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“Prayer changes everything.”

After I wrote about really reading our Bibles, I thought about how often I used to say “I’ll pray for you,” but I really didn’t. 

Sometimes I said it out of habit. Sometimes I said it because I didn’t know what else to say. Sometimes I said it because I meant to really pray, but I got distracted and didn’t. 

My friend said, “Every thought is a prayer,” so I went with that. According to her, I prayed all the time. 

If you could have read my thoughts, though, you’d know that wasn’t true. I didn’t even try to change my mind. I just wished that prayer would come easy and be simple. Sometimes it did and it was. 

However, God wants our intentional and specific prayers too, ones we’ve thought through and asked for in detail. 

After I read Mark Batterson’s book The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears, I got serious about my prayer life and about intercession, which is praying for others. He said, “There is nothing God loves more than keeping promises, answering prayers, performing miracles, and fulfilling dreams. That is whoHe is. That is what He does.”

Batterson recapped the story from the Bible about the Israelites marching around Jericho’s walls 13 times (one time a day for six days and seven times on the seventh day). They literally circled what they prayed for.

I heard the story about the walls falling so often in Sunday school, told it to my own children, and saw cartoon illustrations that, without realizing it, I demoted it to a children’s lesson. That was, until I read what Batterson said, “For the Israelites, Jericho symbolized the fulfillment of a dream that originated with Abraham. It was the first step in claiming the Promised Land.” 

Then he asked, “What is your Jericho?”

He said, “Jericho is spelled many different ways. If you have cancer, it’s spelled healing. If your child is far from God, it’s spelled salvation. If your marriage is falling apart, it’s spelled reconciliation.”

I want to be sure that when I say “I’ll pray for you” or think “I should pray about it” that I really pray. 

Really pray

I’d love to hear your thoughts about really praying and the difference it makes. And your prayer requests – leave them here or private message me and I really will pray for you. 

In This Together,
Kim 

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