When Women Pray | EP 134

Welcome to another episode of iRefresh. And today I have with me Keri Kittinger, Veronica Scott, and I'm Cheryl Clare. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. What a joy to be together today, ladies. I agree. It's always wonderful. When I think of prayer, Cheryl, I often think of you just because of the ministry of prayer that you've had for how many years now? How many years now? That's about 17 years. Yes. Yeah. And Veronica, you as well. And just getting to partner with you ladies in prayer is just always such a joy and an honor. And one thing about prayer is I always leave refreshed. When somebody has taken the time to pray for me or I've taken the time to pour out my heart to the Lord in prayer, there's a refreshment that comes. Do you all feel that in prayer? I agree. I agree. Yes. Yes. And it's unique. It's not something that you get often. So when someone takes the time to pray for you or with you, that's just a gift. Absolutely. Absolutely. And sometimes, you know, prayer is talking things out with the Lord. And you know how sometimes you just have to get something off your chest, right? Yes. And I think... I think sometimes we can make it this mysterious thing, but it's really a lot of it is talking to the Lord and getting things off of our chest. I thought about David and think about how he was he was shepherding sheep and out by himself often. And so you wonder if it was more like a conversation, if there would be times of. intercession, if there would be times of just delight and seeing the stars or whatever, times of conversation. I don't know. Well, because, you know, with him writing all the Psalms that he did, did he sing to God? Absolutely. Right? Right. I believe based on the way the words are described that he did, but I'm wondering if it was he was talking and all of a sudden it translated into... A song. Right. Absolutely. Because a song can be a prayer. I was thinking in going through some scriptures over prayer, Mary's song in the Bible that we have, Deborah's song and Hannah's song. And really, when you read those, it is like this delight in answered prayer and almost this thanksgiving that came forth in song. But it's so even prayer can be giving thanks to the Lord. Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. And a very important part of it. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Giving thanks to the Lord for all that he has done. And it's such an important part of it. And I agree with you. I think of the Psalms when I think about David and his walk with the Lord. Yes. And you read through the Psalms and it does sound more like conversation, like he's sharing with the Lord in a two-way conversation, which I think a lot of times we don't realize that's what prayer is. And sometimes even in the Psalms, hearing some things that David prayed, it's like, wow, you feel comfortable. Very real. Very real. Exactly. And so there's an intimacy there where we can just go, hey, Lord, you already know my heart. Yes. You know what's in there. You know my thoughts before I even do. So I like how prayer doesn't have to be calculated or even... oh, I need to be careful with my words. Of course, we want to honor the Lord with our words, but there are just times that you've got to just get it out. I agree. You know, I think that authenticity, I feel like when you read certain things about David, I love when you can quote him because he's like, you know, like God's going to strike my enemy out. And I'm like, it gives you permission to be real with God because he already knows our hearts. Yes. And so when you realize that David was a man who you saw all gamuts from joyful and rejoicing to the great sorrow in the air which they would go through, right? And then being hunted down and felt like so much was against him that you hear all those. It gives you allowance, I feel like, if you didn't do it before, is that it gives you permission to say, I can be real with God. Yes. And he knows my heart, and he's not going to condemn me, but he welcomes the conversation. Absolutely. I know there's a psalm, I'm not sure on the exact reference, but where he says three times, David does, how long, oh Lord. Yes. How long, oh Lord. Have you ever felt that way? Oh, absolutely. In prayer when you feel like a broken record in some of the requests or some of the things, and you're like, Lord, how long is it going to be? But he's never early. He's never late. He's always on time. That's a good point. And the interesting thing about that is he's on his time. Absolutely. Not our time. Absolutely. And so sometimes we feel like, Lord, where are you? Because we're looking at our time. And to get the focus off of our time and trust that his timing is perfect is the key in it. And growing up in the church, it was so relieving to realize I didn't have to know the whole Bible to be able to pray. I didn't have to go to, you know, theology school before I was able to enter into the presence of the Lord. I could just have, like you said, a conversation with him. I could talk to him and he hears me. His word says if I call on him, he'll answer me and he'll show me those great and mighty things that I do not know. Jeremiah 33.3. And someone told me one time, that's God's phone number. Oh, I love that. Call to me. That's right. Call home, right? You think when you send