Season 11 Ep.1 / What is Prayer?

[00:00:00] Alex: Okay, welcome back to season 11 of conversational counseling, and this season we're going to talk about prayer. And I know for some of us, prayer is. Hard. For some of us, prayer is joyful. So wherever you are in your journey with prayer, we just want to bring some comfort. We wanna bring some challenge, we wanna give tools for different types of prayer.

[00:00:23] Alex: And one of the things we're most excited about is we've got people who are willing to share their examples of prayer so that we can hear real prayers and real struggles, real lament and praise before God, and hopefully encourage you in your prayer life. So, yeah,

[00:00:40] Brenda: we're excited. Mm-hmm. I think this is gonna be a great format, um, and I'm hoping that our listeners will really benefit and be encouraged as well.

[00:00:49] Brenda: But Alex, before we start, I'd like to first of all mention, you might notice if you're watching our video that we're together, together. Again, you can reach across the table. Um, but Alex, you're in town to talk at the General assembly for the Presbyterian Church of America. Yes. Which is in Chattanooga this week, which is really exciting.

[00:01:08] Brenda: Um, so it's just great to have you here and in my home it's always a joy to be together when we can. And, um, I thought we'd just give maybe a quick update on what's been going on, maybe a highlight or a low light from, you know, since we met the last time.

[00:01:20] Alex: Yeah, it feels like it's been a long time this time.

[00:01:22] Alex: I don't know why, but, um, I'm still just in the emptiness phase, so I've got one married and enjoying married life and, um, my. Uh, oldest daughter is about to graduate with her doctorate in August, so we are counting down the days. That's great. Until she graduates and, um, she's getting a doctorate in women's health and so I keep telling her to specialize in menopause and cure all of us.

[00:01:49] Alex: I

[00:01:49] Brenda: love it. Exactly. That's great. Well, and I know that your daughter that just got married is also about to have a big change. Yes. Um, that she's going into missions with her husband and will be going overseas, and so they're gonna

[00:02:01] Alex: leave for Sweden in about three weeks. And I, I think this, this transition will be harder than the transition for me.

[00:02:09] Alex: Yes. I don't, for them it'll be easy street right. For me, it will be harder to see them go because we don't know exactly when they're coming back. They're kind of exploring what the next steps are for them.

[00:02:21] Brenda: Yeah. That's great. Well, I think for our family, what's been really encouraging is we've been in a big season of seeing God do a lot of restorative work in our family.

[00:02:31] Brenda: I've also often mentioned just our, um, journey with our son who had an addiction issue for 12 years. And so in the last year, God has been so beautifully putting the pieces back together and that idea of restoration, that it's better now than it was before. Yeah, right. And so, um, we've just seen, we took our first family vacation in a long time together.

[00:02:51] Brenda: And so just to, to have all three of my children there and celebrating and, and doing all the things we went to, to the beach 38, which we love. And then. There's also just been some other family restoration within that, that I've been praying for, which is a great, you know, segue into this, um, you know, for years, for 12 years with my son and for several years, um, with some of the relational dynamics that have been really difficult in particular, so.

[00:03:19] Brenda: Yeah. Just seeing God answer some prayers has really bolstered my prayer life. Yeah. And really been an encouragement to me. Mm-hmm. Um, but I, I think, you know, we've talked about how prayer can often be a place where we feel a lot of guilt. Yeah. Right. And so we think about what comes to mind when we think about prayer.

[00:03:37] Brenda: Like what emotional reactions do we have? Um, you know. Yeah. So what about for you, Alex? What's the, what's the, uh, what comes to mind when, uh, as we're talking about prayer and preparing for this? Yes,

[00:03:49] Alex: preparing for this. Um, first I think I need to mention that we, I had to call you and confess, I feel like before I could even commit myself to this series, because prayer has been really hard for me for the past couple of years.

[00:04:03] Alex: And guilt is probably the right word. Um, guilt, certain amount of shame. And um, but in the midst of that, it's been also good for me to reflect that, um, prayer for me used to be so structured. I remember a time in my prayer life when I had a page for every day of the week. I had an aspect of God to worship.

[00:04:30] Alex: I had each member of my family in scriptures. I prayed for them and they changed each day. I had different ministries and people that I prayed for every day. I mean, it was sounds exhausting it. It was exhausting and exhaustive and. I think I spent those seasons, one, it was a season of life where I had young children and I felt like I needed something to bring some structure to my prayer life.

