What Do You Do When Someone 'POPS" Into Your Head
Colossians 1:9 “So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding."
What an encouraging way to be told you are being 'thought' of, more importantly, being prayed for! And what a gift to be given of 'spiritual wisdom & understanding'! But how do we do this? Really. For all of our family, friends, people we do life with, neighbors, people we meet.... how can we practically do this for others? Well, we can keep a prayer journal and refer back to it daily... We can spend some time devoted to each person on our list... But, with our busy lives, and time constraints we have nowadays, how can we do this?
For me, my heart believes with everything in me, that our loving and good Father, knows it all and has it all in His hands already. We don't need to be wordy and lengthy or even over detailed. I believe in praying for each and every person, but in what my Hubby Todd and I call 'popcorn prayers'. They are short, to the point, no lengthy explanation. When someone 'pops' into our thoughts, we stop and pray whatever it is that God lays on our heart. Sometimes it doesn't make sense at all, but we do it anyway. Sometimes, we know something that's going on, so we pray for that issue/situation.
However, I believe scripture, in that God doesn't want us praying big long wordy prayers, to be like the Pharisees. Like prayers in/on a Prayer Chain. They should NOT be so detailed it becomes gossip! Matthew 6 tells us to NOT pray where everyone can see and hear us, not to be wordy and repetitive. Kind of like the lady in the movie "The War Room", how she turned her closet into her place of prayer. Private, out of the way, and just between her and God.
I lay my hand over my list, I read each name out loud, and ask for Gods blessings. Sometimes as I get to a name, or after all of them, it is then that the Holy Spirit nudges me to be specific.
Matthew 6:5-8 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!"
Today, don't rush into your day without praying. For yourself as well as those in your life whom God 'pops' in to your thoughts. I'm praying you are blessed with spiritual guidance, wisdom, understanding and grace today.
What an encouraging way to be told you are being 'thought' of, more importantly, being prayed for! And what a gift to be given of 'spiritual wisdom & understanding'! But how do we do this? Really. For all of our family, friends, people we do life with, neighbors, people we meet.... how can we practically do this for others? Well, we can keep a prayer journal and refer back to it daily... We can spend some time devoted to each person on our list... But, with our busy lives, and time constraints we have nowadays, how can we do this?
For me, my heart believes with everything in me, that our loving and good Father, knows it all and has it all in His hands already. We don't need to be wordy and lengthy or even over detailed. I believe in praying for each and every person, but in what my Hubby Todd and I call 'popcorn prayers'. They are short, to the point, no lengthy explanation. When someone 'pops' into our thoughts, we stop and pray whatever it is that God lays on our heart. Sometimes it doesn't make sense at all, but we do it anyway. Sometimes, we know something that's going on, so we pray for that issue/situation.
However, I believe scripture, in that God doesn't want us praying big long wordy prayers, to be like the Pharisees. Like prayers in/on a Prayer Chain. They should NOT be so detailed it becomes gossip! Matthew 6 tells us to NOT pray where everyone can see and hear us, not to be wordy and repetitive. Kind of like the lady in the movie "The War Room", how she turned her closet into her place of prayer. Private, out of the way, and just between her and God.
I lay my hand over my list, I read each name out loud, and ask for Gods blessings. Sometimes as I get to a name, or after all of them, it is then that the Holy Spirit nudges me to be specific.
Matthew 6:5-8 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!"
Today, don't rush into your day without praying. For yourself as well as those in your life whom God 'pops' in to your thoughts. I'm praying you are blessed with spiritual guidance, wisdom, understanding and grace today.
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