WVW #012 Prayer doesn’t have to be complicated with these simple steps

(00:00): Have you ever wanted to be bilingual? When my son, Patrick was three years old, I hired a young lady from France to come live with us and help while I was at work, I interviewed her on the phone and she seemed to understand me, but had such difficulty speaking back, she had to go get her dad to talk to me on the phone, finding the right words to communicate back to me was difficult. She didn't know my language. Now, some 25 years later, she has a better vocabulary than most Americans. And I'm fascinated by her ability to seamlessly command two different languages. It took daily practice, immersing yourself in another culture, reading to Patrick and speaking the words back to him. It didn't happen overnight. Did you know God has his own language stay tuned because today we're going to talk about how to learn the language that God understands so that you can communicate better from him and hear from him.

(01:08): Welcome to episode 12 of the well versed woman podcast. I'm Renee teller and I'm Theresa Morgan. And we are perfectly imperfect here to share our faith with women. Just like you. See what we've learned in life. What we've experienced is the love of God. And if you stay tuned, we know that your life will be filled with that same love, which means more peace than you ever thought possible. But if you've been listening to us, you know what we're going to do to begin, we're going to sit still close the door, stop the car, whatever it is you're doing. And we're going to take 20 seconds and ask God to open our hearts, our ears, and our minds to what he would tell us today. So go ahead. I want you to take some slow deep breaths and our 22nd start right now.

(02:24): [inaudible]

(02:24): That's it. That's 20 seconds. And that is the beginning of our language and our connection with our creator with God himself is being still closing out everything around you for that minute. So you can be present with God himself. So today, Theresa, we're talking about how to speak God's language. And I think about my matey. I think about her learning French and English and how beautifully she speaks two languages. It makes me laugh because I say like, do you speak French? Do you speak German? Do you speak prayer? Prayer is actually God's language. We call it prayer. But that's the language through which we communicate with him. They said it to me.

(03:16): That's absolutely correct. Renee. I can remember when I first met the Lord and I was talking to a friend of mine who had been saved for many years and she had a vibrant prayer communication with God going. And I can remember saying to her, do you mean you talk out loud to God and in her gentle way, you know, she laughed, but she said, uh huh. And I sort of intuitively knew that boy, my course had been set on a path where I was going to deepen and grow in this relationship with Jesus Christ.

(03:56): So amazing. Isn't it. And what I find fascinating the same for Maitri Suh is that my prayer life has changed my command of the language. So to speak has changed over time. No different than my command of learning. French would change over time. May tease command of the English language changed over time. So when people think about talking to God and hearing from God, there is a journey that we transmit

(04:30): Absolutely in its in the pages of the Bible that we learn all about prayer. We learn what prayer is. We learn that God loves prayer. We learn that God wants our prayers to be fruit from. So we know that prayer has a purpose for us to accomplish that, which needs to be accomplished in the earth. And of course it's best led by the Holy spirit. But you know, simply put prayer is our communication line to God. It is the place where our relationship with him can take root and grow. It's also taking our place as his disciples here in the earth today to accomplish his will and plans in the earth. So just like Renee, in order for me T to develop her relationship with you and Patrick, she not only learned the English language, but then use that language to communicate and in doing so, she was able to foster forge and develop the beautiful relationship that all of you now enjoy. She also used that language to carry out the very purpose you hired her for to care and love Patrick, by feeding him, nurturing him, communicating with him while you were away from the,

(05:46): Yeah, it makes so much sense when we simplify things. Because I think in the beginning, I definitely complicated prayer. I wanted to do it. And if you think about again, learning a second language, it's the same thing. You take one step at a time. At the beginning, you, you have a small vocabulary, so to speak, you don't know a lot of words. You don't know how to complete, uh, a complete sentence. So that's why this episode is so important that I find so many of us get to this place of, okay. I believe that there's something bigger than myself. I believe there is God. And I believe he's a great father. I believe he had a son who came to earth, but I don't know how to talk to him. And even people have been around me a lot of years when I pray with them.

(06:44): It's like an aha moment. Oh, that's all we need to do. We just need to speak with him, speak his language. And his language starts very simply with taking that time to be with him. There's so much today in our chaotic world with the social media and the bombardment. And we talk about our younger generation, not knowing how to be still Theresa, not knowing how to be present with themselves, let alone with this big creator. So I think step one is get in a place where you can be free from distraction. Find a room, find a space. I know for me, I I'm an early riser. So it's really easy for me to get up early and not have my family all around. You have to make that, that space. I think to start don't you Teresa.

