Every Tuesday we engage in one big question, topic or idea. You are invited to write in with a suggestion you want to share. I surely do not have all the answers but know that together we can generate some great conversation and have fun in the process. (Feel free to post your topics, questions, and your great thoughts in the comments below!) Together, we will stay informed and equipped about topics that matter!
Today’s Blog Contributor:
Kristin Clouse Kristin is a licensed counselor who is passionate about seeing women find freedom, healing and restoration in their own lives. She is a writer, counselor, speaker, teacher, mentor and leader to women. She is a storyteller and uses allegorical examples to impart life, freedom, and healing to many. She speaks on a variety of topics including teachings from her writing Healing for Our Soul Garden, which is about the restoration and healing process from sexual abuse; as well as leading and teaching women to grow in a deeper relationship with God. She is available to share according to your needs at your focused retreat, conference or workshop. Find out more about Kristin on her blog at www.healingforoursoulgarden.com.
Today, Kristin continues our blog series on prayer with, Praying God’s Promises in Our Lives. Enjoy!
Praying God’s Promises in Our Lives
As I contemplate on this topic of praying God’s promises, I am in awe of God’s timing for this to be on the same week that we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus our Savior. Christmas is the story of God fulfilling His promise of a Messiah to His people, to us. Truly it’s the story of promise coming to us, for us, and to save all of us.
Last year when I was visiting a friend in Branson, Missouri, we attended the play the Miracle of Christmas. This beautiful play is performed during the Christmas season and presented by the professional Christian theatre company Sight & Sound. If you are ever in Branson I highly recommend attending one of their plays for truly you will be blessed by the experience.
As I watched the play, tears filled my eyes as a group of men and women were working and being treated unfairly by the government officials. Times were hard, difficult, and you could sense that they were on the verge of losing hope as they began to sing out, reminding God of the promise of their Messiah. Breakthrough was right around the corner for God’s people, however at the time they did not know this. All they knew was what they were experiencing at the time, in the here and now, and life was overwhelming for them. Hope was leaving and so they once again prayed to God reminding Him of His promises to His people.
Promises, God’s promises. Throughout scripture we see them, God has spoken them to us individually, and prophetically God’s promises have been given to us. When we get a promise from God, regardless of what form it comes in, the fulfillment of the promise has yet to come. This is the place where discouragement can come in and the enemy of our soul will do whatever he can to discourage us from believing all that God has for our life and circumstances. Thoughts of disbelief, doubt that we heard from God, and hopelessness all try to strangle our faith into dying away so that we will give up and not believe in what God has said to us.
Have you been there before? Have you felt that the promises that God has spoken to you and for your life, your finances, your family, your ministry, your marriage, your…. (fill in the blank), will never come to pass? Have you felt forgotten, cast aside or maybe that you will never see the promises in your lifetime? I have and I am here today to encourage you in the Lord to hold on for your breakthrough is truly right around the corner!
How did I begin the process of believing God’s promises for my life? I began to pray them over my life and when doubt came in and began to speak to me, I spoke to doubt of who and what God said I was. I focused on what God said to me about my life instead of listening to doubt. I told doubt who I was through God’s promises and no longer did doubt tell me who I was. Doubt no longer dictated my future. Remember doubt comes in to steal, kill, and destroy and is the fruit of Satan. It’s very subtle, it slithers in and slowly tells us things, distorts situations, takes half truths and twist them in such a way that all hope is sucked right out of us.
As I told doubt who I was through God’s promises, I became more confident. I began to pursue God’s promises, to believe them and it was seen through my prayers. As I did this, God’s promises were laid out before me as a guide, a blueprint, of God’s plans for me. Truly it was as if I became pregnant with God’s promise and I was doing my part to care for and protect that which God was birthing in me. Some of those promises came to fruition in a short amount of time, some longer, and yet some I am still waiting upon the fulfillment to come.
What are the promises that God has given you? How do I pray God’s promises over my life?
First, gather all the promises that God has given you. You know those scriptures that you have highlighted, with dates and notes written next to them? Those are promises. What about the prophetic words that others have given you or maybe those things that you have written in your journal that God spoke to your heart for your life? Those are all the promises. Gather all of them together.
Second, with some notepaper begin to write them out and put them all together in one place with the ones that have the same theme bunched together.
Next, once you have them all together, write out a prayer about those promises, using scriptures, and begin to pray that over your life, your circumstances on a regular basis.
Finally, trust Jesus and what He says about your life, your circumstances. Begin to line your life up with the promises and pursue the promise. Live your life as if the promises from God have already been fulfilled.
I would like to share with you a brief story of one of the many promises that God has spoken over my life. As a young child I always had a love for books and for writing. As a young mother I created a series of stories that I would share with my daughter called The Adventures of Kaitlyn and Her Pet Skunk Charlie. This was her favorite time of the day when she would lay in bed and I would create a story that brought anticipation, joy and laughter to us both. I even went as far as sending one manuscript off to a publisher, but at the time my spirit did not understand the process of publishing and could not handle the rejection letters. I put that dream in a box on a shelf and walked away from it.
Years later God began to speak to me of this dream and He gave me a promise about it. Others began to speak prophetically over my life that God had called me to write. I was at a crossroads in my belief and I had to face many insecurities that I had within myself. I gathered those promises together and began to pray them over my life. I then went to workshops on how to organize and create a book. Life was beginning to take form in me.
Can you see that I was pregnant with the promise?
I continued to pray God’s promises, and I still do over my life daily. Recently I finished my first draft of my book Healing for Our Soul Garden and have sent it off to an editor. I am now working on a version of this book as a series of children’s book and have great anticipation on what God is doing.
In Jeremiah 29:11 we read, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
God has great plans for each of our lives.
Our role is to line ourselves up with God’s plans and we do that in part by standing on the promises He has spoken over us, actively praying about them in our lives, and lining our lives up with walking them out. Remember, our job is to be obedient and God’s job is to open the doors! Blessings and I pray God’s abundant blessings in each of your lives this coming year! I leave you with this prayer:
I’m asking God to give you a gift, His promises, from the wealth of his glory. I pray that he would give you inner strength and power through his Spirit to walk out the FULLNESS of who and what God created you to be. I pray that Christ will live in and through you through faith. I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you have your foundation. We thank you Lord that you truly know the plans that you have for us. Help us Lord to line our lives up with you, to hold on to the promises and to trust you in spite of what our circumstances look like. We ask that each of us be completely filled with You God and Your Glory presence. Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine and Lord we are expecting that, far beyond that which we can do within ourselves. In the wonderful and powerful Name that is above all other names, Jesus, Amen (Ephesians 3:16-20 & Jeremiah 29:11)
What do you think?