I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter for a while now and there is one thing that has been nagging at me lately. It has to do with people praying through their statuses.

Let me give this example:

“God, help me be your servant today so everything I do honors you.”

In itself, it’s not bad. It’s sincere, it’s prayerful, it’s a good prayer all of us should probably have on a daily basis – but is it necessary to tweet? Has God switched like the rest of us to mobile? Is social media the only way He’s hearing us now? And does everyone else have to hear along with Him? And must our prayers now fit under 140 characters?

Today is the National Day of Prayer and there will be groups of folks all over our country and probably our world who will be meeting together, seeking God for His favor and His provision, honoring Matthew 18:20 that says “where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

But is it the same when we’re voicing our prayers over Facebook? What’s the real purpose for me to sit at my computer and write out a prayer to God on Twitter if it’s not to let other people know I’m praying right now? Why not just say “I’m praying right now”? Or why not say what might be more appropriate, “please pray with me for my aunt who is having surgery” or “please pray that I can get everything done today I need to.”

I have said prayers over Twitter myself, but after awhile I started feeling pretty convicted over why I was doing it. Why did I have to let others know? Why not just pray and leave it between God and me? If I were standing in church, would I really start praying out loud in some random fashion? Not likely.

Social media has a lot of wonderful potential for reaching others for Christ but it also can be one more way to exalt the messenger rather than the message. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6:6 – ” But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Free Giveaway

Have a thought about this? Comment below and be eligible to win a copy of my friend Jennifer Schuchmann’s new book, Nine Ways God Always Speaks.

I’ll draw a name tonight at 6 p.m. CST.
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UPDATE! After putting all nine entries into the random generator at random.org, #4 was selected. Congrats to Danie Nicole! Please email me (sara@sarahorn.com) with your address and I’ll get the book into the mail for you. Thanks for everyone who participated and if you’re just popping in, feel free to still comment and keep the conversation going.

Making the time to pray to God is one of the most important things we can do, but how often do we do it?

I think there are a lot of factors that play into why we sometimes struggle with prayer:

• It could be our upbringing – (ie. if we had parents who never really listened, how can we expect God to?)
• It might be our church background where prayers may be memorized more than they are just said and so we struggle with knowing or remembering what to say
• It could be that we just wonder if prayer really “works” and if it doesn’t, then what’s the point?

My friend Jennifer has written a couple of books on prayer and the first is out in stores and titled Six Prayers God Always Answers (Results May Vary). I highly recommend it because she does a great job looking at prayer and the kinds of prayers we pray and why we pray (or don’t) and why God wants us to pray.

A couple of months ago, for our Wives of Faith meeting, I announced that instead of having our usual meeting, we would just have a time of prayer together – for each other, for the conference coming up, for whatever God brought to our hearts to pray about. Only one other wife came but we had a great time of praying and asking God for His help and praising him for who He is in the first place.

I wasn’t really surprised that more people didn’t come that night – though we might not easily admit it, I think prayer is a little scary for some, for all the reasons mentioned above. Even my friend who was there that night was a little nervous about praying out loud. She said someone had once told her her prayers sounded silly and scattered, and this had kept her from praying, at least out loud, much.

Prayer also doesn’t offer immediate results as we often want. If I sit down and talk with you about a problem in my life, I’m going to get immediate response – concern in your eyes, agreement in your voice, advice from your own experiences. When I sit down to talk with God, I may not always get an answer right away – but it doesn’t mean He doesn’t hear us.

I know that God answers prayer because I’ve seen Him answer prayers in my own life – some more immediate than others, but nevertheless, He has answered. As a senior in high school, He healed my voice. As a young writer about to take off for the Middle East, He supplied a passport, literally, at the curb of the airport I was waiting to leave from. He has also answered other prayers I’ve had in my life having to do with relationships and friendships.

The thing is, those answers can only come when we ask.

Jesus tells us in Matthew and also in Luke that we shouldn’t “bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need” (Matthew 7:7, The Message).

At the same time, we also should remember that God isn’t room service – we call and He delivers. There is a relationship there we want to embrace. When no one else can be counted on, God can, and we can’t forget that.

Prayer is also very personal. It is direct communication with the Most Heavenly God. I think about the story of Esther approaching the king and holding her breath that he would stretch out his scepter, a sign that she was welcome. Ladies, God does that with us every day! We are welcome in His presence! He wants to hear from us and love us and help us and help direct our way for His plan and His purpose for our lives. But we have to take that first step and that is often on our knees.

This can be hard. As a military wife dealing with my husband’s deployment last year, I got to where I was reluctant to go to God in prayer very often because I ended up crying almost every time. I think that’s because when we open that communication line with our Lord, He stirs up all the hurts and emotions and troubles we’re dealing with. Why do you think that is? Do you think it’s because He wants us to feel bad? No, I think it’s because He wants us to turn those hurts over to Him to repair, to smooth away, to carry for us.

Taking the time to pray doesn’t have to be long or drawn out. It can be in the morning before you get out of bed. I often keep my phone next to me because in the morning, I can check my email and get the prayer of the day that our 100 Day campaign sends and then I’ll take time to pray about that prayer request before I get up and get my day started. You can pray driving in your car or when you take a walk at the park or around your neighborhood. Some days we need more – we need to be on the floor of our bedroom and let God hear all of our hurts and pain. Sometimes we need to ask a friend to pray with us.

If you have trouble knowing just what to say to God, stay tuned. That’s the topic for tomorrow. Be blessed today!