(07:39): I do. Some of us would say, that's my prayer closet, but it is important. It's important to make that time, push the distractions aside so that we can open the pages of our Bible and then begin to open our mouths and communicate what is on our heart to God almighty. You know, Jesus teaches just a few simple steps to follow when we pray and I'd love to share them with our audience today. You know, the first step that he talks about is that we, he asks us to pray in his name. You know? So what is that all about? Well, in the Bible, in the book of John chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, uh, Jesus's teaching, you know, and we have to understand he was the perfect representation of the father. And he was teaching his disciples that the beautiful works of goodness that he performed healing, the sick opening, the blind eyes teaching about the kingdom of God was at the direction of his father in under the authority of his father.

(08:47): So let's read what he says in verses 12 to 14. He says, very truly. I tell you, whoever in me will do the works I have been doing. And they will do even greater than these things because I go to the father and I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the father may be glorified in the son. You may ask me for anything in my name in high, we'll do it. So the first step we see here is when we pray Renee, we pray to the father in the name of Jesus in when we do all the authority and the power of God is transferred to our situation. When we pray in his name, then of course, according to his

(09:34): Well it's, sometimes it feels like a hard concept to understand. But if we remember that God, the father and God, the son, God had as we've talked in previous episodes. And let me just get in here right now, you need to go back to previous episodes because we're building on this foundation that we're laying. But God, Jesus is you're saying is, is in the flash. So it's God in the flesh going to God, the father and teaching us that we humans who are in the flash, our spirits are coated with these bones and skin need to pray like Jesus prayed. And he, he was, Jesus was the example to show us how to pray, which is what you're saying. And the words are written in the Bible on how to do it. So we don't have to be confused. We just have to do it, just do it right.

(10:41): That's absolutely correct. You know, I love when Jesus teaches and he wants to bring his principles home because he says again, then in the very next chapter, in the book of John chapter 15, verse seven, again, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, right? The Bible, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. Verse 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain again here. We see it, that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give you that is so powerful by what a powerful gift. We, as believers in Christ have been given that we can ask for what we need here on the earth. And it will be done for us by our father in heaven. And we can look at this and say, wow, do you lean as a believer? We can move heaven and earth through our words and through our prayers. You bet we can.

(11:44): Exactly. Oh my gosh. It reminds me too. When you start to begin to understand why you go to the it's because you then realize that it's through Jesus, that things happened and you give him the glory. So what is really happening here is when something comes to fruition that you've been praying for, you know, it can only be God and you give him the glory. And what is the purpose of that? The purpose of that is to be a testimony and a witness so that the rest of the people in your circle of influence, I call it the people closest, nearest, and dearest to you see the evidence of your prayer and God gets glory. And why did we want God to get glory? You, those around you then realize the power of God, the love of God and the relationship that we can all have with God, because God wants us all in relationship with him.

(12:50): So it's a, it's just a full circle situation, Theresa, Peter. And I call it the kiss of God where things become so evident that it can only be God. And God has us in these situations where we, we have no choice, right? We throw our hands up in our humanness and say, I cannot do this in my own strength. I need help. I need something bigger than me to come in and help me. We're generally so often when we start this journey on our knees, constantly weeping and crying for not having the answers until again, we begin to learn the language and we learned to go to God before we reach a desperate point. Not that we still don't, but that we get to this place where we know beyond know that the only way something happened in our life was because God intervened because we prayed. And it's the kiss of God we call it.

(13:55): That's absolutely right. Renee. I love that. You know, we can look again at the Bible, in the book of James, the fifth chapter, the 16th first, listen to what this says in the amplified version of the Bible. It says the heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous person, a believer can accomplish much when put into action and made effective by God. It is dynamic in can have tremendous power. Wow. The heartfelt in persistent prayer avails much power. And isn't that what we need in the earth today. There are so many situations and circumstances that come upon us that come upon our community, our environment, our country, the world at large, that are so much bigger than us in. It can really throw a person in despair. But when we, our focus onto the Lord and onto the one who is almighty and the one who is all loving the one who has all of the wisdom in the Palm of his hand, when we look to him and just utter a few simple words in prayer, he is right there to move on our behalf.

(15:11): It is a beautiful thing, Renee. And like what you say that when we ask and then we see circumstance change, that is the exact definition of the just shall live by faith. Not by sight in over and over again. We see God move on our behalf. And we know that we know that our creator loves us. Our creator has us in the Palm of his hand, in that all things are under his control. And here is how our relationship deepens. And our faith just goes to new Heights in that's what this Christian walk is really all about.