[00:04:52] Alex: Mm-hmm. So I understand why I did it, but I also have been reflecting that I felt good about my prayer life at that point. But when I look back and maybe even in the midst of it, I don't know that I felt good. Or I, I lemme say it this way, I missed communing with God.

[00:05:09] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:10] Alex: Prayer was something that I did.

[00:05:12] Alex: Mm-hmm. It was very, it was of course very structured as I'm describing. It was very much the next thing on my to-do list for the day. Mm-hmm. And I went down that list and so. Yeah, I can say I've, I felt good about my prayer life and when I look back on that, that leaves me with an ick. Mm-hmm. Like an icky feeling that I was missing something.

[00:05:34] Alex: Mm-hmm. And so even in the midst of maybe feeling guilty over the last few years, that prayer doesn't look like it used to. I am beginning to. Appreciate. Mm-hmm. That God is redefining what prayer is to me. Mm-hmm. And it is not performance, it's not structure, it's really unstructured and it is much more about presence than it is.

[00:05:57] Alex: Mm-hmm. We keep saying presence over performance as we've prepared this and I definitely see the Lord mm-hmm Doing that in me.

[00:06:04] Brenda: Well, I think like a lot of our spiritual disciplines, we start off being disciplined. Yes. Which is not a bad thing. Like we're, we're creating some structure, we're creating some habits that need to be in place.

[00:06:14] Brenda: But one of the things I've personally seen in my prayer life is going from something that I have to do because it's a spiritual discipline, right. To something I want to do because I want to be with Jesus and I want to be with God. And you know, I love when the disciples come to Jesus and, and they're talking about prayer and they don't say, teach us how to pray.

[00:06:31] Brenda: They say, teach us to pray. Right. Because a lot of times, half the battle is just doing the prayer. Mm-hmm. And saying the prayers and having this mindset, and obviously they asked Jesus that because they saw something in him and his communion with the father and the power that that brought to his ability to bring the kingdom to earth.

[00:06:51] Brenda: And so I know for me early on, I mean, I think about my prayer life and I'm thinking, in the beginning I was like a little baby. I just cried a lot. 'cause I, you know, right when I became a Christian, I was just so overwhelmed that God would save me, particularly knowing my testimony. Um, and then, you know, I, I started learning how to babble a little bit.

[00:07:06] Brenda: I think about my two and a half year old grandson. And he was like, da, you know, the only one that can translate it is his mother. And so nobody could translate what I'm saying, but God knew. Um, and then to be honest with you, kind of going into a stage where a little bit older prayers were just all about.

[00:07:21] Brenda: Me, it was all about the ask. Ask, ask, ask, ask, what do I need? What do I need? You know? Mm-hmm. And then again, just watching the maturity that God is producing as a part of my sanctification, as I'm growing and as I'm learning more communion and intimacy, and as I'm realizing that prayer isn't just all about me, because that's kind of, you know, where I started, but it's actually about God, and it's actually about him wanting to be with me.

[00:07:44] Brenda: Um, so early on, I, I love the verse Psalm 42, 1, and I remember praying this a lot. Uh, the verse says, as the dear pants for water. Oh my soul pants for you. My God. And, um, I made that my prayer early on, like, Lord, make me want to sit with you, make me want to commune with you, make me want to come to you. And, um, God answered that prayer.

[00:08:06] Brenda: Mm-hmm. But I feel like it was like, that is a great starting point for somebody who is struggling with prayer. It's just asking God. To help you teach you, motivate you and give you the longing to pray even before we start thinking about how to pray. Um, and then I think through just the trials of the last, particularly 12 years of my life is where I've really learned a lot about perseverance and prayer.

[00:08:28] Brenda: Um, you know, when if, if you're in a situation where you're praying and praying and praying and you're not seeing God answer, and in fact, things got worse and worse and worse, the, the harder I prayed. The worst thing's got, I didn't think they could get any worse. Right. Um, but just this, just this idea of, um, I'm not going to, I'm not gonna stop.

[00:08:47] Brenda: I think about the Canaanite woman whose daughter was demon possessed and how she so boldly comes before Jesus. I think about the widow, the parable of the widow who continues to go and, you know, ask the judge and, and continues and doesn't give up. And so I think that, um. I think suffering is, is really been where my prayer life has grown the most.

