Do you have a few minutes today to invest in the future of our nation?

It won’t cost you anything, and you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your home if you don’t want to. That’s because today, Thursday May 1, we are privileged to celebrate the annual National Day of Prayer.

This year’s theme  is One Voice, United in Prayer, and the scripture verse is Romans 15:6. “So that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Can’t you imagine hundreds of thousands of prayers rising up to God today as one? I can!

Get Involved in Prayer

We are so blessed to have a  nationally recognized day of prayer. Let’s take advantage of it. I’ve gathered some popular resources to show you how easy it is to get involved in praying for America. You’re sure to find something here, whether you’ve got one minute or one hour today to pray.

1. First of all, right here at OnlyByPrayer.com, we would love to have you participate by adding your prayers for the National Day of Prayer to the end of this post in the comment section. What’s on your heart this year? Share with others what has your attention.
2. The National Day of Prayer website is chock full of several resources to help you celebrate this day.
3. National Observance This link will take you to a live stream of the national event held in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST. Congressman Robert Aderholt (Alabama, 4th district) is hosting, and some of the speakers include Anne Graham Lotz, Dr. James and Shirley Dobson, Mrs. Vonette Bright,  and Dr. Dick Eastman.
4. Local Events This link will help you locate any NDOP events that might be going on in your hometown. Simply enter your zip code or the city and state where you’re located. I found a lunch-hour prayer meeting held at the city courthouse that I’m going to attend.
5. Anne Graham Lotz’ Prayer  You’ll find a stirring prayer written by Anne Graham Lotz specifically for the National Day of Prayer.
6. OneCry.com is holding the One Cry Prayer Summit this evening (May 1), hosted by Moody Radio. It starts at 8 p.m. EST.
7. OneCry also has a wealth of other resources. Check out their Monthly Prayer Guides. Why not download the guide for May and get stated praying today?
8. Sing your prayers along with Sanctus Real by watching this inspiring video.

Have a blessed day of prayer and don’t forget to post your prayers for our nation below!

Pray on!

 “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1

Perhaps you don’t even realize you’ve given up.

Resignation has replaced the faith in God you once had that your prayers would be answered. Or maybe you have a request that seems so audacious you’ve yet to voice it. It  hovers on the outskirts of your mind while you wonder, Is my God really that big?

For this week of Lent, we are going to focus on faith. The Bible tells us that if we have mustard seed faith, we can move mountains. I’d like to take God at his word by growing my faith in Him: trusting Him with my prayers, both big and small; leaning on Him in difficult times; praising Him when all is well — and when it isn’t.

 What Is Faith?

One way to nurture faith is by simply spending time with Jesus. In the little book The Promise of Answered Prayer, Jim Cymbala says,  “Faith is especially nurtured when we just wait in God’s presence, taking the time to love him and listen for his voice. Strength to keep believing often flows into us as we simply worship the Lord. The promise of scripture becomes wonderfully alive as the Spirit applies them to our hearts.”

This year I’ve focused on waiting quietly with God. Several times a week, I pick up my prayer journal, still my heart, and just sit with God, listening for His voice and journaling what I feel the Holy Spirit witnessing to me. It’s been hard to make myself stay still. A million tasks vie for my attention, but as I sit at Jesus’ feet, He brings scriptures to my mind to read, and people to my heart to pray for, and sin to be confessed. He gives me wisdom for situations I’m facing and peace for my soul and pictures to ponder.

These times of quiet add a richness and depth to my devotion time that was absent before.

Now I find that if I don’t have this one-on-one with Him that I miss it. I long for his presence and that still, small voice whispering to my heart, fanning the sparks of faith into flames. And I’ve learned that faith is not the absence of difficulties, but the presence of Jesus in the midst of difficulties.

This week, let’s remember that faith does not rest on our abilities, but on the ability of the One we believe in, as Psalm 130:5-6 reminds us:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

What will you put your faith in God for this week?

Pray on!

 As a child, the season of Lent often began with a battle royal for me.

You see, my parents always encouraged my sisters and me to give up something for Lent. More often than not, I usually gave up candy. Every week a good portion of my weekly allowance quickly found it’s way from my pocket to the coffers of Krajci’s Drugstore a few blocks from my house. In the small town where I lived, Krajci’s was one of the few places that had a huge selection of five- and ten-cent candy. Bub’s Daddy Bubble Gum, Paydays, Wonka Bottle Caps, Snickers Bars, and cherry Colas were a few of the items I splurged on. Forty days seemed an awfully long time to go without a treat from Krajci’s.

Self-denial

I didn’t totally understand at the time the purpose for giving up something during Lent. I would have been happy to have given up brussel sprouts or tuna noodle casserole, but I understood enough to realize that what I gave up needed to be something that I actually liked.

Today I realize that one of the purposes of self-denial is that it is part of the process of spiritual formation. I need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that He continues to transform my life to make me more like Christ.

In that spirit, this year during Lent I am going to work on “giving up” a sin pattern in my life — and hopefully this will be something that continues for the rest of the year too. I think I know just what bad habit I want to be rid of this year: lateness.

Tardiness has been a habit that has plagued me since childhood. It worsened during my teen years (just ask my best friend Pam who drove me to school most mornings). I was always rushing around stressing myself out and anyone else that had the misfortune of being around me. I’ve since made some changes but still have plenty of room for more. I know this won’t be an easy fix for me, but I’m expecting progress!

