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For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Meghan Ryan:
Welcome back to The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I am your host, Meghan Ryan, and if you're joining us on YouTube, we are excited you're here. If you're just tuning in, we are in the middle of a four-part prayer series. In our last episode, which was Episode 1, we talked about ways that we can complicate prayer, and there are actually ways we can uncomplicate it. And so, today is Episode 2. If you missed Episode 1, make sure you go back and listen. But I'm going to welcome my friends back. I'm here with Shae Hill. Shae?
Shae Hill:
Hello, Meghan.
Meghan Ryan:
Tell us what you do at Proverbs 31.
Shae Hill:
I am the Content Manager for Lysa TerKeurst at Proverbs 31 Ministries.
Meghan Ryan:
Well, welcome. We're glad you're here.
Shae Hill:
Thanks. I'm happy to be here.
Meghan Ryan:
And then, Ashley Jackson.
Ashley Jackson:
Hi.
Meghan Ryan:
What do you do at Proverbs?
Ashley Jackson:
I am the Senior Social Media Coordinator. So, all the social media things.
Meghan Ryan:
We love it.
Shae Hill:
We love that.
Meghan Ryan:
That's amazing. Yes. Ashley is actually going to be giving us our teaching today. And I'm excited to hear from you because I know you in real life, and when I need prayer for something, you are somebody I immediately want to text and say, "Please pray for me," because I know that it's something that you have a lot of experience with. And so, I'm going to just go ahead and hand it over to you to teach us about prayer.
Ashley Jackson:
All right, great. Well, I am very passionate about prayer. So, I'm probably going to get really excited talking about this, so we'll just go with that.
Shae Hill:
Yes.
Meghan Ryan:
I'm ready for it.
Shae Hill:
Don't worry. That's amazing.
Ashley Jackson:
The most basic definition of prayer is simply talking to God. I think, sometimes we want to overcomplicate it. And, of course, there's the holiness of God and all those things, but if we think about who we talk to in our everyday lives, there's different levels of relationships that we have with people and who we talk to. So, if we go to the coffee shop, we're talking to the barista. And we might talk to our co-worker at work, or we're talking to our neighbor as we get our mail, and those are brief, in-passing conversations. But then, you have your deep conversations. And if you're married, that might be your spouse. If you're not married, maybe that's a best friend, or even maybe your mom or your dad. And these are our closest friends, and we trust them. They're the people that we can be ourselves with, and they are the ones that we're going to go to when we're in trouble.
So, the thing that we need to know about different relationships is that we have different access to different people because of the depth of that relationship, and these deep relationships do not happen overnight. They are developed over time, and we don't have the same expectation that we would for a barista as we would for our best friend or for our spouse because the level of relationship is different. So, we would also not think of, "I have to talk to my best friend in order to check off a box." We get to talk to our best friend. We're excited to talk to our best friend; it's a privilege to talk to them and really tell them everything that's going on in our lives because we trust them, because we know that they care about us. And it's because of the consistency in one another's lives that it's a privilege. And this is the kind of relationship that God wants us to have with Him.
It's a relationship where we talk to Him about anything and all the things that are on our hearts every single day as often as possible. So, for me, my prayer journey started when I was 14 years old. And, if I'm honest ... let me tell you how it actually started. I had a big crush on a guy.
Meghan Ryan:
I relate.
Ashley Jackson:
And so, I started prayer journaling. And I would just write in there about how cute he was, but I was talking to the Lord, He's so cute. I'm pretty sure we should get married, and You should make it happen. I was 14. I didn't know what I was saying, but it was a way I feel like the Lord established that relationship of talking to Him about literally anything. And, throughout the years, I have all these prayer journals now stored in my garage. I don't even know.
One day, we went through them, and my husband was like, "Seriously, maybe you should get rid of those." But I can't —
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
— because it's a record of your relationship. And there was times when I had a lot to say, and I would journal pages and pages. And then, there would be a paragraph, and I didn't have a lot to say. Or there are pages stained with tears or scribbles from scratching things out because I was so frustrated —
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
— and times when I couldn't tell the Lord as much as possible that I was so thankful for the things that He had done in my life. And the prayers that I got to see Him answer, I would look back on a week or two and think, Wow. He's listening. He cares about those things. And this is the beauty of a relationship with God, and I think prayer is the way we cultivate that relationship, and we grow and we learn to trust Him.
