31 Days of 5-Minute Free-Writes

Day 16: Pray

Elisabeth Elliott said, “Practice the pause. When in doubt, pause. When angry, pause. When tired, pause. When stressed, pause. And when you pause, pray.”

Welcome to Day 16 of my baby-book shower for Reflections of a Mother’s Heart. We are in the second half of the month already. Can you believe it?

Practice Prayer

Doctors practice medicine; attorneys practice law. Although we use the term practice to define their chosen occupation, no one will deny that these men and women are professionals at what they do.

Can you imagine the impact on the lives of our loved ones, our communities, our readers, and our world, if we practiced prayer in the same sense, and with the same dedication, that doctors and lawyers pursue their practice?

Our stories are valid because our souls are important to the Father. But our stories alone cannot change the world, not in an eternal sense. Only God’s Story has that power. This is why we who know the Lord need to tell others what great things He has done for us, to exalt His name and give Him the honor due to Him.

And we need to bathe those stories, and their readers, in much fervent prayer.

• Practice prayer as you live your story, that God will transform you into the image of His dear Son.
• Practice prayer as you write your story, that God will get the glory, both in the content and in the presentation.
• Practice prayer as you promote your story, that God will prepare the hearts of those who could be encouraged by your story, and that He will open the door for them to “find” your book.
• Practice prayer as you publish your story, that God will bless it and will put it into the right hands at the right time.

Is it appropriate to pray for great sales, and that your book land on the best-sellers’ list? I don’t see why not. The laborer is worthy of his hire; and it certainly is not wrong to receive recognition for a job well-done. But if your only motivation is measured in money, then you might want to rethink why you are telling your story in the first place.

At every stage, all along the way, pray. The apostle Paul summed it up nicely in the first letter to the Thessalonians (5:17):

Pray without ceasing.

Kate Motaung, host of Five-Minute Friday, has challenged us to 31 Days of Five-Minute Free Writes, in which we will explore the telling of our story. This isn’t the first such challenge of hers, but it is the first for me. Thank you for sharing it with me.

For a list of links to all my posts for this challenge, click here.

¹Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, part of the Deluxe Library Version 8.1 of StudyLamp Software: Broken Arrow, OK, 1995-2017.