[00:09:07] Brenda: Mm-hmm. Um, and learning to lament and to enter in, invite Jesus into that suffering story. Often and in very deep places and dark places of my heart has probably changed me, um, more than most things I can think of. And you know, I'm, I'm fond of saying that the comfort of God changes you in a way, the conviction of God will not.

[00:09:30] Brenda: Mm-hmm. Um, and of course repentance is gonna be a part of our prayer life as well. But, um, there's so, so much richness as we come to this idea of prayer. And I think what we want to, um, really say in this podcast is whatever your view of prayer has been, we hope we can expand that. Mm-hmm. And challenge it and move you.

[00:09:53] Brenda: By the Holy Spirit to want to pray and have that desire. So it goes from discipline to actually desire.

[00:10:00] Alex: Yeah, I like that. So let's define prayer so that we are all, you know, using the same terms. And I, I like that we're defining prayer really simply as just talking and listening to God.

[00:10:12] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:13] Alex: It's communion with God.

[00:10:15] Alex: Uh, it's part of the relational. Um, ongoing access that we have to him.

[00:10:22] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:23] Alex: And that's why we called this series Sacred Access, because we, we like this idea that God is inviting us into a relationship with him where there's intimacy, there's. Surrender.

[00:10:36] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:36] Alex: There's invitation, there's formation that's going on.

[00:10:40] Alex: And so it's not just a duty, it's not my checklist. Mm-hmm. It's not the next thing that I do today, but it is, it is a give and take of a relationship with him, a conversation with him, so to speak. And whenever I hear that word, access I, I think of this little example in our lives, in our family's life, many years ago.

[00:11:01] Alex: We had a, um, a girl from the Ukraine come to stay with us for the summer as like an exchange program. And she was there for I think the full three months and the last week of her stay, my girls and I were in my bathroom. Um, my master bathroom, you know, that's, that you have to go through my bedroom to get to my bathroom and.

[00:11:29] Alex: She Vieta had been with us all summer and you know, we were talking, we were doing something and she starts to drift into my bedroom. She starts to drift to the doorway of the bathroom, but she won't come in to my bathroom.

[00:11:44] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:44] Alex: And it was this moment that I had this, this realization that even though she had been with us for three months, she had done everything our family had done.

[00:11:53] Alex: There was a place in our home that felt like. Sacred or set apart the master bathroom that she didn't feel invited into. Mm-hmm. And even when we were trying to draw her into the conversation, we couldn't get her to cross over the threshold of that room. And it, it just hit me that like, this is what Axis is like.

[00:12:16] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:16] Alex: We. The temple was such a, a, a visual reminder mm-hmm. To the Hebrew people of different levels of access and that she felt like she had different levels of access to our family and she couldn't cross that final one to come into my bathroom. Mm-hmm. Even by my invitation. And so I just have this picture of hovering over the threshold and how prayer says you can step into the door.

[00:12:43] Alex: Mm-hmm. You're allowed to come into this very private place mm-hmm. With God.

[00:12:47] Brenda: Yeah. And as you're talking, I'm thinking that, um, you know, it's the sons and daughters who have access. Right? Right. So your daughters didn't even question that access, but somebody who wasn't a, an actual daughter did question that.

[00:13:00] Brenda: Right. And of course, we know that God makes sons and daughters out of strangers and enemies. Mm-hmm. Which is beautiful. Well, and I, I like to think about, you know, since Adam and Eve were first evicted from the garden, God has been making a way back. You know, he has been providing access. This is what God wants.

[00:13:15] Brenda: He wants to be with us. He's been pursuing us. And um, of course, Jesus opened the way for us to have access to the Father to be in his presence. Um, I've been just wrapped up my study on Leviticus, and one of the things that was so insightful to me is that the first offering is called the Ola. And the O law is also known as the whole burnt offering.

[00:13:38] Brenda: So there were like five or six different offerings that Leviticus talks about. And I think in my mind, I've always thought all of these offerings have to do with personal individual sins. Like all these offerings are about asking for forgiveness. Mm-hmm. And it's interesting, they're varied. Some of them deal with guilt, some of them deal it with peace with your fellow neighbor.

[00:13:54] Brenda: But this particular one, um, none of the sacrifice was left. To be eaten. So all the other ones, either the priest could eat what was left over or the people could eat, or the priest's family. But this particular one, nothing was left. And God was inviting the Israelites to have access. The sacrifice was needed because they were sinners.

