PC | Welcome
A little info to get you ready for the challenge
Welcome to the 5-Day Prayer Challenge with The Diligent Woman.
Since you are here, I'm thinking you must have struggles similar to mine when it comes to prayer.
I either think I am not praying often enough or I think that my frequent prayers are too casual.
I struggle with feeling that I am not FERVENT when I pray. I shy away from getting too deep into my prayers because it is going to emotionally drain me. Then I feel guilty for not wanting to let that emotion go where it needs to.
I get busy and do not set time to pray. I "make do" with talking to Him all through out my day.
I allow the kids and my husband to distract me. I find other things to do. I put it off until I have a "better" time to pray.
In other words, I make excuses about my prayer life.
Can you relate to any of this?
Today, we want this to END!
The goals of this challenge are:
1. to understand prayer and show its simplicity
2. to encourage believers to be confident about their time in prayer
3. to solidify a new habit of praying regularly to the Lord.
At the end of the 5-Day Challenge, you should be more equipped to approach the Heavenly Father in prayer - with praise, expressing your gratitude, making requests for yourself and for others, as well as praying by using God's own words from scripture. This challenge will help us to get in the habit of setting aside time. It will also show us exactly what emotions we should bring to our prayer life. The challenge will teach us different ways to pray and how to use scripture to be more confident about what we say.
Each day of the challenge I will give you a different challenge assignment.
Set aside at least 15 minutes each day to read through the lesson and to do
your challenge for the day.
We are working together to set a new habit to find your zeal for prayer and make it an active part of your life. So let's give this some priority and intention.
Mark your calendar - the Challenge will run June 23-27th
Make appointments for prayer time
Choose a spot to devote to prayer - sitting on the side of your
bed, out on the porch at sunrise, at the table with a cup of
coffee, etc.
Set your supplies - Bible, paper, pen - where you can get to them
easily.
Remove as many distractions as you can.
I live in a house that is constantly full of people. Three of our five daughters are home with me all day, every day. Finding a time without distractions is difficult. Getting up earlier helps. In the past, I’d have to get up at 4 or 430 am if I were going to be up before everyone else. I also have an office that is separate from the house, but that closed office door doesn't seem to say "Don't bother mom right now" as well as you'd think. So, I made "office hours" and a SIGN to put on my office door. It stated that between the hours of 4 am and 8 am no one is to knock or come into my office unless it is an emergency. (You should have heard the exclamations of shock from our fourth daughter when she read that for the first time! It was hilarious!) Nowadays, I focus better later in the day, so I arrange my schedule and quiet zone accordingly.
Do what you have to do.
The whole praying in the closet idea is a good one. How often do people come looking for you when you're hanging up clothes? Sit on the floor. Keep a basket with your supplies in the corner. If your closet is big enough, bring in a chair and a TV tray table.
I have distinct memories of my mother sitting on the side of her bed, with one hand over her eyes, to pray. If we walked in while she was praying (of course, already talking because surely we couldn’t be interrupting anything) her other hand came up holding her palm out in a “stop, right there” gesture. And we did just that. She was talking to God. She would get back to us in a minute.
Your commitment will be fueled by your thoughtful intention which will be fueled by your diligent actions to make prayer time a priority.
Prayer may be a very simple thing to do - but it is an IMPORTANT thing to do.
Treat it as such.
Are you ready to get started?
Keep an eye out for Day One (June 23rd)!
Enjoy!
If you received this email and haven’t subscribed to the 5-Day Prayer Challenge Pop-up section, you can do so with the button below.