your kids off to college, it's like, call home. Exactly. And you don't mind. Sometimes they're calling to ask for something. Sometimes they're calling for help. Sometimes they're calling because they're lonely and they just want to hear your voice, right? So you're never put out when your kids call you. Absolutely. And I believe that's what the Lord meant in Jeremiah 33.3. Call home. Oh, what a great idea. You're exactly right. And I like the part where you said, you know, sometimes we just call because we just want to have a conversation. Absolutely. It's not that we're bringing a list of needs. We just want to acknowledge who he is and his greatness. Yes. And that's part of it. Well, you're welcoming the Lord into those conversations. Good. And you're thinking, there's times when I'm contemplating something and you're really needing direction on how to proceed with something in your life, whether it's with work, just personal thing with family, is what is God's outlook on that? Because he's all wisdom, all understanding. And so a lot of times I think it's great when you can just pause and invite him into the situation and he already knows what's going on, but it's like, okay, Lord, how should I see it from your end? Or I know I'm not, probably I'm doing more reacting. And so I'm asking the Lord to help me now to get out. Because you talk about feelings, Veronica. I thought that was so important that we need to decipher the difference between feeling and the fact. of knowing, just like you said, Carrie, but you know, with the Word, the Scripture, it's so helpful to know the Scripture. I can still pray whether I know the exact Scripture, even though I can open my Bible and pray His Word out. But I think it's so helpful for us, too, to know that we can call on Him for wisdom and invite Him like... Help me to see through your eyes. When I don't rest with my moods or my feelings are not probably godly. Right. To step back, Lauren, and help me to see what is it that you see that I'm not seeing. Yes. Yes. That's really good. And it's also helpful to ask him for understanding. Because a lot of times we don't understand. And it's okay to say to him, help me to understand this situation. I want to see it through your eyes. Yes. Not just my eyes. That's so good. Yeah. It's interesting because in the Old Testament, I'm thinking like with Daniel, he starts his prayer off by announcing the bigness of God, the greatness of God. You're the creator God, the one who made the heavens and the earth and you know the stars. And then he gets into his request. And I wonder if that's almost him putting his mind on the bigness, the wisdom, as you're saying, to just say like, to remind ourselves out loud, God, you are all powerful. You are the creator and somehow the creator God listens to our prayers. And so even to remind ourselves of that, it is okay to just open our mouths and just ask something directly. But every once in a while, I like to just remind myself out loud how big God is as I then begin to ask for my request. Because then my requests almost seem not insignificant, but in comparison to how big he is, then I go, oh, you can handle this. It's new perspective. Absolutely. And it reminds me of Job. You know, how did Job, how did the Lord answer Job? I was just thinking that, Veronica. That's so good. Yeah. He, you know, went to Job and reminded Job who he was in response to Job's crying out. Yes. And I think that's such a valid point. If we enter into prayer with acknowledging the greatness of God. Yes. The bigness of God itself. Like you said, it puts your needs in perspective. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'm thinking of how the basics here, not just the basics as in small, but the basics as in let me remind myself of who I am and who Jesus is. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. So let's talk about Jesus for a minute. Right. Okay. How Jesus prayed. Jesus prayed. Not only did he teach his disciples to pray, he modeled prayer. It says in Mark 1 35, that very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place. where he prayed. Ladies, what does that look like for you in the morning? I'm just wondering, I know as being a mom with kids, I didn't necessarily say, this is how you pray. But I hope they saw me model that. And that's what people saw Jesus modeling. Somehow, Mark knew very early in the morning. Which is key for those who probably don't like early mornings or your morning is so taken by, depending on the season of your life. Exactly. is sometimes it is that unending, you're praying as you go. Right. You can, the very first thing when your feet, you know, hit the floor, it is you can give praise. Yes, absolutely. But I think it's that continual that we saw, and we talked about it, is about how Jesus was praying. We see that he always was in our attitude. Absolutely. And I think that that's, early in the morning for me personally, is I go to my coffee bar. It is coffee with Jesus, for sure, because there's something about that first sip of coffee with my Bible and inviting the Lord into that. Because even this morning, I think it was after I was reading it, I paused, like, you know what, Lord? I didn't have a conversation. I just went into reading it, and I didn't ask your Holy Spirit to make sure that when I'm reading something, that you give me understanding of