Please continue to pray for Jesse.

Please pray for Jane’s son who was injured in a terrible accident last night.

Jane VanOsdol

Join Jane and Pastor David Bell as they discuss how to pray for the college kids and young adults in your life. David is the associate pastor of young adults at Grace Community Church in Noblesville, Indiana. You’ll find much helpful information here on the joys and challenges that this stage of life brings for both the young adults and their parents. David encourages parents and offers advice on helping your children move into this more independent phase of life.

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Jane VanOsdol

After many frustrating days, I finally asked God to show me what to do about this. A little later an idea began to form in my mind that I thought might work for me.  Now, maybe this is obvious to all of you, but to me it was just the spark I needed to to try  and get my prayer life back to two-way communication, instead of my one-way laundry list. I’ll share it with you, just in case anyone else has the same struggle.

On Monday of the week during my prayer time, I write down in my notebook all my people and concerns I need to pray for that week. I have my notebook split into several narrow columns. Each column heading is either a person’s name or subject headings like “Friends,” “Church,” “Country” etc. I then start the week off by praying for all those concerns. The rest of the week instead of going down each column in order and praying the same things all over again, I am instead quiet and ask the Lord to show me what to pray for that day. In the short time I have been doing this, I am finding that God will bring various people or topics to my mind from my list and maybe put a verse in my mind to pray for them, or bring a new concern to my mind about them to pray for. I then add these things to my prayer journal next to the original information. He has also given me entirely new subjects not yet entered in my journal to pray over.

So far, this has been a huge help in relieving my frustration, while still covering my family and friends in prayer. I feel my prayers are more Spirit directed. If you’ve dealt with the same frustration and have overcome it, I’d like to hear about what works for you. Enjoy your prayer time this week and pray on!

Where I live in the Midwest, March is a time of change. The days are often filled with gusty winds ushering in the latest warm front or cold front. I’m never quite sure what the weather will bring from one day to the next. One day I may be outside luxuriating in a sunny, beautiful 65 degree-day, but 24 hours later I may be  scuttling back inside with snow flurries dusting my hair.

Changeable March weather

Maybe you’re at a time in your life right now that is matching the March weather. Perhaps you feel like you’re being buffeted about by opposing forces that you can not control. Whether it’s your job, your health or a relationship that’s causing the upheaval, it’s an unsettling, even scary feeling. Well, fortunately, God does not leave us alone to weather these changes. He has given us a comforter who is, interestingly enough, compared to the wind. Acts 2 introduces the Holy Spirit in this way:  “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting” (v. 2).

The Holy Spirit filled each believer and changed his or her life completely. It was through the Spirit’s power and guidance that the disciples were able to preach and heal and minister to others. And it is through the Spirit’s power that God also wants each one of us to live out our lives as well. If we let God’s Spirit guide us through the “winds of change” seasons in our lives, we can be assured that God will bring us through and grow us through every situation in our lives.

What’s God changing in your life right now? Let’s commit to praying about these changes and seeing how God wants to use them to change us. We’ll talk about this some more in the next post. Until then, pray on!

Have you ever felt discouraged over a situation or a person that you have brought before the Lord? Maybe you’ve prayed this request so many times that you have lost count. It seems as if nothing is happening, or worse yet things are happening, but they’re bad things. I’ve been dealing with this lately. The situation seemed to be beyond repair. That should have been my clue that the problem was my attitude, because no problem or person is beyond God’s reach.

Anyway, I was on the verge of telling God I was worn out with praying this request for the last three years, and that I thought I might give it a break. That’s when God brought me this simple verse. Short, to the point, but oh-so-powerful. It chastened me, motivated me and encouraged me to keep on keeping on as the widow in the Bible did. I hope it does the same for you. “Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.” Luke 18:1

So,  this month  while we are looking at new beginnings, remember that we can give a prayer a new beginning just by being faithful and continuing in that prayer. Renew your commitment to that person or cause. God is faithful. Pray on!