Prayer

Prayer can go beyond our ritual quiet time in the morning.

We’re called to pray without ceasing. I pray every morning before I read my Bible. It’s apart of my quiet time with Lord, before anyone wakes up, no lights are on, before I even get up to use the bathroom. It’s just me and the Lord in peace. This is important as it prepares us for the day and sets our hearts in alignment with Him before we read His word. It’s a form of emptying ourselves so that He can fill us. This time is cherished and special. Dedicated to the King each day.

But prayer can go beyond our ritual quiet time in the morning. It can and should be apart of our daily lives. Woven into carpooling drives, while we’re getting ready, meal time, meet ups with friends and beyond. There’s really no limit to our time with Him and this is something I want to grow in. I want to normalize in my life a constant connection with Him.

During our last few weeks in Europe, I was wrestling with our upcoming endeavors. I was starting to question everything we were doing and fear was creeping in. “Does God want us to do all this? Is this house the right house? What are we doing Lord, this is crazy!” My greatest fear was being outside of His will. Up until this point Dino and I had both felt this is where God was leading us. But I wanted to make sure our plans weren’t getting confused with His. That my agenda wasn’t taking the wheel but it was obedience that we were following. I think it’s always good to reevaluate our motives. To check ourselves before the Lord, asking Him to search our hearts and align them with His will. However; If I was really honest with myself, I think it was a mix of fear and not faith and a desire to keep an open grip.

Thankfully, I’m not doing this life alone. Thankfully we serve a God that longs for us to come to Him. To cast our worries upon Him and trust Him. A God that desires for me to have faith in Him, even when things aren’t clear and to not live in fear. So we make our requests known to God.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6

I love how it says “with thanksgiving”. When we come before the Lord with a thankful heart, fear and worry seem to diminish. Because our focus is not on what we don’t have or what we’re afraid of, it shifts our minds off of ourselves on onto our creator. Glorying His name and not our problems.

Those last few weeks I asked Him to shut the doors on this house if it wasn’t where He wanted us and I prayed that if we were to keep moving forward that He would give me a peace and excitement for the next chapter. “I want to trust in you Lord and not in my own understanding.” I prayed that He would give me a vision for this new house, to see our family in it and a joy for it all. I was reminded this last week that He answers prayers. He answered my prayer. I can’t manufacturer a content heart. I can’t fake joy and peace in my life. Sure I can pretend to the outside world, but I’d know it wasn’t real and my family would as well. But I’m thankful we don’t have to pretend. He answers prayers. And sometimes they’re not within our timeline or how we believe they should be answered. But He answers them according to His will, which is exactly where we want to be with Him.

This last week I had an overwhelming amount of peace and joy. I was starting to picture our new home and what life was gonna look like their for our family. It hit me one morning that I had prayed for that and God answered. I don’t know why I was surprised, He is doing this every single day in our lives.

Our faith is made strong when we are weak. Let’s go before the Lord, seek His face and desire for our hearts to be aligned with His will, with THANKSGIVING (our focus shifts there back to Him) make our requests known to Him, and He will answer.

Praying for you all this week and that we all have a fire inside us to seek Him more throughout the day. That we allow ourselves lots of little moments with Him. If we can just quiet some things down for a few minutes throughout the day, maybe we could hear Him a little more. I know I am desiring that and I’ll be praying that for all of you.

We leave Florida in 2 weeks! I can’t believe it, but like I said above, we are so excited. The whole family is just chomping at the bit to go! But we are gonna soak in our last 2 weeks here with friends and family. Enjoying the island and all of its goodness! I’ll be at The Fox Mercantile on and off the next 2 weeks so if you’re around come on by and day Hi! And then we’ll have a fun goodbye day at The Fox M, on June 28 from 8-4. We’ll be serving free champagne and celebrating the next chapter. So come by and hang!

Have an amazing week!