the Word. So I paused at that end. I'm like, okay. Lord, what else do you want me to learn as I'm, you know, continually to read your word? And that's just, that's my morning of when he will give me revelation where I understand a scripture or a passage of area. I get so excited about, like, he allowed me to understand it. It's so good. That is very good. And I really like the way that you said, depending on your season of life, because you may be in that season where your mornings are crazy. And so it's, you know, getting up earlier is not an option. But then, like you said, you can praise him in the midst. Absolutely. You can enter into conversation driving down the street. You know, whatever you're doing, loading the dishwasher, you can pray. You can talk to the Lord. And so there are times throughout your day that you can enter prayer into them. Yes. And like he says in the word, pray continually. That's an example of just because our days are, you know, revolving around raising families. We still have time to pray and we can find time. Well, engage the family. And that's a good point. I used to drive my kids to school. It was part of the routine of going to school. Absolutely. It was the conversation. And then we all took turns of praying for the day. And then there was a neighbor we would drive by their house. We'd always recognize that. And we knew that the husband needed salvation. So we prayed for his salvation. And I thought, you know, what we can do, it's a long, God wants us to be in a continual attitude of engaging with him. throughout our day, no matter how busy it is. You're so right, Cheryl. And I love the way that what you just explained was what you were saying earlier, Carrie. It's modeling prayer. Yes. With your children in the car, on the walk, whatever you're doing. And then, you know, raising your children in a house where they hear prayer. Yes. Makes prayer less intimidating. And there's so many people that are adults that will say, oh, I can't pray out loud. Somebody might hear me. Oh, true. And if you, you know, children are raised in a house of prayer, then it's very normal. Yes. And that's part of that modeling, just experience. I remember just the contagiousness of seeing somebody who is a woman of prayer, a man of prayer. And to be able to say how the disciples said, Jesus, teach me how to pray. But we can go to people who maybe we see that anointing on them as a person of prayer to say, how does that work for you? Teach me a little bit about prayer. And I remember early... In my probably late 20s, early 30s, I just saw these women ahead of me that were really powerful women of prayer. And they were women, human just like me. I didn't have them on a pedestal, but there was a difference about them. There was more peace. They knew where to go in times of need. They knew to go on their knees before the Lord in prayer. And so I actually said, can I come and learn from you? And they invited me to their prayer group. And that was a time that I learned how to pray out loud more because the woman who was leading it, she would just say, okay, Carrie, I want you to pray such and such. And she would put me on the spot, but I gave her permission and it was in the comfort of somebody's home. There were maybe five or six of us together. So it wasn't on a microphone or from a stage, but I learned how to get comfortable praying out loud. And I hope people hearing our voice today or seeing us today, if you want to grow in prayer, get with somebody who is ahead of you in that and ask them to teach you. Get in their home with them. Get in their prayer closet with them and learn how to pray. That's so good. Amen. I agree. And what an opportunity to find somebody that you respect the way they pray, to just reach out to them and say, can I just come alongside you? Yes. Can I learn from you? There's people around us everywhere in our world, whether we're someone at the job, someone that we go to church with, someone in the family. But if you find somebody that you, like you said, acknowledge that you're, piece that they carry, that's such a great idea to just ask them, can I just walk alongside you and learn from you? Absolutely. Because sometimes I think when we grow up doing it, we don't realize what a gift we have. And so until someone else recognizes it, right. And then when they ask for permission, then it's kind of like, wow, you know, I need to be more purposeful in how I do this. That's great. And respecting and understanding it. Absolutely. Veronica, that's so true because, you know, you had a legacy of praying family member that you got to watch. Like you said, modeling it too is when you have that example, some people may not have that. But the one thing that we can go to is Jesus actually gave us that multiple examples. He had one example, right? But we also, there's others, Paul's prayers as well. We have multiple examples where you can begin to start with. You are so right. And I love, as we have talked about before, the Lord's Prayer. You know, when the disciples asked Jesus, teach us how to pray, he went to the Lord's Prayer. What a great place to start. Now, that doesn't mean that that's the only way to pray. Right. But it's a great place to start. It is a great place to start. And I love the very beginning there in the Lord's Prayer. It is our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. So Jesus, in teaching the disciples how to pray, was saying it's all about the Father. And he is our Father. Jesus made the way for us to be family. So I was thinking about when we have a baby and we're just waiting for them to say a word. We're waiting for them. And typically one of the first words is mama or dada. And so even here as he's teaching the disciples how to pray, pray to the father. He's your dad. He's your heavenly father. You know, in other places in scripture, you know, he gave us the spirit inside of us. We can say Abba father. And that actually means daddy. That's a term of endearment, Abba, Daddy, that we get to come before him as a beloved daughter, a beloved son to a heavenly father that wants to hear us. And so I love how Jesus started that. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. And then your kingdom come. So really, before the needs even start, again, glorifying the Father and then saying, hey, Lord, it's about your kingdom because your ways are higher. Your timing, as we talked about earlier, is better. So your kingdom, your timing, your way be done. And then as we get into the requests, again, we've glorified him. And then we can say, okay, our daily bread. And, you know, I don't think at any given moment that you have to go through all the legalities of everything in that Lord's Prayer. For those who, like, you're like, I don't have time to go through every aspect of it. It is an example that you work with that, like, it's gratitude. It's making your request be known. It's acknowledging who God is, his character. So that's right. To me, I also believe that when we acknowledge who God is, it actually builds my faith up. Yeah, because when I realized that he is, you know, recently my husband and I, when we went on a cruise, I just looked at the vastness of the ocean. There's something about it that's like, my God created all that. It was so, I don't know why, just so, I've seen a lot of oceans and waters before, but when you're right there on the ocean, you're like, That's who my father is. Yes, right. And it just gave me such a deeper just appreciation. That was those prayers of I'm grateful, but I was so humbled to know that's how mighty my God is. Yes. Which gives you then the faith when you want to begin to pray for things too. And in the Lord's Prayer, he talks about, you know, forgiveness. And I thought... Often, Jesus even said, pray for your enemies. So it puts it into perspective that our prayers are not just all about us, but also people that maybe we're struggling with, relationships that we're struggling with. Lord, if there's any unforgiveness, and then blessing those people. And in so doing, again, it's a way of refreshment when we actually pray for our enemies. And I even hate to use that word enemies, but that's what the Bible says. Absolutely. Or even the ones, often when I'm praying, the Lord will remind me maybe of somebody that I need to ask their forgiveness. Maybe I've offended them. And because in prayer, not only do we... get to cast our cares on the Lord, but we invite him in because we don't want anything clogging the pipes type of thing, right? Unforgiveness or offense, right? Because really, we've been forgiven so much and that heart of gratitude, but then to realize, oh, I need to forgive those that have sinned against me as well. Right. And I like that, what you said, Carrie, about forgiveness. It's such a great example of how to pray through forgiveness. Sometimes we may not feel like forgiving. That's so true. That's so true. But the prayer is what releases. And like you said, you feel better. You feel that the release of that, what you're holding on to, is unforgiveness. You may not even recognize it until you enter into that prayer of praying for those that have offended you or that you have ought with, something that happened. And you just, every time you see that person, that stirs it back up to just say, you know what, Lord, I don't really feel like forgiving them. I feel completely justified, which is not saying we're not justified. He's saying we need to pray for them and release that. And really when we're doing that, then we're trusting the Lord to work on their heart. We're trusting the Lord and we're just saying, God, you see it all. You know how when you're hearing two sides or you're hearing one side of the argument and then you hear the other side and you're like, oh. And so he sees it all. Good point. We see like what, through a glass dimly, right? He sees it, there's no dimness with him. He sees it all. And so when we can trust his heart, for us and then for others. Yes. It's just beautiful. It's freedom though, right? Well, that's what I was going to say. Don't you notice that once you get finished with that prayer, don't you feel better? You feel that release of that unforgiveness that you really didn't recognize when you were holding on to it. Yes. But once you ask for the Lord to forgive me for any unforgiveness in my heart, like you said, I don't want anything between you and me. So let's clean this pipe out. Yes. Yes. You just feel that release and you feel so much better. Yes. No, there are times that you won't feel it. Exactly. And, you know, there's a time where I remember some things happen and I'm like, I have been wrong. And you know what? You know, it's like, it's not good when friends