[00:14:16] Brenda: Not for a particular sin, but kind of this idea of like, we have, we are sinners. Mm-hmm. So there was a sacrifice needed for the. Access, but the whole point was to have access. The invitation of God to come in, to draw near to commune, and nothing is left of this offering because what it is demonstrating is the worshiper saying, I am giving you.

[00:14:37] Brenda: My whole devotion, my whole surrender, everything I am and everything I have, which I just found to be so beautiful. And we have to remember that prayer is always rooted in sacrifice. Like somebody had to pay or has to pay for us to have that access. And the Old Testament, of course, it was the animals in the New Testament, we have Jesus.

[00:14:58] Brenda: So I was just reminded, you know, that God gave himself for us. To be in his company. Mm-hmm. Like this is what God wants, that he loves me and he wants to be with me, and he's provided that access. Um, but one of the, one of the things about access is we go in to hear from God, but we also want to, uh, to, to talk to God, but we also need to listen to God.

[00:15:20] Brenda: And, um, I will say that this is an often neglected part of prayer. And for me, it's really been hard. Alex, this has been one of the biggest challenges for me. One because. Yeah, I'm afraid like, what if I'm not really hearing from God? And this is why knowing your scriptures are so important. Mm-hmm. Because you're not gonna know the heart and character of God if you don't study the scriptures, if you don't read the scriptures, if you don't commune with God and hear from him.

[00:15:43] Brenda: Um, but recently I decided that. I'm going to turn 59 next month and I decided, I hire a personal coach, uh, to help me launch into my, my next decade of the sixties. And being the little energizer bunny I am, I'm thinking like, what are all the things I need to do to prepare to launch into this next decade and give it all I've got?

[00:16:03] Brenda: And it was so cute because I've met with this, um, one coach and at the end he just summed me up so well, he said, well, what I hear you saying Brendais. People, people, people. Words, words, words, ideas, ideas, ideas. He de he definitely got you and all that done real fast. Well, that does not create or cultivate an environment to hear from the Lord.

[00:16:25] Brenda: Like, it's like I just need to like, it's all I can do to. Create a space to hear from people, right? Like, right, like as a counselor, I've had to really learn that. But I think creating this space, and so I met with two different, um, coaches, and both of them said, you know, I think that you would really benefit from spiritual formation practices of silent solitude and stillness.

[00:16:44] Brenda: Oof. Right. But if you wanna hear from God and you just don't wanna be talking, and I think about, you know, prayer being like a relationship with my husband. What if all I'm doing is talking and never listening? And what if all of the conversations have to be formal? I'd like to talk with you today at three o'clock, and I have a list of things I'd like to go through.

[00:17:02] Brenda: And mostly it's about what I want you to do and how I want you to serve me and accomplish. Mm-hmm. You know, what I want. Um, so, you know, just looking at maybe some healthy relationships that you have. Can, I think, help give a picture of what a healthy dialogue with God looks like, and we're gonna talk more about listening and what it looks like to listen to God with some parameters, because I think that that can be scary for a lot of people.

[00:17:23] Brenda: The tradition that you and I have come out of, I think, you know, you've got the traditions that are really big on listening to God, and you've got other traditions, traditions that say. You only read the scriptures and that is the only way God is talking to you. Right. And if it's not in black and white, of course I like to say, okay, the letters are black, but what about all that white?

[00:17:39] Brenda: Right? What do you do with all that white space? I think God might be speaking in that white space. So any rate, I just really feel that, um, that's an area that I personally want to grow in and I mm-hmm. And I think when I got through. With my, these two coaches, um, my takeaway was I need to learn to listen to God and be still and be quiet.

[00:18:00] Brenda: And in this like gearing down for my sixties, it will actually produce something in me that will be better.

[00:18:07] Alex: Yeah.

[00:18:07] Brenda: Because I'll actually be, uh, won't be so much about what I'm doing, but it'll be more about having a more intimate connection with the father.

[00:18:14] Alex: Yeah. I think even as we're talking, we're touching on this idea that prayer looks different in different seasons of our lives.

[00:18:21] Alex: Yep. Um, and, and we are talking about it as, um, we've grown in different seasons and of course that's part of it, but I think it also looks different in different seasons because different. Forms of prayer work. Yep. You know, when we are, have different challenges or circumstances in our lives. And so I think one of the questions we wanna keep asking people throughout this season is, how have different seasons of your life impacted your prayer life?