And He is the one that has seen every high and every low of mine, even more than my husband or my best friend. They're all those things. He's literally been with us in every single moment, and this is prayer. And I don't know about you guys, but I want to have a vibrant, powerful prayer life where I'm seeing things happen in my life that I know that if God was not intervening in this situation, it would not be possible, where it's so clear it's Him that's doing this and not me. So, that begs the question: How do we get this powerful prayer life? And what does Scripture teach us about it? Doesn't God know everything? So, why should we have to pray about anything at all? But I love this quote by A.W. Tozer, and he said, "God waits to be wanted."
Meghan Ryan:
Wow.
Ashley Jackson:
And I think that's so interesting and good to think about that. Sometimes we think God is indifferent to the little things in our life, and I don't think He is. I think He really cares about the things that concern us. And sometimes we think we only pray about the big, miraculous healings, which of course are great, and we do want to pray about those things. But sometimes I just really need Him to know that my feelings are hurt.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah.
Shae Hill:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
Would You just encourage me and care for me in this moment? And so, to invite Him into every aspect of our lives. And there are actually 51, if not more, Scriptures that tell us to ask, which I think is so exciting because why would God bother to tell us to ask so many times if He didn't really mean it? And I know there's been so many times when I feel disappointed because God has not answered the prayer the way that I wanted Him to, and sometimes we start basing what we pray about on our past experiences.
And I know we're going to really get into that some more about when prayer is disappointing. But the way I want to look at prayer is, I'm going to pray according to God's ability, and according to Ephesians 3:20, it says that He can do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ask, think or imagine. And, girls, I can ask, think and imagine so much.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah.
Shae Hill:
Yes.
Meghan Ryan:
So, imagine more than that. He is able to do that, and I want to believe that. I don't want to pray in doubt. I want to pray according to what He says He can do, even if He doesn't always do that for me. Right?
Shae Hill:
So, prayer is our ability, as fragile and weak humans, because we know ourselves [and] we know we have nothing, to experience the almighty power of the living God. So, how can we have these powerful prayer lives? I just want to give us a few examples from Scripture itself of people who prayed crazy things because, if you know me in person, I pray crazy stuff. Half of the stuff I'm praying I will never tell people because it is just like, "Oh, this is just going to be between me and the Lord."
And maybe some of these situations, I don't know. Obviously, we found out about them. Sorry, Joshua, if this was supposed to be private. But I want to read this example, and this is from Joshua, and it's in Joshua 10:12-14. And it says, "At that time Joshua spoke to the Lᴏʀᴅ in the day when the Lᴏʀᴅ gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, 'Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.' And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies." That was bold.
Meghan Ryan:
I don't think I realized he prayed that.
Shae Hill:
Yeah.
Meghan Ryan:
I think ... I think about the sun and the moon stood still, but I didn't realize Joshua asked for that to happen.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah.
Shae Hill:
Wow.
Ashley Jackson:
Which is really cool to think ... OK, I don't know that I'm going to pray that and the Lord's going to answer. But in that circumstance, the Lord did answer that. That was a bold prayer. And I don't know; sometimes when I read Scripture, I wonder, Do they know God would answer so clearly? Or were they just doing this on faith.
Shae Hill:
Right.
Ashley Jackson:
Because that's how we're approaching prayer. We don't know if He has a different solution, but maybe you just have the boldness to pray something crazy and just see if God would do that. So, the next example is about Elijah, and this is in 1 Kings 17:1, and it says, "Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, 'As the Lᴏʀᴅ, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.'"
Now, that does not seem to be a prayer, but it then tells us in James later on, and I'm going to turn to that ... In James 5:16, it says, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." It says, "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit" (James 5:17-18). And I think ... I love that it says to us in this James verse that Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours, and he prayed something bold, and God ... He was audacious! I love thinking of prayer with audacity. That's a common term that we're saying these days: the audacity.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
The audacity of people.
Meghan Ryan:
Right.
Ashley Jackson:
And I wouldn't like the Lord to be, "The audacity of that prayer," but also to think that He knows that I know what He's capable of.
Shae Hill:
Right.
Ashley Jackson:
And so, I feel like when you have a relationship with Him, you have the privilege to ask for big things or small things, things that we need, because you know that if He says “no” to you, you trust His heart because you've walked for so long with Him.
Meghan Ryan:
I also just want to say there's some serious hard words to pronounce in some of the verses that you just read.
Ashley Jackson:
Thank you. Thank you for — [Crosstalk.] [Laughter.]
