5 Resources to Enrich Your Prayer Life

If you and I sit over coffee and I invite you into a conversation about prayer, how would you respond? Would you feel anxious, guilty, excited, or just plain curious?

Oh, I hope you’d be excited to talk about what the Lord is showing you in prayer, and to hear all that He’s doing in and through my prayer life.We have His ear. The Lord of all creation is attentive to those who know Him, eager to hear our voice. He’s moved by our cries to Him. This is astounding.

But I’ve had quite a few women confide in me that their prayer lives aren’t what they want them to be– due to lack of sleep, season of life, etc.

So, in a video I shared a few ideas and tools you can employ to intentionally cultivate a faithful prayer life. Today, I want to share five resources that I use daily in my times of prayer, in addition to the system I shared in the video. My hope is to further equip you to become a woman who prays more and more.

Here’s the honest to goodness truth: if you and I don’t work to cultivate our prayer life, we’ll be in the same spot over and over again, lamenting that it’s not what we want it to be.

I expect that next year, you and I could come to each other with more ideas, because the Lord has us both on a journey. And, as it always is on our journeys with the Lord, He brings new people and new experiences our way.  So, remember that as you see what helps me, you don’t need to do the exact same thing or buy all the resources right now. We move along one step at a time. Maybe you can choose one thing that you can implement and add others as you go.

So without further ado, here are my current favorite resources that help keep me focused in prayer and in deepening my love for the Lord.

1. The Bible! – The best guide to prayer is the Word itself. Breathing in God’s Word and then speaking it back to Him is powerful (Hebrews 4:12). The Word is full of prayer points for us. For regular reading, I use the ESV, and for study, I love my beat old beat up Key Word Study Bible (NASB). I love to read out loud and converse with the Lord about what I read. I ask Him questions and ask Him to do what I see in His Word. It’s amazing how the Word can convict us, leading to confession and repentance, cause praise, adoration, and thanksgiving to arise, while also giving us very specific words to ask of the Lord.

I’m reading through the Bible chronologically, and I’ve recently begun   listening to Crossway’s Daily Office Lectionary. You can have the plan emailed to you or you can subscribe to the podcast. This summer however, I put aside the chronological plan to join thousands of other women  participating in the Summer 2019 Bible Reading Challenge. Join us! It’s already been deeply encouraging.

2. Sara Hagerty’s Adoration printables – Hands down, the daily habit of adoration has been what has most transformed my prayer life over the last decade. Each month, I print a 5×7 version, cut it out, and glue it into my journal. It doesn’t matter how I feel or what the current circumstances of life are, I do my best to do it. And though in the moment it may not feel as if it’s accomplishing anything, a decade later, I can tell you that not one moment of adoration has been time wasted. Jesus is worth every look from my eyes, whether short glances or long gazes. And, every moment spent does deepen my love for Him.

3. Praying the Scriptures for Your Children by Jodie Berndt – This is a newer to me resource, and I love it. I think there are many ways you can use this book to pray for your children and their future spouses (and other people and their children!). There are chapters about the topic of prayer, and at the end of each chapter is roughly two pages of specific Scriptures to pray.

It has helped me to have specific, pre-planned topics and areas of life to pray over my kids. I was moved to tears recently as I prayed for my two-year old over the reality that our prayers last for eternity. We may not see fruit from our labor in prayer right now, but for the future joy set before us, we can persevere in prayer. Who knows how and when He may answer us? Isn’t that an awe-inspiring, prayer-provoking thought?

4. The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie O’Martian – This is an oldie, but a goodie. And, again, how you use it can vary! God created us women to be life-givers, and so much life is birthed through prayer. One of the best ways we can help our husbands is to be faithful in prayer—not just for him, but for our own hearts, too. I appreciate that Stormie encourages women to remember to examine our own heart and to ask the Lord to work in us.

5. Monthly Persecution Prayer Calendar – We have brothers and sisters in all areas of the world, and many are suffering in ways we never will. It’s astounding that we have the ability to know how believers in areas hostile to the Gospel are doing, and that we can go before the Lord on their behalf. I want to be faithful for their sake, and one day, when we meet face to face in heaven, hear their testimonies.

These tools help me to purposely go before the Lord on behalf of others. I want to be a woman of prayer, increasingly. What I’ve found over the years is that the more time I spend in prayer, the more I want to pray. It’s the place we get to know our Lord and our Father. It’s a powerful place. A comforting place. A restful place. I pray that as you and I continue to seek Him, we will love Him more and more.

I’d love to hear what tools you find helpful!