My Prayer Warm-Up

I found that I was having a difficult time moving past certain things in my life.  I found that I was focused on certain significant frustrations and not experiencing God’s perspective or peace in those areas (job loss, marriage, etc.).  I developed a document called a “Prayer Warm-Up.”  I desired a  warm up to the truth about God.  I wanted to stimulate an attitude of prayer for the remainder of the day and a reminder to view my frustrations/issues/concerns from His perspective.  

I begin with passages of Scripture that are meaningful for the issues that I face.  After reading them, I pray reactively about the concerns and issues in my life.  I am specific about the things that bother me about myself and my situations and circumstances.  This is very personal and helps me to give those areas to God.  

Then I pray proactively - reminding myself of who God is and asking Him to work in my life.  I ask God to help me as I communicate with people throughout my day.  Before I look at anything on my computer in the morning, I usually read and pray through a document I call a "Prayer Warm-Up."  The verses are changed from time to time.  The exciting thing has been that as I’ve been praying about concerns, I find that over a period of time, I find they aren’t concerns any more.  I can delete them from the document and praise God for His work in my life.  There are other concerns that surface and they are added.  

I’ve had stops and starts with this document over the years, it gets easier with time in one sense.  In another sense, I can drift and think that I don’t need it.  I’ve learned that’s a sign that I really need God’s presence.  I have not “arrived!”  Just ask my wife!  But, I am so thankful that God is at work and I pray that I will be more and more open to His leading and perspective.  

This is only an idea.  It’s not for everyone.  I pray, at the very least, that this will stimulate you to figure out how you can open your concerns in your life up to God and allow Him to direct you and transform you through the Bible and through prayer.  If you feel like God can use this in your life, I encourage you to pray through a few verses and a few reactive and proactive requests...  Starting small was key for me and determining a consistent time/place to do it really helped.       

May God direct you as you seek to His guidance, strength and peace.  May our relationships with Him deepen this year!


Blessings,

Jeb
 

Prayer Warm-Up
Hebrews 12:1-3
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
John 15:9-17
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love.  If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.  I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.  Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  This is my command: Love each other.”
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Psalm 19:13,14
13Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.  Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
14May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 139:23,24
23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  24See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 86:11
Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

I need to daily give these areas to Jesus so that they will not inhibit my relationship with Him.
Ephesians 4:22
22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires
Here are some less personal examples:
- affirmation and approval of others
- trying to do everything humanly possible in my job
- lack of appropriate assertiveness with my wife
- not embracing God’s love or forgetting that God’s forgiveness or thinking it’s not enough

Now that I’ve given the above things to God, I pray that God will help me to put on these things…
Ephesians 4:23-24
23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Here are some less personal examples:
1.    God is holy and no one can fathom His greatness.
2.    God the Father loves me as much as He loves His Son Jesus.  John 17:23
3.    God has forgiven me and my sin.
4.    God will do great things in and through me because He is a great God.
5.    God is my ultimate audience.
6.    Please help me plan with Your ideas in mind.  Help me to say “yes” and “no” and obey You