will like get on that soapbox with you. Yeah. You're right. You're right, Cheryl. Yeah. Yeah. It's like this delayed repenting, you know, because I don't really have the right attitude. The Lord's wanting me to release and forgive them. And I remember in this situation, it just seemed like I did this over. Every time that person came to mind, I'm like, I could feel myself rise up like, okay, justifiable to be angry. Okay. And I'm like, well, that goes against the scripture about, you know, being angry but do not sin. And so I don't know how many times I had to release. I would release it by every time, forgive, release, forgive, release. And every time I started thinking about it, forgive, release. And it was weeks. It might have been months. And then I'm like, I felt like, okay, I'm like, okay. That's over with. And then something happened. I'm like, oh, we're back to forgive and release again. And I'm like, Lord, what is wrong with me? But, I mean, the fact is something is happening in the supernatural, that we are literally shifting and changing the atmosphere, and we're allowing God to work in both of our hearts. So I don't want to hinder anybody. And the same thing, I don't want anybody to be hindering me and walk with the Lord. So I feel like that significance of us being so quickly offended these days is, Lord, let us be quick to release. And I'm like, Lord, I'm just going to give them the benefit of the doubt. They may not have known that they hurt me, but I'm going to forgive. Good. In faith. Yes. Yes. And not on how I feel. Right. I believe that, God, you will take care of both of us. That's such a good point. What does it mean to you girls when it says, sin not? Forgive, but sin not. Because, you know, what does that look like? You know, holding on to that unforgiveness is actually sin because the word tells us that we are to forgive the others as we have asked the Lord to forgive us. Yes. And so it's a two play. Yes. And I think that's a lot of it, too, is that when we're in the midst of it, we may not realize that the fact that we have not walked in forgiveness is a sin in the eyes of the Lord. Because He knows that we could never... Make it to heaven. We could never get rid of the sin in our lives without him. So he has forgiven us so much. I always think the foot of the cross is a level place. Even you go, oh, well, this sin's here. I know. Oh, and mine's just here. Or, oh, that one's here. There's not one of us. Yeah, that does not need forgiveness at one time or another. There's not one of us that can be right before the father without the shed blood of Jesus. And so there is that even place. I think of Jesus on the cross with the thief that was justifiably up there on the cross, right? Jesus was not, but he was able to say, you'll be with me today. Yeah. in paradise because of his humility to say, you don't deserve this. I do. Good point. Will you forgive me? And so that whole thing of us going, I mean, we're not the ones that were hanging there or made Jesus hang on the cross, but just those people as well are forgiven when they ask for forgiveness. There's a level place at the foot of the cross. I agree. Mm-hmm. Okay, the Lord's Prayer, we've talked about that. It was interesting to me right after reading how Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray. He goes right into this parable, right into the story about this persistent neighbor knocking on the door asking for bread. Right? Asking. And Jesus talked about ask God. seek and knock. And so we can feel like that broken record, but Jesus gives us permission to do that in this parable. And that was part of teaching the disciples. He gave them the Lord's prayer, but then he also said, be persistent in prayer. Ask, seek, knock. Now I'm not an English major, but I've heard it said that these verbs... In that parable, we're a continual action. It's not ask one time, seek one time, knock one time. It is continual. There's always something. God is so much bigger than we are. He has so many gifts for us. And so it is... We can just ask at all times of him, and he's gracious to hear us, and he's gracious to answer us. Maybe not exactly how we want, but we always receive when we ask and we seek and we not. What do you all think about that? I think that is such a good point because so many times in prayer, we think that if we've asked and we don't see an answer, he didn't hear us or he doesn't love us, doesn't want to answer. Doesn't care. doesn't care. Right. There's so many reasons, but that scripture right there, that parable teaches us that he tells us right from the beginning. Sometimes you're not going to get your answer the first time you ask, the first time you knock. So he's giving us, like you said, permission to be persistent. Yes. And there's so many different stories in the Bible of persistent people that were blessed. Right. They received what they wanted from Jesus when they were persistent. Yes. You know, that's really good. And, you know, even as we're coming to conclusion on this particular segment, we are going to be talking all things about prayer. And this is the beginning of teaching you. If you haven't learned that or something you want to share, we'd love to hear your experiences as well with us. And you can connect with us at iRefresh.net. But we're going to continue this segment on prayer. So stay tuned.