[00:18:50] Alex: How do you think about prayer? Because our rhythms change. Yeah, just like our rhythms have changed now that we don't have children in our home. And so that means we have more time, we have more quiet Yes. Than we did when we were younger. Yes. And that a lot of the struggle with prayer is finding the, giving ourselves the grace and the flexibility to find different ways to show up in this conversation with the Lord and I know.

[00:19:20] Alex: One of the biggest challenges for me, when my children were little, I always used to say they had some kind of radar on them because no matter how early I would say, okay, I am gonna get up 15 minutes earlier tomorrow.

[00:19:32] Brenda: You know where this is going, 15

[00:19:33] Alex: minutes earlier. And I would, I tell people, and this is the truth, I would.

[00:19:38] Alex: SI still stretch first thing in the morning. I would slide off my mattress onto the floor right beside my bed so that they couldn't hear me, so I could get 15 minutes of prayer in and somehow they heard the slide and there they were. What are you doing, mommy? When's breakfast? What are we doing today?

[00:19:56] Alex: Can I wear my pink dress? I mean, it was like immediate. It did not matter how early I got up and there was such success. And such frustration, feeling like they were blocking my way to prayer. Yeah. Which of course they weren't. Right. But they could have slept a little.

[00:20:11] Brenda: Right. That's when you're wondering like, is the enemy just really, you know, um, moving in to make sure there's all these distractions?

[00:20:19] Brenda: Well, and I think if we can, we can look at prayer as. Friendship with God and think about your friendships. There's seasons in friendships. Mm-hmm. There's seasons in marriage. There's seasons where Paul and I really, it, it was a lot of just like quick touching points about things. And I, and I've come to realize the beauty of aging is you do get a lot more time and now I'm understanding why people who are older.

[00:20:43] Brenda: Really have this ability to sit and be still and, and just go deep and read the word and listen to the word. Because now they're in this season where they, they have the time to do that. They

[00:20:54] Alex: have more time and less energy. Well

[00:20:57] Brenda: this is true. So I mean, therefore it makes like for stillness better still this is a little easier than Yeah, the Lord has a way of just saying, I wanna just sit you down and, uh, make you come and be with me because you're so busy.

[00:21:08] Brenda: But I think when we talk about seasons, um, this is where. Creativity I think is really important and realizing, again, it's a friendship and not a formula because if we have to stay with a certain structure and discipline, even though we're gonna be talking about some great prayer tools and some great structure, I think what we wanna say right now is even with all those tools, it's not always gonna be structured.

[00:21:30] Brenda: You may not always have that time, and I. You know, my personality type being the Enneagram seven that I am is I like a lot of options and I like a lot of different things. And so it's easy for me to come in and out and feel like, oh, this prayer is working great today and I can fly by and I've kind of learned not to say amen.

[00:21:47] Brenda: And the, you know, at the end of my prayer in the morning, I'm just like, okay, Lord, let's keep the conversation going all day long and have the kind of those. Popcorn prayers, if you will. But for some people that's really hard. For people who are more type A and type and structured, they feel like they have to do the same thing.

[00:22:02] Brenda: So then when they can't, it can be very frustrating and it can create actually a feeling of like, you're distant from God now.

[00:22:07] Alex: Right?

[00:22:08] Brenda: You know that I can't do what I did in college or when I was single. Um, you know, again, just watching my daughter, she's got two kids under the age of two and she was in college ministry.

[00:22:18] Brenda: So, you know, as a single person and newly married, she gotta to spend hours and all day long she talked with Jesus and prayed with people and now she's barely getting to sleep at night. Right. You know, and so just really trying to encourage her in this season to be more mindful of God as she goes through her day.

[00:22:34] Brenda: Um, and even some of the tools we're gonna provide, like they don't even have to be used so structured, they can actually be a model throughout your day. To create like a little bit of a pattern for unstructured prayer. So I hope that as we get into those models, that that will become more apparent of how to use those.

[00:22:50] Brenda: But yeah, I think, um, accepting the grace of God and the patience of God, you know, I think about that he gently leads those with young Yeah. Um, he knows when we're in a suffering season. Yeah. Um, he knows our shame. Uh, like there's so many things I think that the enemy wants to use to move us away from intimacy with God, and all God is saying is like, I've given you the access.