Shae Hill:
I'm very impressed, and I'm very proud of you as your friend. Yes, good job.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah, I was like, "Oh, that's probably close enough."
Meghan Ryan:
She didn't skip a beat at all. That's awesome.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah. So, the second way prayer is powerful is that it keeps us focused on who our source is. One of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible is John 15; you might be able to tell by my —
Meghan Ryan:
Oh, yes.
Ashley Jackson:
— many notes in here. But it says that, "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit" (John 15:2). Then, it says in verse 4, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me." And then, it goes on ... later down that it says that, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples" (John 15:7-8). And I think, sometimes, maybe, Are we afraid to pray for fruit because it feels selfish or it's about me? And, of course, the Lord's always going to keep us in check as He's good at doing, but also when we bear much fruit, it is to the Father's glory and that glorifies the Lord. And so, we can ask. We can ask for that fruit, but we can't bear fruit without Him.
Shae Hill:
We also can't bear fruit without the pruning.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah, which is tough to think about, but it's true. We have to go through so much pruning and trust that the Lord ... the branches and the things that He's peeling back are for our good, even if it looks like the opposite of what we're asking for in prayer.
Ashley Jackson:
So good. So good. And realizing that it's even the branches that are bearing fruit that He prunes. So, we could have had this fruit that's coming out of our lives, and He's still, like, "Cut." And we're like, "But?" But it's because there's even more fruit to be had, and trusting Him in the prayer and the asking and the pruning is all a part of the process. I think, sometimes we think that only the good things are from God. But sometimes the hard things are from God too, and it's the things that He needs to change in us. But as we remain in Him, and His words remain in us, it says, “Ask whatever you wish.” I mean, as maybe a crazy person but someone who wants to be defined by faith, I'm going to take that to heart. And if Jesus says I can, I'm going to, and I do.
Meghan Ryan:
And I think it's important to recognize in that ... asking whatever you wish when you are abiding in the Lord.
Ashley Jackson:
That's a good point.
Meghan Ryan:
Your desires become His. There's that verse in Psalms where it's like —
Ashley Jackson:
Yes.
Meghan Ryan:
— "Delight yourself in the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). And I think ... thinking about the delight first, my desires are going to change the more that I abide and delight in the Lord. And so, when I ask whatever I wish, that doesn't mean —
Shae Hill:
Lamborghinis and —
Meghan Ryan:
Yes. It's "No, Lord, what You wish is what I want to wish." And so, I think that abiding, before He says, "Ask whatever you wish," is so crucial. And I just don't want any of our listeners to miss that.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah. And I think that's such a good point. And I think, like you said, we can trust ourselves in our relationship with Him.
Shae Hill:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
Because we're submitting and surrendering constantly. Because, here's the thing: God isn't always going to give us what we want or what we pray for. So, sometimes the biggest question of all of us as believers is: What do we do when He says no?
Shae Hill:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
What do we do when we have to grieve what He has chosen not to do? And so, I think when you have that rooted relationship where you trust Him during that process ... OK, I can move forward in trust because God is the faithful one. We just have to remain in Him.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah, good point. I think that's very good.
Ashley Jackson:
The third way prayer is powerful is how we use it to build a relationship with Him, which circles back into that. And, as we previously discussed, God wants to be invited into every area of our lives. So, when we come to Him, we come to Him to seek guidance, to seek wisdom, to complain to Him. I love that in a psalm, David says, "I bring my complaints to You." Because I think, again, there's a lot of us who believe, "I can't complain to God. I should be thankful always." And we should, because Scripture actually does say that as well. But we can be honest with Him about, "Hey, man, this is really ..." Hey, man — I don't say, "Hey, man" to God usually. But we can bring those complaints to Him and be honest as someone who is our Father, who is our Friend, and He cares about those things that are weighing us down. We confess our sins to Him. We ask for forgiveness. We ask for grace. We ask for help.
I think one thing that's really changed my life is that I became a Christian when I was 6 years old. I knew that grace was for salvation. But as someone who was "good," I grew up obeying the rules. I liked rules; I liked obeying the rules. And then, I came into a season when, really, it was hard, and it was bad. And I realized that grace isn't just for salvation, but it's also for changing us and that I actually can't change myself. And sometimes I think ... salvation, we're like, "Yeah, Jesus did that for me, but everything else is up to me." And it's not because, girls, I tried.
Shae Hill:
Yeah, right.