If you’d like to join me in giving something up for Lent, tell me about it in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from a few fellow bad-habit breakers.

Pray on!

Lent is a time of self-examination and self-denial to prepare for Easter.

It’s natural to want to minimize these difficult days leading up to Resurrection Sunday, but then we would miss the whole purpose of Lent. We need to pause and sit with all the things that happened during Jesus’ last 40 days on earth. And we need to pause and sit with ourselves too. We need to see what should be adopted, eradicated, improved upon, and otherwise changed to make us ready for Easter.

Prayer of Examen

For the remainder of this week of Lent, we will focus on repentance and an ancient practice introduced by St. Ignatius called Examen. Examen is exactly what it sounds like. It is an in-depth prayer that helps us to examine ourselves. In the process we may be able to better discern God’s will, find God in all things, and enhance our understanding of God’s creation. This discipline should be done at the end of the day so that you can analyze how your day went. Don’t let the words discipline and analyze scare you. The process can be completed in as little as 10 minutes if you don’t have much time. Try to do it at least two evenings this week, more often if you are able.

Here is a link that will take you to the short Prayer of Examen tutorial. It’s a simple, yet effective process. If you want to, you can journal your answers to the questions, or you can complete them without pen and paper. Feel free to share any of your thoughts in the comment section below.

Pray on!

“Prayer is the constant calibration of the soul.”

                                 Bob Sorge in Secrets of the Secret Place

So much about prayer is shrouded in mystery. While God makes it clear that prayer is a backbone of the Christian life,  how He uses our prayers remains a mystery to us. And perhaps He wants it that way. After all, the idea is to pray and let the Holy Spirit worry about the results.

But as soon as I read the above quote, I couldn’t get it out of my head and heart. I had to come back to it and reread it several times, letting it sink in. What was God trying to tell me?

The word calibration intrigued me. I have a vague sense of the meaning, but I looked it up to clarify. Wikipedia shares this definition of calibration:

•          Calibration is a comparison between measurements — one of known magnitude or correctness made or set with one device and another measurement made in as similar a way as possible with a second device. The device with the known or assigned correctness is called the standard. The second device is the unit under test, test instrument, or any of several other names for the device being calibrated.

Wow! When I look at this definition through a spiritual lens as an analogy to prayer, the implications are eye-opening.

1. God is our first “measurement” of correctness, the standard, and people are the second measurement, made in as similar a way as possible to Him. Indeed, Genesis 5:1 tells us that “when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.”
2. We also see that people are “the unit under test.” Isn’t that interesting? Deuteronomy 8:2 and several other places in the Bible tell us that God does test us: “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.”

God tests us to see if we are on the same page as He is, willing to obey Him. Because of sin, we know that often times our rebellious hearts are “doin’ their own thing.” I know that too many times I have made my own plans, and I don’t really want to know if God likes them — or not.

Here is where the calibration part becomes life-changing:

When I take the time each day to come before God and pray, He is able to calibrate my heart so that I start to align my plans with His. Through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit, He is able to bring me, the unit under test, up to His standard. How amazing is that?

That’s one reason why prayer is so important to a Christ-follower. If we don’t daily sync our souls with Jesus, we run an increasing risk of getting off track and running out of power. We need that daily calibration to protect us.

How about you? Have you ever felt God calibrate your soul to His in an obvious way? I’d love to hear your story. Just share it below in the comment section.

Pray on!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibration

With the New Year comes a fresh start free from mistakes, regrets, and failures of the past year. Hope and possibilities and expectations jostle  for space in my soul as I look to the future. Yes, if I’m honest, some anxiety too. But mostly excitement for what lies ahead. Like sojourners of times past, I want to welcome the Lord into these next 12 months. Or should I say, I with Him. I want to be sure the door of my heart is open to Him this New Year.

I recently read about an old Scottish tradition that placed much importance upon the New Year. Folks visited from house to house as the New Year rang in, wishing each other a good year while celebrating with food and drink. Once midnight passed, each household watched expectantly to see who would be the very first guest to cross the threshold of their door, thus portending what the next year would hold.  I can just envision a knock on the door and families gathered around the hearth to see who would take that first important step into their home.

To acknowledge this tradition, the Celtic Daily Prayer Book includes a “first-footing” prayer for the New Year, on page 238 called The Opening Door, in which the pray-ers welcome Christ to be the “first foot” into their home to bless them. What a lovely idea!

I was so taken with this thought that I wrote a short prayer myself to welcome Christ into my New Year.

Open Door

By Jane VanOsdol

I open the door of my heart this New Year …

to see Your glory all around me;

to hear the whisper of Your voice;

to smell the fragrance of Jesus in my life;

to taste the fruits of Your blessings;

to feel the presence of Your Spirit.

Welcoming your footsteps across the threshold of my heart,

Anticipating the gift of another year.

Amen.

I wonder if your heart is open to God this year? Do you feel the anticipation of new adventures waiting to be lived, or have difficulties of time past left you dreading the door before you? Open the door to Jesus so that He is the first one to set foot in your heart this year.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20

May you experience the peace of Christ and the joy of living life with Him this year.

Pray on!

*Image courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net artur84