[00:23:10] Brenda: Come as you are. Mm-hmm. Come as you are. Mm-hmm. Come see me. Come meet with me. Yeah. Come be with me. I want to be with you.

[00:23:16] Alex: Right. And I think you've, you've also touched on this and that there are different types of prayer and I, I love your analogy of. Baby, toddler, young child. It is so apt that we come to God so much early in our Christian life with a lot of petition, and we come to God with a lot of petition sometimes.

[00:23:35] Alex: When those we love are suffering, but that there's also praise adoration, thanksgiving, uh, confessing. We've heard a lot and talked a lot about lamenting. Yep. There's an intercession. And then these types of prayer that we're maybe less familiar with for us as like silence, contemplation, listening.

[00:23:55] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:56] Alex: And guided prayer. And I think that's what I'm excited about this. Season is, like you said, giving people some, uh, familiarity with some tools that have actually been around for a long, long time. They're not new. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:07] Brenda: No, exactly. We are not presenting anything new here. Mm-hmm. Um, yes, exactly. I'm just curious to know, kind of out of the prayer types, where do you find maybe your strength or the weakness is.

[00:24:20] Alex: I think early on, like I said, I was big into intercession and petition with my structures. I think the last few years it has been much more about silence and contemplation. Mm-hmm. And I think what's interesting is. Suffering used to drive me towards petition. Mm-hmm. Which I don't think is wrong.

[00:24:40] Brenda: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:40] Alex: Just the way it was. But suffering in recent years has driven me to silence before the Lord.

[00:24:47] Brenda: Mm-hmm. I think that's so powerful what you're saying. 'cause you've had chronic illness, which is a long time. I've had the situation with my son, which was a long journey, and I would agree. I think at the beginning there's petition, petition and then there's surrender because at some point it's like God's not answering.

[00:25:03] Brenda: Well, he is, you know, but he's just not answering the way I want him to. Right. And um, and so I think at that point we actually begin to seek the access and the comfort and the strength and the power. Like we begin to seek him more than the answers. Mm-hmm. There is a definite transition that happens. So for me, I think kind of the challenge has been maybe the perseverance in prayer, particularly in intercessory prayer.

[00:25:29] Brenda: Or if something is really hard, um, to continue in that and not to give up because you're not getting the petitions met. Right. You know, and I think for me, if we can just continue to go back to, um, you know, not formula, but friendship. It's not all about the petition, it's about relationship and intimacy and access.

[00:25:51] Brenda: I think that that will shift our thinking some about prayer.

[00:25:54] Alex: Mm-hmm. And I just wanna mention this just because. Uh, it, it's so present for me. I also think part of the suffering that's driven me to silence and contemplation and just presence with the Lord has been church hurt. And I know there are other people listening who've experienced church hurt, and I think there's something particular about church hurt that the face of Jesus gets obscured.

[00:26:17] Brenda: Mm.

[00:26:18] Alex: We begin to see him as the church.

[00:26:23] Brenda: Hmm.

[00:26:23] Alex: And not him for who he is. And I think that's why in this season, being in his presence has been more meaningful than the structures because the structures have stung me in a lot of ways.

[00:26:36] Brenda: Hmm.

[00:26:37] Alex: And. I needed to experience him again for who he is and not who. Mm-hmm.

[00:26:42] Alex: People say he is or for what the church represents him as. Mm-hmm. And so I say that because I don't think I'm the only one who's been there. Right.

[00:26:51] Brenda: No, I mean, I don't know that there's a person alive that hasn't experienced some church hurt along the way. I certainly have. You have. Most people have. And it is easy to confuse Jesus with the church.

[00:27:02] Brenda: Yes. And church. Church has been happening. All the way back to Genesis, you know, since God called Abraham, people have been being hurt in his kingdom. And um, yeah, I think the thing about silence that's so powerful, and maybe for me what has, um, what I've come to realize is that silence actually, when I'm really looking at Jesus and not the problems, there is a sense of awe.

[00:27:25] Brenda: Mm-hmm. And that awe is what will stir my heart toward more prayer. Mm-hmm. And wanting more relationship. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna find awe. Always in the church, and a lot of times I won't find awe in the church or in Christian people, right? But I will always find a sense of awe in Jesus and the access he's given me and all the precious promises.

[00:27:44] Brenda: And so I think to focus and just to be silent and to contemplate him and to contemplate what relationship and access to him means does stir my heart and just bring me to a different place where. Yeah. Where I want to draw close and I want to draw near, even if I'm afraid of maybe the, the, you know, the, the church, um, at large.

