30 Days of Prayer for Spiritual Stamina: A Devotional Prayer Guide
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About this ebook
Life is like a roller coaster, and we need spiritual stamina or “staying power” in order to stay true to our faith and calling through all the ups and downs. Prayer is essential for developing spiritual stamina, and this prayer guide is intended to help you strengthen your prayer life and faith through a thirty-day prayer challenge. Within these pages you will find prayer exercises offering instruction in a variety of prayer methods and approaches, including praying in silence, praying out loud, journaling your prayers, and drawing/coloring as you pray. Designed to be used as a devotional companion to Melissa's Elijah Bible study or a separate prayer guide, these prayers will strengthen your faith and increase your spiritual stamina as you draw near to God.
The Elijah Bible study components, available separately, include a Participant Workbook, Leader Guide, DVD with six 20-25 minute sessions, and boxed Leader Kit (an all-inclusive box containing one copy of each of the Bible study’s components).
Melissa Spoelstra
Melissa Spoelstra is a popular women’s conference speaker (including the Aspire Women’s Events), Bible teacher, and author who is madly in love with Jesus and passionate about helping others to seek Christ and know Him more intimately. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Bible Theology and enjoys teaching God’s Word to diverse groups and churches within the body of Christ. She is a contributor to Girlfriends in God online devotional as well as Proverbs 31 ministries First Five app. She is the author of eight Bible studies (Acts, The Names of God, Romans, Elijah, Numbers, First Corinthians, Joseph, and Jeremiah) and four books (Total Family Makeover, Total Christmas Makeover, 30 Days of Prayer for Spiritual Stamina, and Dare to Hope). Melissa makes her home in Waxahachie, Texas, with her pastor husband and four kids.
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30 Days of Prayer for Spiritual Stamina - Melissa Spoelstra
Introduction
I’m so glad you’ve decided to join me for thirty days of prayer. Perhaps you are a prayer warrior desiring to go even deeper in your conversations with God. Or maybe you are new to prayer and looking for some guidance. No matter where you are in your relationship with God, I hope this book will serve as a helpful resource as we grow in prayer together.
Recently I studied the life of Elijah, a prophet of Israel who boldly proclaimed God’s messages and found spiritual stamina during the changing seasons of life. Elijah prayed on a mountaintop after God showed up with fire, but he also sought God in prayer when he was discouraged and weary. He didn’t quit, even during the difficult seasons, but ran his race of faith with stamina. I believe Elijah’s prayer life was one of the practices that helped him finish life well. God actually took him to heaven in a whirlwind alongside chariots of fire.
Elijah is one of the examples God has given us to help spur us on in our own races of faith. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.
Prayer is an intentional way that we can keep our eyes on Jesus.
I must admit that prayer has not been something that has come easily or been intuitive in my life. I often struggle in my conversations with God. Sometimes I overcomplicate the process, searching for just the right
words. Other times I find my mind wandering, and I battle to stay focused. I long for my prayer life to be natural and regular, but sometimes I find that those words better describe my television habits than my dialogue with God.
As I have pursued God in prayer, I have found some truths that have helped me grow, many of which I share in this book. I have realized that prayer is both a delight to be enjoyed and a discipline that must be practiced. As with physical exercise, I often do not eagerly anticipate the activity but always walk away grateful and renewed after I am finished. This book will serve as a guide to help lead you through thirty days of prayer exercises. You may find that, like a personal trainer, it pushes you out of your comfort zone by introducing you to some new prayer ideas. I want to encourage you to be disciplined in developing varied practices for prayer. Just as we use different exercises to get our bodies in shape, using different prayer exercises can help us to grow spiritually and develop spiritual stamina as we draw close to God in fresh ways.
The different prayer practices that I am referring to, and that are included in this book, are all meditative in nature. By this I simply mean that they invite you to set your mind on God. Meditation— which means to contemplate, reflect, or concentrate on—is focusing on one thing, not emptying the mind of all thoughts (as is commonly understood and even encouraged in some forms of non-Christian meditation). Through these meditative prayer practices we will be focusing on God. There are five different practices we will engage in on a cyclical basis, rotating from one to the next throughout our thirty days:
•Praying Silently,
•Praying Aloud,
•Praying Through Writing (you will need a journal or notebook),
•Praying with Movement (which includes trying different physical postures as you’re able—such as kneeling, lying prostrate, standing, or holding out hands), and
•Praying Together (with a friend or prayer partner when possible).
We also will be praying Scripture throughout all of these exercises. Again, the idea is to stretch yourself in finding creative and varied ways to talk with God so that prayer does not become formulaic or rote but, instead, helps to facilitate greater intimacy with God.
It breaks my heart that some followers of Christ argue about prayer methods. Like communion, baptism, and studying God’s Word, we can all too easily find ourselves fighting over semantics rather than curiously seeking to grow in the beautiful gifts God has given us. Rather than scrutinize how right or wrong these prayer ideas seem to you, I invite you to put your energy