Ashley Jackson:
And it really is only something that God can do, and that's why we're bringing it to Him. I recognize that this is a problem and a pattern in my life. Please help me change it because I don't know how. And that, again, is the beautiful thing of prayer. And to see, I'm sure you guys see as well, this is how I used to be, and this is how I am now. This is how I used to think, and this is how I think now. And that is through our prayer lives, through trusting God through those hardest situations in our lives. And we can bring all those things because we all carry these insecurities, and I think the Lord is asking us, "Come meet with Me. Bring all of your broken pieces to Me." And we start trusting Him as we see Him work through everything, even the hard things, even the bad things. And so, as you can tell, I get really excited about prayer because I have seen God do impossible things in my life and in the lives of others.
And, like I said before, He has also said no. For sure, He has said no. And we went through a season of maybe five years. It felt like everything that we prayed [for], God said no. But He was developing something different through my prayer life. It wasn't about giving me the things that I thought I needed. It was about giving me Himself. And sometimes that is the better thing. But I do want to tell you one story of an answered prayer, and that was we were always trying to follow the Lord. Wherever He calls us, we're going to just, by faith, we're going to go. And so, we thought we were supposed to move to this place in California. Now, we went there, our kids were maybe 4 and not even 1. And we had never been there. Well, Daniel had seen it. I had never been there, and neither of us had jobs.
And we just, by faith, packed up the U-Haul and headed out. And we had some savings, but we got there, and I was like, "This is what the Lord wants. Of course the Lord's going to provide. The Lord's going to provide." And He kept not [providing], and we're getting less money and less money. And we're getting to the point where I remember thinking, I have one banana left. I have two kids and a husband and one banana left, and neither of us have jobs. And I remember that night, Daniel and I literally got on the floor in our living room, and we were like, "Lord, OK." I don't know about you guys. Sometimes the Lord likes to wait till the last second to come through —
Shae Hill:
Until the last banana.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah, there you go. Yeah.
Meghan Ryan:
The last banana.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah. And just saying, "We don't have any other option. You really have to be God in this situation." And we got up and nothing happened, as is usual. But the next day, the Lord had been really teaching me about what it meant to fight back when the enemy was attacking me with doubt and anxiety and fear.
And that was to just go in my room, blast worship music, and praise Him for who I know He was, regardless of what my circumstances were. So, I'm an emotional person. If you guys don't know me, you do now. And I'm in my bedroom worshipping, bawling and just like, "You're still good. You're still God. You're still faithful even though this hurts. I don't understand, and this is hard." I missed a call from a friend of mine. And so, I called her back, and she was like, "I was just feeding my son, and I really felt the Lord tell me to give you our savings." And you can't see my face right now, but —
Meghan Ryan:
My jaw just dropped on the floor.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah. And it was thousands of dollars. And I was like, "What?" And so, she did. And I don't remember how we got it, but we were able to, obviously, buy food. And that money got us to whenever Daniel got a job. And I tell you that story because I think there's a lot of us who are in really hard situations. And don't be afraid to ask God when you're desperate. We can't see God be amazing if we're never in situations where a miracle is required.
Shae Hill:
Wow.
Ashley Jackson:
And sometimes we protect ourselves and control our environment so much to the point where we take care of ourselves. We are the ones that we count on. And then, sometimes we're in these situations where it's like, If You don't come through, I am up the creek without a paddle. And I have many stories like that throughout my life, but when you have those moments, those are these grounding moments where you're like, "I don't care what else happens. The Lord is faithful." Because I've seen it with my own eyes.
I've felt it with my own body. And I think when you go through hard things, you think, Yeah, but I love Him. And at this point, I'm ruined for life. I know His goodness.
Shae Hill:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
I trust Him, and He's going to keep moving us through this. So, the Bible speaks to us on so many aspects of prayer. Even as I was researching for this episode, I thought it could be hours and hours that you could really dig into this.