(15:51): So what we've just said is prayer is the way we communicate with God. It's the way we connect in a spiritual world. It's a spiritual language and it's there to accomplish the things that we can accomplish in our humanness. That's why we need a God. That's why we need a savior because we are finite. And this God is infinite. Clearly our finite ness, if that's even a word finiteness cannot possibly accomplish what an infinite, all knowing all powerful, all loving God can accomplish. So if we can connect with him, you know, I love my ache was BB equals secrecy. If we connect with him, then we can, or I should say, he can work through us. We can be this conduit, this electromagnetic field that gets the download from above and spews it out into planet earth, right? It's prayer. That does that

(17:03): Exactly right. And you know what you're referring to is God being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, he's all powerful, all knowing. And he's in all places at the same time. So we can rest assure that this amazing almighty God is on the job and wants to move on our behalf. That's the wonderful thing through the power of the Holy spirit. He wants to move on our behalf. Once we come to understand it and we can even sort of like test it out, you know, put our little toe in the water. And once we put our little toe in and we start with our first prayer and we see that he's a God of his word, that his word rests on the integrity, who he is, you know, I'm thinking right now, Renee, when I first learned that God was a healer and you know, my little boy at the time, Joseph must have been maybe four fell off the monkey bars in boy.

(18:02): He had a bump brewing on his head and I can remember thinking, boy, I learned that God was healer. I'm going to sort of put them to the test if you will. And I put my hand on his head and I prayed a very simple prayer saying, father, I know that you are healer. And I pray for this bump to dissipate in the name of Jesus. And you know, Renee, I lifted my hand off of his head in the bump was completely gone. So, you know, again, it was God showing up big saying, I am who I say I am in my word. Now, if you'll just put me to the test in a respectful manner, I want to show up and I want to show up big in your life. And really that's how my faith began to grow. I would see the promises in God's word. And then I would put action, put feet to my faith if you will. And he responds and he moves every time. Sometimes it's longer than we would like in our humanist. But I find in times where we're waiting on him, if you will, and we're being persistent in prayer, believing for a certain circumstance to move. If we will hold fast and steady to our faith, he is always faithful to his word.

(19:29): And we never know what he's trying to teach us in those spaces. So we do, we need to be patient and we need to trust. At the end of the day, we know that we are children of his and just like with our kids, we don't give them everything right away. Sometimes we make them work for things because we know what, what the, or wait for things because we know what it's going to teach them. So it's very important. Like you were saying, tree said that we pray in God's name, that we pray in the name of Jesus and there's something else. The word teaches us. We pray with Thanksgiving. This gratitude thing is so powerful. You know, a couple of years ago I began a new group, a new event that I was doing down in Florida. And there's a dear friend of mine lives in California, Jeffrey.

(20:24): And he is all about gratitude. He has made that the cornerstone of his life and his being about feet, hitting the ground in the morning and being grateful to God for what's in his life. And in fact, you can't call him up to have a conversation where he doesn't say to you, what's on your gratitude list. What's on your gratitude list. And it's Bible founded this idea of Thanksgiving because science even has now proven the, what happens in our physiological being when we focus, when we shift our focus on gratefulness and it's in the Bible as well, right?

(21:04): Theresa. Oh my goodness. When I was preparing for today, I was finding, and one of the things I love about preparing for our episode is that I further my faith by reading the word of God. And I thought, wow, every time we're commanded to pray or almost every time Thanksgiving attended to it, you know, so we can look at second Corinthians chapter two, verse 14. Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, in through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place. First Thessalonians five 16 through 18 rejoice, always pray without ceasing in everything. Give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. These are just a few, we're going to get into a few more. But yes, Renee, you know, I was also doing a little research online and, you know, I can back up what you were saying that the psychologist and the neurologists are finding that thankfulness actually activates chemical changes in the brain in such a positive way.

(22:10): One article went on to say an edit to it, of gratitude upgrades, your hormones from oxytocin to cortisol in your neurotransmitters, including dopamine and serotonin recent data suggests gratitude provides behavioral and psychological glue. Oxytocin is associating with promoting the glue that connects adults in meaningful relationships. Wow, not surprisingly gratitude increases blood fault and the activity in the hypothalamus, the master gland that controls hormones. Wow. In God, our creator knew this all along, but I love not only does gratitude provide physiological changes, but when we pray with Thanksgiving giving, thanks to God, it activates also our faith because we turn our focus and attention from the situation and circumstances we're praying for onto the one who loves perfectly and has the power and ability to bring the solutions and the wisdom to the very things we pray about. Isn't that amazing. You know, Renee, I can remember years ago, praying for a woman who needed a relationship with Christ.

(23:35): And I can remember after praying for that, God speaking to my heart and saying, because you prayed, I will answer. I was young in faith at the time. And I thought to myself, wow, you mean I can actually move the hand of the almighty creator through my prayers. It was such a revelation and really changed my life. And of course I was praying in alignment with his will because, because he wants all to be saved and come to the saving knowledge of his son. But it was the idea and the revelation that our prayers change circumstance in this earth, in this life.

