Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
Luke 18:1 NIV
What is your prayer history? Most women find their prayer life jumpstarts during affliction, darkness, and grief. Suffering can make God more real and intimate, or have the opposite effect—where we shake our fist instead of bend our knee. Therefore, we must fight despair with prayer. This spiritual battle requires disciplines, like talking to God instead of listening to our self-talk, which can be deceptively untrue. When our minds do not have to concentrate on something, we can form the habit of turning our self-talk into “meditation moments” to nurture our relationship with God.
What if prayer is boring? We will minimize our need to pray if we forget to whom we are talking—our Personal Loving Father and the Awesome Almighty God. A practical suggestion is to use a 3×5 spiral card pack and write a scripture verse on each card. Select verses about God’s character or names, about a temptation or struggle you face, or encouragement to trust Him. Deliberately find times to pray these “battle verses”—God’s words—back to Him. Try it while exercising or walking your dog, while waiting in line or riding as a passenger. You may think you could have battle verses on your phone instead, but that would tempt you to let your device steal your prayer time. Instead of texting a friend, take out your card pack and talk to your Best Friend Forever.
My mind is a spiritual battlefield, Lord. Help me make it the place for victories in 2018. Amen.
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Today’s reading was adapted from Daily Wisdom for Women: 2017 Devotional Collection with permission from Barbour Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reading was written by Marcia Hornok.