Shae Hill:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
And I would really challenge people to do that because there's such richness in God's Word about what does it say? But for the sake of time, let's look at just three things scriptures say. So, when do we pray? Now, we may have heard this verse. And it floats out there in the Christian world, and that is the, "Pray without ceasing" —
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
— which is from 1 Thessalonians 5:17. And maybe when you hear that, like me, you wonder, How is that possible? Doesn't the Lord know I have a lot of things to get done? But if we pull the lens back just a little bit, and we look at that in context, this command to pray continually is actually a solution for our lives when things get hard. So, the verse in context says, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances" — which we were talking about earlier — "for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). And one commentary I was researching said this, "Intimately related to constant joy is incessant prayer—the only way to cultivate a joyful attitude in times of trial. Uninterrupted communication with God keeps temporal and spiritual values in balance. ‘Continually’ does not mean nonstop praying. Rather, it implies constantly recurring prayer, growing out of a settled attitude of dependence on God." So, we're constantly thinking, I can't do this without You. I can't do this without You. And I don't know about you, girls, [but] I need that.
Meghan Ryan:
Oh, absolutely. Shae and I talk about this all the time. The phrase is dependence is the goal.
Shae Hill:
Right.
Meghan Ryan:
And I just think about that constantly. Independence is not the end result, but dependence on the Lord is. All right, I'm going to ask you real quick, though, what does that look like for you: praying without ceasing? Because I think we can constantly look at prayer as I need to be sitting in my chair with my coffee and my journal.
Ashley Jackson:
Right.
Meghan Ryan:
And honestly, some mornings that is what it looks like.
Ashley Jackson:
Sure.
Meghan Ryan:
And then, sometimes it's saying things in the car on the way where I'm going.
Ashley Jackson:
Oh, yeah.
Meghan Ryan:
And honestly, it is crazy that we do that as believers —
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah.
Meghan Ryan:
— to say, "I'm talking to the air," but we're not. We're talking to a living, powerful God.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah.
Meghan Ryan:
So, what does that look like in your life? Because I know that you've spent time with this.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah, I mean, same as what you're saying. It's just really, I think, being quick to recognize my need. So, I, of course, fail at this all the time, but I realize that talking to Him, OK, I have a lot of anxiety right now, Lord. Can You help me come up with ideas to help me feel better? ... Even, I think, sometimes a solution for that has been to go to counseling, and I come up with these tools. I feel like the Lord has provided that. For me, my son is at camp right now. So, every time he pops into my head, just praying for safety. I think it's just a constant.
I feel the Lord prompts us. Sometimes He'll bring someone that you love into your mind, and you're thinking, I don't know why I'm thinking about them, but I'm just going to pray for them. It is a flow as if you're sitting in a car with someone. You don't constantly talk to them if you're comfortable with them. Otherwise, it might be awkward. But when something comes to your head, you say it. So, I don't know if it's any different for you, girls.
Shae Hill:
No, I mean I think that's really great. I really like how you debunked what “ceasing” means: that it's not necessarily constantly all the time [but] incremental amounts of time.
Ashley Jackson:
Right, right.
Shae Hill:
That it's not like you drank too much coffee, you took too much caffeine, and now you can't stop talking. But that it's not necessarily the quantity of time, and maybe not even the quality, but just listening to the promptings of God when He invites you and nudges you into that conversation with Him.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, we have our focused times of prayer, like you were saying. And then, that kind of praying without ceasing, I think, is just living with Him like our friend. We're just living with Him.
Shae Hill:
I love that.
Ashley Jackson:
So, yeah, this is why He tells us to pray without ceasing. It's back to that relationship point. So, the second thing we need to know about prayer is that He tells us to do it in secret. In Matthew 6:6, it says, "But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." So, why would Jesus command this? Well, we see three reasons why this could be important. When we pray in secret, we are focused on the relationship and not the performance. And really, a lot of times growing up in the Christian world, it's very focused on performance and making sure we look good or we are appearing to be good girls. And so, I think it's important for us to have a place with the Lord that nobody knows about.
It's very secret and unknown. The second is that we are showing and confessing with our actions that we know full well it is God we need and not trying harder. Because, when we're praying, we're basically saying, I need help. I need You to intervene here. I sometimes try all the things first and then pray.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
But sometimes we learn the hard way to do it the opposite way. And then, the third is that the Pharisees prayed out loud, which is why He was speaking about this, and their reward was to be seen and to look good in front of others. But when we pray in secret and let God be our rewarder, often, what we pray for when no one sees is answered where all can. So, it's just important to do it for those reasons, to seek Him alone. And this creates intimacy. We don't have intimate relationships with everyone because it's something that we do in private. And I think that's a beautiful thing about prayer as well. So, really quickly, in our last few minutes together, I want to just talk about what we can pray for.
Shae Hill:
Yeah.
