We all have various seasons in our lives. From joy and celebrations to hard times, pain and suffering, and busy seasons with kids, spouses, jobs, caring for ailing loved ones etc. The list goes on and on.
Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing,” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Yet I’ll be the first to admit that this is often hard, especially in the tough seasons in life. The more we pray and lean on God, the more the devil taunts us and tries to get us to turn away from God.
I’ve wrestled with the deeper question of why I wrote Praying Through the Seasons: Seven Aspects of Prayer and Communion with God—a short devotional covering seven of the many aspects of prayer, worship, fellowship, communion and building a close relationship with God. On the surface, God called me to write this book to encourage readers to pray through each season of life, and to share scriptures, personal stories, and other bits of content that God laid on my heart about each of the aspects I’ve covered within these pages.
These two reasons are surface level reasons that are obvious to you, dear reader, once you delve into the pages of this little book. Here are five more reasons God has laid on my heart that I want you to consider as you click the book link at the beginning or end of this post.
Introduce non-believers to Christ
This may sound a bit far fetched in some ways, yet let’s play the famous what if game for a moment. What if you loaned your copy of Praying Through the Seasons to a friend who needed to hear the message that touched your soul? Would you shy away from loaning that friend your book, or purchasing a copy and gifting it to them, because you knew they weren’t a believer? You could be the only Bible they’ll ever read. Your friend, or a perfect stranger God has laid on your heart to give the book to, has a golden opportunity to meet Jesus right where they are in the introductory pages, no matter what season they are in at this moment. Praying Through the Seasons could wind up being the book that wins another lost soul to Christ, before a person even gets to the first aspect of prayer I mention.
Reader engagement
If you know someone in need of a bit of encouragement, or a word from God, pass the book along to them after you’re done reading it. Better yet, purchase several copies to give to your friends and family, your Bible study or church group. I’ve included creative challenges and journal reflection prompts readers can use to reflect on the text in each individual chapter.
But you don’t have to do it alone. These challenges and journal prompts are also great for group discussions. The book is geared toward writers, but you don’t have to be a writer to read it and apply the principals to your life. There’s even a short story parents can share with their little ones to teach them about praying for one another and working together.
Making Prayer accessible
Prayer isn’t a formal or fancy way to talk to God. We don’t have to go to priests or other gate keepers to speak to God as people did in the Old Testament. We talk to the Father through His one and only Son Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 14:6, “… I am the way, the truth, and the life: No man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” (KJV).
According to this verse, prayer is accessible to God’s children, those who have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior and have been saved by God’s grace. If you are a child of |God, the Holy Spirit lives within you, and you can talk to God like you’re talking to a friend because he is not only your Father in heaven, but Jesus is your dearest friend.
Teach readers how to pray for one another
There are three of the seven aspects of prayer and communion with God I want to discuss in this segment: Building a prayer team, interceding on the behalf of those in need, and corporate prayer. The reason I want to discuss each aspect, is because they relate to each other in many ways.
First of all, building a prayer team means that you are asking your close-knit circle of family and/or friends to pray for you, after asking God who to invite to be a part of your prayer team. There’s no fancy formula, or formal thing you must do. All you have to do is lift one another up in prayer. It’s as simple as making a phone call, sending an email, or a text with your specific prayer requests. Once your prayer has ben answered, send out praise reports so your prayer team can celebrate with you.
By explaining what a prayer team is and how easy it is to build and maintain one, I’ve touched on intercessory prayer, which simply means that you are standing in the gap for someone who can’t pray for themselves due to illness or other situations in life.
In Matthew 18:20, Jesus says: “Where two or three are gathered in my name; there am I in the midst of them.” You can pray alone in private and still be heard by God. But when you surround yourselves with a group of prayer warriors, God is also in the midst of your prayer group and your prayers have a much further reach when you pray as a group.
Corporate prayer is gathering with others to pray on a much larger scale. For example, when someone is asked to pray during a worship service or Bible study, that’s a form of corporate prayer, because one person is praying over everyone else in the room and standing in the gap for those on your prayer list, while everyone else is either in agreement or praying silently at the same time.
Teach readers how to hear God’s voice
I did not know that teaching is one of my spiritual gifts until I wrote Praying Through the Seasons. When I asked a few friends to beta read the book for me, one of them said that I sounded like a teacher as she read this book.
God gave me the scripture verses, the incites, and the encouragement to show readers how He has taught me to hear his Still, small, voice. Parden me for paraphrasing here, but Jesus said “My sheep know me, they hear my voice.”
Hearing God’s voice is different for each individual person. The way he speaks to me is different than the way he speaks to you. Most of the time, I hear God’s voice like a silent whisper, or a thought that I wouldn’t have had on my own. At other times, God gives me messages in dreams, that aren’t always obvious upon my initial reflection. I have to dig for the message in the mess. And, he speaks to me through other means. I’ve even caught myself speaking aloud what God spoke to my spirit. I also do what is called two-way journaling, which I’ll cover in another devotional I have in the works.
I provide resources to books that I found helpful as I wrote each chapter of Praying Through the Seasons.
apply what you learned in each chapter
I heard it said at a recent virtual Christian Writers’ conference I attended via Zoom that “education without application is mere entertainment.” This statement is so true. At least it has been for me. This is why I added the creative challenges and journal reflection prompts—to help you apply what you’ve learned in each chapter to your own life on your own or as a small group.
God didn’t call me to write Praying Through the Seasons to throw more content at you, when there are hundreds, if not thousands of books that do this already. God called me to provide encouragement and information that you can then take and turn into application. Through this little devotional, I pray that you can take what you’ve read and use the challenges and journal prompts to help you deepen your conversation with God and grow closer to him in truth and in Spirit.
When you read the scripture verses I provide for deeper study, don’t stop there. I pasted these verses from the King James Version of the Bible. What I invite and encourage you to do is find these verses in your own Bible translation. Read them and delve deeper into God’s word and have a notebook handy for any spiritual incites or downloads as people sometimes call them. You’ll be surprised and blessed by what God has in store for you during these study sessions.
A personal invitation
If this blog post spoke to your soul and you want to learn more and go deeper into these aspects of prayer, I invite you to pick up a copy of Praying Through the Seasons for yourself and one or more copies for your family, friends, Bible study or church group, or simply to give as gifts. May this book be a blessing to you and yours, as much as—if not more than it blessed my heart and soul to write it for you.
Until we meet again through the written word, happy reading and may God richly bless you.
Love and prayers,
Ann