My church has a prayer room. It's not a huge room, but it does the job. Tomorrow morning I'm going to get up early (well, early for ME anyway), and go pray for a while. I think I want to get in the habit of doing this every day of the week. What a great start to the day, eh? Let's see if it works....you can hold me accountable. ;-) I say "you", but once again, I have no idea whether anyone has ever read this blog or ever will. I could just be asking the black hole of cyberspace to hold me accountable.
I've decided that one of the practical steps I need to take toward living constantly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit is to begin my days with the Word and prayer. Unfortunately, I'm quite a night owl, and have a hard time getting up in the morning. This usually means I don't have much time to get ready for wherever I'm supposed to be that day, and then I spend the whole day running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Life can get stressful just because I'm trying to do it without Jesus! Yes, I'm definitely a very busy person, very involved in many things, but the problem isn't that I'm overly active...the problem is that I try to do it on my own strength instead of on HIS strength. So that's what I want to get better at - doing things on His strength and His alone! Planning my day around HIS agenda, and not my own.
I know that I could just get up and do devos at home - but therein lies the problem. I have a hard time getting myself awake and then just want to tumble back into bed. It's going to be helpful not to have my bed around. Ha!
This is going to be a very intimate time for just me and the Lord - but I'm going to sometimes post on here some of those details. YAY! Let's see if it really works to go and start you day with Jesus in the prayer room.
Does anybody out there have any special strategies they use for starting their day with the Lord?
That's awesome your church has a prayer room! I like to think I have a 'prayer closet' so to speak. There's an IHOP about an hour away from where I live. I just found out about it and haven't been yet, but look forward to going. However, it's not 24/7 like the one in Kansas City. Did you know IHOP-KC has a 24/7 live streaming from the prayer room on their website? It's awesome. You can sometimes catch Misty on there. I have soooo many books I can't wait to read...I highly recommend 'Wrestling Prayer' and 'Set Apart Femininity,' by Eric and Leslie Ludy. It goes along with what you're talking about. The Lord is really teaching me about living in His supernatural strength, grace, and peace every moment of every day, not just in dire circumstances. I start the day with a 'daily devo' and reading my Bible and writing in my journal. My journal is where I write out my prayers to the Lord. It keeps me focused and it's wonderful to read back over what I've written and see the faithfulness of God through every situation and circumstance. I think the Lord wants to teach me more about discipline! I need to start getting up earlier and seeking Him...to get into the spirit and walk in that mindset throughout the day. Time spent in my sacred sanctuary with Jesus is unlike time spent anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link to the 24/7 live webstream to the IHOP prayer room:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ihop.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000058181
That's awesome you have an IHOP so close by. Yeah, it doesn't seem that the regional ones are normally 24/7. I bet they will get there someday, though! There have been houses of prayer popping up all over this country. It seems there's a new wave of prayer warriors and intercessors coming forward to take a hold of all that God is wanting to give us, and to stand in the gap for our generation. PRAISE GOD! I'm PUMPED about it!
ReplyDeleteI have watched the webstream before but have kind of gotten out of the habit. I was watching a lot of the Awakening services this past semester. Have you seen those? Very uplifting stuff. I'm so thankful that places like IHOP make their resources available to the rest of us. It's such a blessing.
yes, it is SUCH a blessing! I haven't seen the Awakening services. when and where are they? I would love to check them out!
ReplyDelete