Ashley Jackson:
So, the first thing that we do a lot is we pray for one another, and there are endless examples in God's Word of things that we can pray for one another. In Acts 12:5, we see the people praying for Peter as he was in prison. So, we can pray for each other's protection or freedom. In James 5:14, they're talking about healing, and it says, "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." So, we can pray for healing for people. Also, [pray] in correction. In Matthew 18:19-20, it says, "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."
And those are just to name a few. But we see example after example where God listened to His
servants’ prayers on behalf of others, which I think is so beautiful. And I don't know about you guys, but I love when you see God do miracles after you guys have been praying for something as a body, as a church, as a group of friends, and there's just nothing like the praise party that comes after that to think God has done amazing things on behalf of our little prayers.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah. I want to be the person who's like, "Yeah, I prayed for that."
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah, exactly.
Meghan Ryan:
Not the person who's like, "Uh, I wasn't so sure."
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, to be the one that's like, "In faith, I'm believing for you, and we're going to see this happen." And then, also, just being there with that person if that doesn't happen but praying to God's ability. So, it's not a religious obligation. I think that's the most important thing to remember. It's not a box to be checked. It's an amazing privilege to bring our needs, which seems so insignificant in the grand scheme of everything God has to deal with, to our God because He loves us. And when we are walking with God, when we are in Him, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, and that's from Romans 8:11. That's a lot of power. And sometimes I forget to live that way and to pray as though that's possible. And so, let's be people who pray in that power. And remember this verse: the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective (James 5:16).
Meghan Ryan:
Ashley, that was so good. I'm fired up to pray. What about you, Shae?
Shae Hill:
I know. She fires me up. It's awesome. It just feels like, yeah, this is possible. This is livable. I feel like prayer is something ... that it is a spiritual discipline, so it's something that can fall in that routine category. But I feel like you really put life into it today of just helping us remember the why behind it. And also just remembering, you kept saying, praying to God's ability. I think when you've gotten bogged down and discouraged about things going on in your life, it's really easy to forget that.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah.
Shae Hill:
And then, you said this so early on, but this was what I needed to hear today. You said, "We can pray about anything and everything as often as possible." If I could put a sentence of what it means to be a woman that prays without ceasing, I think it's that anything and everything as often as possible. Why? Because we know that He's able.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Meghan Ryan:
And when we recognize who He is and how powerful He is and how much He loves us, we can come to Him and ask and trust that He listens and He is moving, which is just so easy to forget when prayers aren't being answered or things look hard. And so, I hope that everyone listening is just encouraged that we can, in fact, ask because we have a God who listens and moves.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah.
Meghan Ryan:
And so, as we wrap up ... Actually, our next episode, Shae's going to be leading us in talking on the other side of this point.
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah, which we need. Yeah.
Meghan Ryan:
Shae, what are you going to talk to us about next episode?
Shae Hill:
Well, I honestly feel like this conversation, it was a really good appetizer for the next one, which obviously, we put this series together intentionally. But hearing you actually teach in real time, it was just really special for me to hear this. So, yeah, in the next episode, we're going to talk about the disappointment and grief associated with prayer. So, like you mentioned and hinted at, Ashley, those times where God says no —
Ashley Jackson:
Yeah.
Shae Hill:
— or you're praying for X and God allows Y to happen, or just the overall waiting process —
Ashley Jackson:
Yes.
Shae Hill:
— of I believe in the power of prayer; I'm participating in this. I'm praying about anything and everything as often as possible, but I haven't seen movement yet, and I'm almost down to my last banana.
Ashley Jackson:
Right.
Shae Hill:
So what now?
Ashley Jackson:
Exactly. Exactly.
Shae Hill:
So, just those realities of past, present and future. So, that'll be the next episode.
Meghan Ryan:
Yeah. And so, if you don't want to miss the next episode, make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. And one more thing I want to tell you all about before we go, if this is speaking to you at all, or if you, like Ashley suggested, want to dive more into prayer, we have a brand-new study guide. And if you're on YouTube, I'm going to show it to you because it's very pretty. Shae and I actually got to work on this project. It's called Praying Through the Psalms, 30 Days To Uncomplicate How You Talk to God. And so, this is going to take the psalms and prayer —
Ashley Jackson:
Love that.
Meghan Ryan:
— and put them together in a really practical way. So, we will link that in our show notes. But we want to thank you guys for tuning in today, as always, at Proverbs 31 Ministries. We believe when you know the Truth and you live the Truth, it changes everything. So, we'll see you for the next episode.