Living a Pray Filled Life {Making Your Home a Haven: Week 3}

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
(James 5:16)

Welcome back to Week 3 of the Making Your Home a Haven Bible Study!  This week’s spiritual discipline is prayer!  Join me for Week 3’s video as we discuss Living a Prayer Filled Life —I’m sharing the many ways that we can pray including a peek inside my prayer life and my prayer journals.  After listening to the video – I encourage you to pull out your journals and begin!


Week 3 – Prayer

Finding time to pray is not easy!  In the past, I have described prayer as a wrestling match.  Have you experienced this?  You sit down to pray, and within one minute your brain is distracted?  I start thinking about my to-do list, or I get interrupted by the kids or worse, I drift off to sleep!  It’s like a thousand invisible enemies seem to fill the air the minute I sit down to pray.

One way I fight off the enemy is by continuing to daily light my candle and each time the flicker of the candle catches my eye – I am reminded to pray. Another way I remind myself to pray is to set the alarm on my iPhone.  When it goes off, I pause and pray for friends I have committed to pray for or concerns that I want to continually lay down at the Lord’s feet.  Another solution to my wandering mind is to journal my prayers.  For over 30 years, I have kept a prayer journal (I share those in my video above).  Sometimes I write prayer lists and other times I write long letters to God.

I love what Edith Shaeffer has written about the power of journaling. She says: “God has communicated with us in writing.  His Word, the Bible…So writing our pleas, our praise, our prayers – this is not a one-sided communication. God will hear, and He will answer…It’s a relaxed and protected comforting communication with one’s Father, Shepherd, Friend, Counselor and mighty God.  He is Personal – and therefore we can speak and write to Him in a personal and intimate communication.”

Though it’s hard to fit long extended prayer times into our daily lives – it is possible, and it is precious and worth fighting for.  Let’s make a plan to pray this week!  Grab a journal, set your alarms, light your candles, or simply fall on your knees and go to the Lord in prayer. He loves you and He is listening!

Week 3 – Challenge

Take time to have deeper and more meaningful times of prayer this week.

Keep your candle burning, the music playing and purchase a small bouquet of flowers for yourself.  Let that bouquet be a daily reminder of God’s love  and presence with you.

{Share your pictures of your flowers on Instagram by using the hashtags: #MakingYourHomeAHaven and #WomenLivingWell }


 Here is this week’s Bible Reading Plan

This Week’s Verses of the Day:

(Leaders: You can use these images in your groups by using right click and “save as” or screen shot them.)

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Click HERE to print the Verses of the Day for Week 3.


Here’s the Daily Bible Reading Plan
Printable Bible Bookmark

Join me in making our home a haven for our families. Together we'll make our homes a haven of peace, joy, tranquility, and fun for all who enter. #WomenLivingWell #homemaking #friendship #makingyourhomeahaven

Printable Bible Coloring Bookmark

Bible Coloring Chart Bookmark 2

Signature GMG SOAK Bible Study Method

Video explaining the Bible Coloring and SOAK Methods of Study

 

Here are the highlighters, pens and pencils I mentioned in the video:

Highlighters – Acid Free – Bible Hi-Glider
Fine Line Non-bleeding Pens – Micron Archival Ink and Multi-Colored Gel Pens
Colored Pencils – Crayola Twistables and Crayola Colored Pencils
I use the ESV Inductive Study Bible as my personal study Bible.


Don’t Miss the Daily Check-Ins on Facebook and Instagram!

Join us EVERY weekday morning ANYTIME after 7:00amEST on Facebook
to discuss the day’s reading assignment.

Share pictures of your candles, flowers, playlists and favorite places to rest on Instagram by using the hashtags: #MakingYourHomeAHaven and #WomenLivingWell.

***Unlike my other Bible Studies, this series will only have Monday blog posts.  For daily encouragement during this challenge follow me out on –> Instagram and facebook .  I’ll be there every day cheering you on!


Keep on going!  I am praying for you this week.

God loves you!

Enjoy your walk with the King,

Courtney ????


I’m so glad you are joining us!
You can use any notebook you have
but if you want the optional journal, it is available
exclusively on Amazon here.

This post contains an affiliate link.

 

15 Comments

  1. I try my best to read and study and pray daily. Some days it just doesn’t happen .
    Life is kinda Difficult right now
    I so appreciate this way of connecting with Jesus and others

    1. Dear Pat,

      I’m sorry that life is difficult right now for you. Give yourself grace and keep on going. I’m so glad you are here.

      Much Love,
      Courtney 🙂

  2. Courtney, thank you for this study! Focusing on these disciplines has strengthened my walk and I’m just really motivated by today’s video. Thank you for allowing us a look into your prayer life, your journals are an inspiration. I think this video will be helpful also in teaching my daughter about prayer. Thank you for your faithfulness to this ministry.

    1. Hi Diana,

      I’m so glad to hear that your walk with the Lord has been strengthened through this Bible Study. That’s exciting! Keep on going – I’m so glad you are here.
      Much Love,
      Courtney 🙂

  3. One time you mentioned leaving certain things out of your prayer journals. For example, if you have a conflict with someone, because it can renew the hurt to read about it again at a later time. I find myself wanting to delete or get rid of some old journals because I cringe at what they say. I would love to hear what guidelines you’ve developed around your prayer journals.

    1. Hi Ann,

      You are correct – I did share that a few years ago on the blog. You have a great memory! Some of my older journals had some negative things written about people who had hurt me. One day I went back and was reading my old journals and it brought back so much negative emotion that I regretted having those things recorded in my journal. I had long forgotten that those things had even happened or the details of it and that is when I realized it would be better to not write details about conflicts. With time, I am thankful I am able to forgive and actually forget.

      So that is the guideline. I have not held to this guideline perfectly but I try to not write “stories” that would cause me to struggle to forgive someone for a wrong doing I have forgiven. Sometimes I need to hash things out before the Lord and I will write of hurts and struggles and conflicts but I am more aware of the power of the written word now so I am more cautious. The more we speak something over and over the more ingrained it becomes in our minds and hearts and it can be harder to let go of that hurt and forgive. So it’s a fine line between saying it out loud before the Lord – which we can and should do and actually documenting it – if that makes sense.

      If you have pages that make you cringe just tear them out and throw them away. I have done that many times. Sometimes we need to just write out our angst – it feels good but it doesn’t need to stay in the journal for years to come – so I tear it out and throw it away – it feels good to get it out and we need the freedom to do that – just throw it away afterward. 😉

      Hope that helps a little.
      Much Love,
      Courtney 🙂

  4. Tremendous amount of encouragement in your 10 minute video!!! Thank you Courtney for this series and the time you give to reach so many with the truth of God’s word! I’m thankful that many years ago I stumbled across WLW. My life would not be the same! God bless you always!!!

  5. Courtney, I was wondering if you still have the bookmark/reading schedule for the Advent Study? I downloaded and printed it several years ago but I guess I didn’t keep the file. It has the candy canes on it with the reading schedule in grid format and shaded from white to different blues. My Sunday School class has decided to do this study for December and I thought it would be nice for them to have the bookmark.

    Thanks for checking!
    Carol

  6. Thank you so much for having this Bible study available on line. We moved a year ago and had to leave a church we loved and I was really missing the small group atmosphere. But thanks to the availability of this study online I am now part of this study through a Facebook group and I am truly enjoying this and learning so very much.

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