger
• “Sun-stand- still” prayers
• like I am the daughter of the Most High God, truly loved, and highly favored
• with a heart and spirit of a warrior
• out loud
• fearlessly

There are questions that come up when thinking about prayer and praying. Questions such as: What is prayer? Why pray? Does God care if we pray? Does praying do any good? How do we pray? Is there a right verses wrong way to pray? And so many more.

My hope is to bring you all along with me on this journey and not flounder within the first month. I have a secret prayer between just God and me. It is a huge, “sun-stand-still” prayer, that has not been answered yet. Or as least I hope the answer was not “no”. I am still praying it.

I read in the book, Straight Answers to 21 Honest Questions About Prayer, written by Charles Simpson, he does not define prayer, he describes it as “the sincere expression of our heart’s desire to God”. (page 19). I like that.

I think prayer is mysterious in many ways, because it takes us beyond our human comprehension, from our earthly realm and finite thinking, into the invisible, infinite, super-natural realm to approach the Creator of everything, seen and unseen.

Proverbs 25: 2 states: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” To me this means God conceals some things until a person cares enough to search beneath the surface level, then allows that person to discover the depth of things they never knew existed. That is what I desire this coming New Year, to search out the matter of prayer and learn things I never knew before. But I also believe there are some things that will remain a mystery this side of heaven, because Isaiah 55: 8,9 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

There is so much I hope to learn, but I do already know this much: God want us to pray to Him because He says in Matthew 6: 5, “WHEN you pray….”