Strategy – a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result.  We have strategies for weight loss, organization or job promotions, right?  We need a strategy for our prayer life, too.  How will we maneuver through the burdens on our hearts without a plan?  

Let’s face it, we all face so much every single day that can cause us to be overwhelmed.  The devil would love for us to feel hopeless, and we are UNTIL we open our Bible and read God’s promises!  We need to take those promises and pray them back to the Lord.  Can I give you some suggestions on how to gather and use those verses in your prayer strategy?

You could copy those verses, or print them out from your computer.

Another simple way I’ve found to keep track of those verses I want to pray, is by using You Version Bible app on my phone.  When I’m reading a passage that would be the perfect promise to pray for a person or a need, I go to the top left of the Bible app where the three lines are, and I click that and then go to “bookmark.”  I choose “Options” then and write the theme of that verse or the person for whom I want to pray that passage.  Here’s what it looks like on my phone:

 

These are just a few of the many that I’ve bookmarked.  As I’m praying, I click on those verses and I pray them to the Lord.

It may sound like this:

Father, I pray that you will give to Dale a heart to warn those in his flock that are unruly – those who are disobedient to Scripture.  Give him wisdom to know how to comfort the feebleminded and those who are weak (here I will share the people for whom we are burdened – sick and lost, alike).

Keep him from desiring to return evil to those who may do evil to him today. Give him wisdom and the desire to follow that which is good today and to even discern what is good and what is not…

You get the idea.  I love having these verses bookmarked on my phone, and not just posted in my Prayer Closet, because then I have those verses with me to pray at any time and any place.

 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.  Isaiah 55:11

I encourage you to find verses to use as your prayer strategies, then watch and see God answer!

Lovingly,

 

I have a special space in my house that I claimed before we moved in – it’s a walk-in closet off my bathroom.  I’ve never had anything but a tiny space for my clothes, and while it’s a blessing to have a place to hang both warm and cool season clothes in one place, the best part of this little room is what I do in here each morning.  I pray.

It’s the perfect spot to close off the world.  I can’t hear anything going on in the rest of the house when I’m in there.  I have a(n uncomfortable) little stool that I perch on, or sometimes I just kneel on the carpet as I pour my heart out to God.  This room is special to me because I meet with God here.

I’ve recently watched War Room again and one line in the film jumped out at me.  The main character in this movie about fervent prayer is selling her house.  Toward the end of the movie, a buyer comes to look at her house and when he walks into her closet that was her prayer closet (her War Room), he said, “Someone’s been praying in here.  It feels baked in.” It felt Ingrained, Covered, Plastered in prayer.  Wow.  That’s how I want my closet to be – more importantly, that’s how I want my LIFE to be!

I fail often in prayer, but I long to be a prayer warrior.  I read books on prayer so I know how to pray.  I fill out my prayer journal so I know what to pray.  But no matter what I cannot give up when it’s hard, or early, or seems useless.  I must keep on praying, and so must you, Friend.

Who else will pray for your husband if you don’t?

Who will petition God for your child(ren) if you neglect?

Who else will beg God for the souls of your grandchildren if you are lax?

How can you offer your thanks without prayer?

How will your faith grow if you don’t trust God for the things that seem impossible?

Just yesterday I added this vinyl wall art in my prayer closet as a visual reminder that God can do anything!

You don’t need a walk-in closet in order to pray.  Find a corner of a room, or a room that you can close off.  I used to put a sticky note on the bedroom door of our former house that said, “Praying,” so that my family would know that unless it was urgent, I chose not to be disturbed.  Of course a ten year-old considers asking where the new box of cereal is urgent, but that’s okay, too. Because when she came in and found me on my knees, that testimony spoke to her about what was important to me.

My Secret Place is probably my favorite room in my house, as it was for Clara on War Room.  This old song tells why:

In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide!
Oh, how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus’ side!
Earthly cares can never vex me, neither trials lay me low;
For when Satan comes to tempt me, to the secret place I go,
To the secret place I go.

Only this I know: I tell Him all my doubts, my griefs and fears;
Oh, how patiently He listens! and my drooping soul He cheers:
Do you think He ne’er reproves me? What a false Friend He would be,
If He never, never told me of the sins which He must see,
Of the sins which He must see.

Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord?
Go and hide beneath His shadow: this shall then be your reward;
And whene’er you leave the silence of that happy meeting place,
You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face,
Of the Master in your face.

I’d love to hear about your Secret place!

Lovingly,