[00:28:08] Brenda: Yeah,

[00:28:09] Alex: yeah, yeah. I'm glad we said that. Yeah. Alright, so as we close, I think we wanna remember just, we have all these alliterations again, we just can't stay away from 'em. We

[00:28:18] Brenda: love it. Prayers about, this is what Christians do, alliterations, this is

[00:28:22] Alex: Christians do. So prayers about performance. Not performance, but presence.

[00:28:28] Alex: Um, not formation. Oh no, I'm saying 'em all backwards. Not formulas, but formation. Not rules, but relationships. So we have all these alliterations, um, and it's about access more than answers. Yeah, I feel like we need to have a t-shirt made or something.

[00:28:45] Brenda: Right. So, or a poster or something to remember all those.

[00:28:51] Alex: So we use the alliterations to make things simple and then we just overcomplicate it by too many alliterations. Um,

[00:28:57] Brenda: and then by, yeah, reversing 'em. That's complicated. Yeah, really complicated. Then.

[00:29:00] Alex: But really what we want people to leave with is just to reflect on this question of what shaped your view of prayer.

[00:29:06] Alex: Mm-hmm. Because your view of prayer is a story that you've experienced. Yep. And, uh, to think about those stories to that have shaped prayer for you mm-hmm. To think about the big story of prayer in your own life, and then to share those stories with us via mm-hmm. Email, social media. We'd love to hear 'em.

[00:29:23] Alex: I think it is encouraging to hear other people's stories of prayer.

[00:29:28] Brenda: Yeah.

[00:29:29] Alex: It is part of our testimony. It's part of our collective testimony, so I really hope people will do that.

[00:29:34] Brenda: Mm-hmm. And I tell you, if you wanna grow your prayer life, get around somebody who's excited. True and praise. Mm-hmm. Um, I've got a few women in my life and they're just amazing.

[00:29:43] Brenda: Like, you can't have a conversation without them saying, well, why don't we pray about that right now? Yeah. Right now. You know, and just other women who are, so, I've got people who have prayed for my family, Alex. Mm-hmm. That I actually believe have prayed more faithful than I have. Mm-hmm. Like, there's just been times I'll be like, you know, 12 years later, I'm still praying for you every Thursday.

[00:30:00] Brenda: I am. Like, you gotta be kidding me. You know? Uh, and so it's just so precious and I think just like if we get around people who are excited about God's word, it's. Stimulates that growth. The same is true of prayer, like those prayer stories and then also to hear the stories of struggle because um, if you only talk to the people who are doing it great and have this great, you can begin to feel a lot of guilt and shame about that.

[00:30:21] Brenda: True. Um, so yeah, I think that's really, I think that's important. And you said the story, you know, I love the idea what you just said, that our prayer. Life comes from a story and that story is dynamic. Mm-hmm. That story is changing. Mm-hmm. That story is growing as God is growing us. So this season we're gonna introduce what we think are some simple tools.

[00:30:43] Brenda: Mm-hmm. Um, and, you know, practical models that are. Soul shaping and, um, two-way prayer, right? To help us move deeper into intimacy with God and into his presence. Um, the rest of the season, we're going to look at six structured prayers. So we're gonna kind of give the structured prayer, but then maybe we can, um, like.

[00:31:04] Brenda: Unstructure them a little bit to show how the framework can just become a model for prayer throughout the day as well. And the thing I'm really excited about is we have asked some women who are some, um, just beautiful godly women that we have had the opportunity to get to know. And I know both of us use journaling a lot as part of our counseling homework.

[00:31:23] Brenda: Mm-hmm. And so we actually get to go into the sacred access space of other people mm-hmm. And listen to them. Talk to God and see how God is shaping their story through prayer. And so we've invited six different women to come and to share a little bit about how each tool has been meaningful to them, and then to read one of their prayers as a model.

[00:31:45] Brenda: And we will also have handouts, um, for each of the prayer tools that we give and each of the examples that we give. So I think the season's just gonna be a real blessing and, um. Yeah, and I'm excited to see what God's gonna do and I'm really praying that, um, as much as I hope that it helps everybody else, I hope that it will encourage my own heart to just be more committed to prayer, especially as I reflect on the thought that this access to God required a sacrifice and that it will make me worship Jesus more in deeper ways