How tracking tell you about yourself: tracking prayer, see how God has acted.
Need Prayer system:
ACTS: adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, supplication
Psalms
12 prayer points for children (sins revealed, friends, future spouse, etc)
Cards of prayer request with date, topic, request, verse
Benefits of system: less "me focused", not forget big picture, see God answering, habit, build relationship when you check in with them and follow prayer request
Drawbacks: repetitive, checklist, become and idol/religious
Obstacles to picking up cards: phone, misplaced, kids, fatigue, laziness, forget, change habit, lack time, find scripture,
How long willing to commit each day to prayer card system? 3wk
When will you use it? Morning when wake daily.
Prayer life, major relationship, finances, work, difficult relationships, source of frustration
Chap 2
Focus of book isn't prayer, it's God.
Prayer hard to fit in busy life, but prayer leads to less busy heart. More peace inside, more able love others.
Prayer is like
...dinner with good friends. Not need to be on eggshells
...interconnected with all of life. Snowball: more love for daughter, pray more...more love.. lead more prayer
Prayer matures, never know fully
...Becomes aware of the story (God like psrent know more). Story also have tension/conflict.
...gives birth to hope
...becomes integrated
...reveals heart
What makes a prayer valid
Poetry for neanderthalls
Come to God like young Child. We are qualified to pray even if we dont have fancy words.
Pray with honestly and authenticity. Sin makes us not pray.
Chapter 5
"Jesus is the most dependent human being ever lived."
Interesting that we grow up thinking self efficiency is goal. But Jesus fulfills what God puts in front of him. We aren't dependent on ourselves, we are dependent on God.
Pray all the time: if relationship with spouse is snippets of time, that's not good.
Pray during driving: if you only talk to partner while driving, not sufficient.
What's it like to slow down, give God your sole focus?
What causes us to not sense our helplessness?
-self sufficiency, money/resources -gives sense of pride, feel prayer not needed. Faster
-things going well, complacent with what we have.
If we think we can do life on our own, we will not take prayer seriously. Our failure to pray will always feel like something else- a lack of discipline or too many obligations. But when something is important to us, we make room for it. Prayer is simply not important enough to us.
-eg life sustaining medicine -we will make sure to take every day.
Take away
-parenting: took years to pray for behavior instead of guiding behavior...speak more to God than to kids. Has autistic kid who wanders at night. Used to yell at her ...change to pray with her that she has good night rest.
-Change anxiety to prayer. Loosing control. What ifs. Anxiety is unable to relax in chaos, but prayer gives it to God in the face of chaos. We want to know what's next, plan.
How to cultivate a greater realization of our selflessness?
-Take notes/prayer, read it. Counting blessings. All we have is a blessing, all from God, so how can we boast? 1 Corinthians 4:7
-People speak wisdom in life
-From mistakes
- when dependent on God/pray more, will depend on God more.
- Certain challenges (mission, work, family), uncomfortable situations
- vulnerability
- good friendships
-donations
More mature through faith and repentance, then greater view of our brokenness and God's holiness. "Strong Christians pray a lot. If I were a stronger Christian, I'd pray more. But strong Christians pray more bc they realize how weak they are."
Breath prayers: short prayer.
Opposite of child like spirit is cynicism. Feel superior. When judging, critiquing...then not loving. Not want to be taken advantage of. But not delight bc need to be vulnerable. Trying to look at all angles...but to love, need to not trying look all the angles. Perfectionism struggles with cynical spirit. Less quirk and more deeper issue to deal with.
Nothing cuts cynicism more than thankful spirit. How cultivate?
Cynicism misses presence of shepherd.
Genuine faith
vs...
Naive optimism: loving all without basis of God. We go from bright of all to dark of all.
How protect ourselves from becoming cynical:
-Gauge own heart. If we truly believe God is Lord, then we will be ok if God leads us a difficult path.
-apathy and anxiety: solution is prayer.
-Pray: help with unbelief. Why and what to do about cynicism. Eg control issues. Lead to how to trust you more
-Thinking about what your idols are
-Fear of God
- Grateful and thankful
- Recognizing self is cynical
- accountability in community
1. Be warm but weary. Cautious optimism: cautious bc of fall
2. Learn to hope again: grasp what Fathers heart is like, loves to give.
3. Cultivate childlike spirit. Lords prayer: if you take out all references to God and what hes done...its all about me/I. If we remove God, its all about us.
4. Cultivating a thankful spirit. You realize whole life is a gift. Thanking God restored the natural order of our dependence on God. Enables us to see life as it really is.
5. Cultivating repentance. We want to display our best, don't show true self.
6. Develop eye for Jesus. See people being faithful and see Jesus in others.
How have you seen Jesus this week?
-C.P. heart for others, mentoring others
-missionaries (A.L, L and H).
8/17/25
What noise in life? Children, phone, need to br productive.
Memorizing scripture will allow it to simmer in mind.
Journaling: reflection, patterns, process emotion.
1. How am I doing? What is coming at me? Am I happy, thankful, discouraged, angry, or frustrated?
Im happy, thankful for what i have. I feel bad that Ab is doing everything for me and I dont feel like im pulling my weight. Worried about kids not truly understanding God and the Bible and the gospel and wont follow God in future. Guilty. I should read Bible more regularly. I want to be more productive and using my skills for more.
2. What is God saying to me? What does the Word say?
That God has a plan and not up to me alone to lead my kids to follow Jesus. I