(24:23): It just, it just makes so much sense. Again, simplifying things and trying not to overcomplicate this big, big, big, big God. That's so hard to understand. I love to stay in my place of simplicity because it makes it simple, right? What you're saying, Teresa, it, what came to mind for me was our children. Would we, you said like my prayer actually changed what this big God was going to do. How many times did our children come to us with a need or a concern? And we changed what we were going to do to, to put them at ease or accommodate their anxiety or whatever, but it's the same, but on a such a bigger scale. And, and the other thing that I wanted to mention was the attitude of gratitude is for everything. When you come to know God in a personal way, you understand that everything that happens in your life will work together for good.

(25:30): If I keep my eyes fixed on him. So when I got a kidney tumor, the right thing to do was to say, thank you for allowing this. You didn't cause this, but you allowed this Lord in my life, Theresa, what I learned, and I hear this from so many people who have been through even the most difficult situations in their life, what they learned from it, they wouldn't go back and change for anything, how my relationship with God grew during that time of the tumor in my kidney and the surgery. And my total dependence on him made a, you know, made a huge leap in my walk. I went to, uh, uh, I skipped like many levels like skipping grades in school. I went from, you know, grammar school to college, you know, right through high school because of the depth of what I learned and my closeness to the Lord in that difficult time. And so why, why would I be grateful for that tumor? Why wouldn't I say, thank you, Lord, because whatever, this is your going to turn it for, good, your going to make all things right? Because your word says you will.

(26:44): Yes, that's exactly correct. Renee. You know, there's even of course, a scripture to undergird what you're saying, Romans eight 28. And we know with great confidence that God who is deeply concerned about us causes all things to work together is a plan for good, for those who love God to those who are called according to his plan and purpose. So absolutely this is such an anchor scripture in my heart. All things work together for those who love God. So when I'm in a difficult situation, I put my prayer out there and then I couch it, if you will, or I frame it with a few things and that's one of the scriptures I love because, you know, I say, father, I just thank you in the name of Jesus that you are working this situation out together for my good. And I have some other framing scriptures that I love Hebrews 10 23. And in father, I thank you. You who, who make these promises? You are faithful. My Isaiah 53 11, you're watching over your word to perform it. Father, it's not returning to you void. So his, I am confessing God's word. It's not necessarily for God. That is his word. He knows his word, but it's to continually bathe my soul in the knowledge that God's word is true and he will move on my behalf.

(28:11): Wow. So to sum up this episode, we talked about the fact, the absolute fact that God has his own language and that we need to speak his language in order to communicate. And communication is speaking, listening, hearing all of that. And we do this to accomplish things. We do this to accomplish the supernatural here on planet earth so that we, as human beings with finite minds can actually accomplish super human things. So we'd talk about the superheroes. We are superheroes when we communicate with God and allow him to work through us. And we also communicate with him so that we can hear from him and be led by him so that we know that we are executing the plan he has for our lives

(29:17): Yesterday. So, you know, I feel in my heart, I would love to pray for our listeners today from Philippians chapter four, verses six and seven. I'd like to put the prayer out there for them, but also just as a demonstration for those who are like, okay, I don't know. Can you, can you show me what exactly you're talking about? So father, God, I am just so grateful for all those who tune in to this podcast. Father. I'm so grateful that you have a plan and purpose for their lives here on the earth. I am so grateful, father God, according to your word in Philippians four, six, and seven. And I just pray that they are anxious or worried about nothing Lord, but in everything, in every circumstance and situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, that they would continue to make their specific requests known to you father.

(30:13): And I thank you, Lord, that when they do your peace, the peace of God, the peace that reassures the heart, they have peace, which transcends all understanding. They guards over their hearts and minds in Christ. Jesus. That piece would be theirs in the name of Jesus. Now father help us all to pray on those things, Lord, that are good in lovely and pure and a good report. Father, if there's anything noble in praise worthy, father help us keep our mind fixed on those things, which is you and your word and father. I give you praise. I give you a Thanksgiving today in the name of Jesus and man, that was perfect Theresa. And that's what we call praying the scriptures. So Theresa talk to God, but use the words in his Bible to speak back to him. We are

(31:13): Talk more about this next week. And in fact, this very evening, those of you that are part of the well-versed woman community and that's available to every listener. So just search the well-versed woman Facebook page, and you can be right in the community with us every day with us answering any questions you may have. But tonight we are actually going to have a prayer meeting and pray with members of this community and then share it as an episode with everyone out there. So it will be exactly what Theresa just did and more, very specific how we do pray. So that was just incredible and awesome. Theresa, thank you. We close with making sure you subscribe to this. And if you go further and rate and review this podcast, we still have some well-versed woman journals laughed and we will send you a free, well, first woman journal just for rating and reviewing us. We want to get your reviews. We want to get your comments. We want to know how we can better serve you through this podcast. So don't forget to do that. We will see you next time. Right after we recite the well-versed woman signature Theresa

(32:40): That's right. Renee, Romans 10 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Amen. Amen. Bye. Now.