This Week - 12

Hey everyone, it’s Tricia with some encouragement for you today. If you have your journal, grab it, and let’s head to your “This Week” page or “Day 1” for your week. If you don’t have an Alone With God journal and would like one, you can order it at wordbymail.com.

So, on your This Week page, two sections are laid out. One says, My Prayers Are: and the other says, My Spiritual Focus Is:.
 
Praying is an exercise of faith. We can be assured that God hears our prayers, whether we “feel” like it or not. The Bible tells us our prayers ARE heard and that they are a “sweet-smelling aroma” before the Lord.

Taking the time to physically write down our prayers and surrender them to God has its “perks,” you could say. One is simply that our brains are “wired,” so to speak, to benefit from writing things down. Also, journaling our prayers can keep our wandering minds focused on the task at hand. Another true benefit is that we have created a record of God’s faithfulness and provision in our lives. You could say we have a “paper trail” to prove God answers prayers. It’s encouragement to keep praying – even if you “feel” your prayers are hitting the ceiling.

But my thoughts are about the relationship that grows with the Lord as we enter his presence in prayer. When we commune with God, our soul yearns to know and experience him in a deeper way. We love him and long for more of him. This is the relationship. It’s not enough to know about him. We must know HIM. And we have the sweet, beautiful privilege of communicating with the Author of the Universe. How incredible is that!!!

Being in his presence leads to our Spiritual Focus. We can feel him imprinting on us, guiding us with His Word, and always sustaining our lives through his life within us. As we read his Word, surrender, and lift up our lives to him, we develop an indescribable intimacy with him. We can know his desires for us as we lean into him.

So, I encourage you to take the time and use this space to treasure each and every moment in his presence.

Psalm 141:2 (NLT)
2 Accept my prayer as incense offered to you, and my upraised hands as an evening offering.

Let’s pray.

Father God, as we write our prayers, may they remind us of your faithfulness. But more than that, Lord, as we offer them to you, may you see them as sweet-smelling perfume. Lord, we pray you would see our uplifted hands as an evening offering. Thank you for guiding us. As we focus on the week ahead, thank you for your assurance that you are always with us, no matter our circumstances. We thank you and praise you, Lord. Thank you for going ahead of us this week. May our very lives be a living sacrifice to you. For your glory and in the name of Jesus, we pray, amen.