Tomorrow: Knowing What to Say to God

Wow, where did this week go! Sorry for the non-posting… between feeling a little under the weather with a cold Monday and Tuesday, juggling some writing, Wives of Faith things and studying for that all important Friday spelling test with my six-year old, it’s been busy to say the least. But I wanted to share with you something that happened last night and hopefully leave you with an encouraging word and a bit of a challenge to start the weekend.

Last night my husband came home not feeling so well. We were both tired and so we decided that we’d go grab dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant not too far from our house. The three of us had filled our plates from the buffet and were seated at our table when a woman and her little boy were seated at the table behind us. She was of a slight build, wearing a red sweater and her hair was kind of long and straggly. As she and her son who was probably about our son’s age passed us, a thought came very distinctly to my mind. “You need to pay for her meal tonight.”

What?

I knew it was God speaking to me and I have to be honest; I cringed inside. That was a ridiculous idea – I didn’t know this woman, she didn’t know me, and knowing the limited English vocabulary of the restaurant staff, I wasn’t even sure they would understand if I tried to explain what I wanted to do. I also wasn’t sure my husband would understand.

And the money. We aren’t made of it. We’ve still been in transition mode from having a full-time Navy check back to my husband’s job at a non-profit Christian radio station and as a writer/author, it’s usually feast or famine when it comes to work and when you do have it you hold on to it. Was paying for a complete stranger’s meal really being good stewards for our family?

So, there I sat, trying to enjoy my fried rice and sesame chicken, rationalizing that maybe it was the wontons talking instead of the Holy Spirit and all the while God was tapping me on the shoulder. You need to pay for her meal.

When the woman came back with her little boy’s plate and left to go back and get hers, I took a breath, swallowed hard and leaned over to Cliff.

“I think we’re supposed to pay for that lady’s meal behind us. I know it sounds crazy, but I had this thought as soon as she walked by us and I think we’re supposed to pay for her meal tonight.”

His eyes got wide and he looked at me and then looked at the little boy behind us. I’m sure he was thinking the same things I had just thought.

“OK. Sure, we can do it,” he said. I love my husband.

Now there was no turning back. I tried to find a waitress so I could ask to make sure to get the woman’s bill before it was given to her; after explaining in whispers what I wanted to do, she smiled and said “O-K.” I wasn’t sure if she understood or not. She brought us our bill in a few minutes but it was just ours. She hadn’t understood. This could have been my out. She didn’t bring me the second bill so maybe I’d misunderstood. Maybe I hadn’t understood God. Or, maybe I just needed to figure out another way to overcome the language barrier and try a little harder! There I went, rationalizing again.

So up again I stood and went to the cashier’s area and found the one woman I thought spoke the most English. This time she understood and spoke to the other waitress in Chinese to go get the woman’s bill and she added it to ours. I handed her my debit card, she rang it up and we were out of there with the understanding that the waitress would let the woman know that she and her son’s meal had been paid for but she wouldn’t tell her who had paid for it. Mission accomplished.

I wish I could tell you that I bounded out of there with a huge smile on my face, feeling fantastic and ready to buy somebody else’s meal, but it didn’t really happen that way. We didn’t hide in the bushes looking through the window waiting to see her reaction; we just drove home. But I drove home feeling a sense of obedience; that God had asked me to do something and I had done it even though I didn’t have a clue of the reasons or the situation. This woman could have been a single mom on a tight budget, or maybe going through a divorce, or maybe her husband was working three jobs and she was tired of eating by herself at home. Or maybe, she was just out for dinner with her son. I don’t know her circumstances or what it may have meant to her to hear the words “Someone else paid for you.” I just know we were supposed to do it.

There have been other times where I’ve heard God’s voice and didn’t act, didn’t listen, didn’t follow through. The time a few years ago I felt like He’d told me to make sure to go to church one Wednesday night because He had a special message He wanted me to hear but I stayed home instead and the next day my husband was laid off from his job. When I finally told my husband what I’d done, or rather not done, he had said with a little smile, “it might have been nice to hear what God wanted to tell us…” There have been times when I’ve had the thought that I was supposed to go say something to someone, usually a stranger, maybe offer an encouraging word or make myself available to just listen and I’ve walked right past that person, squelching the thought and rationalizing all the way home.

How many opportunities do we miss to be God’s hands and feet because we hear His voice but don’t listen? We get those thoughts but we throw them out with our next breath. We hear but we don’t follow through? How many times do we say, “OK God, I’m going to do what You ask and trust that You’ll bless it for whatever Your purpose is”?

I’m really enjoying this book by John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Step out of the Boat. The chapter I’m reading right now talks all about fear and risk. It is risky to follow Christ. Because He doesn’t ask us to sit in the boat. He asks us to take a step of faith and come walk on the water with Him! Whether it’s a big thing like starting a ministry or a new career, or something small like paying for someone’s meal or saying hello to someone you might not usually talk to.

I just wanted to share this experience with you because I’m pretty sure that there are many of you reading this who need to be challenged to step out of the boat. To take a risk for God. To be obedient to what He’s asking you to do. You may never see the benefits or the results of your obedience, but you can be sure that God does. And others will see Him through you, or at least through your actions of obedience.

A couple of things that sort of confirmed what happened last night… when the waitress brought us our cookies at the end of the meal, only one of the three cookies had a slip in it. It read “you will be a comfort to others.” And when we were getting in the car, Cliff said, “I heard that woman say her son’s name. It was Caleb.” The same name as our son.

Obedience is a powerful thing.