Note from Joanna: It is a joy to share our guest blogger, Jill Hart with you today! Be sure to check out her amazing website at the link below.
Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Psalm 62:8 (NIV)
I have always struggled to know how to pray. There. I said it. Admitted what, for years, I didn’t want anyone else to know.
When I became a Jesus-follower at the ripe old age of seven, prayer was one thing that I never quite felt like I had a firm grasp on. Certainly I know how to ask for things. But even at 7-years-old I knew that couldn’t be all that God wanted from me when I came to Him in prayer.
Over the years I was taught some great practical ways to pray including ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), but those seemed too methodical. When I read the prayers of women in the Bible, such as the prayer of Hannah in 1 Samuel chapter 2, it’s flowing and beautiful and heartfelt. She didn’t pray through a formula to check off a box on her to-do list. She prayed from the heart out of such a deep place of blessing and gratefulness. It’s such a beautiful prayer that it was recorded in God’s Word for all the generations to read.
I want to learn to pray like that.
In my college years I sought God’s will like never before and began asking Him to show me how to pray. As I sought Him with this one request over and over, I also began thinking about what it might be that He does want to hear from me.
I had a long list of what I thought He didn’t want to hear from me, including things like:
whining
complaining
begging
crying
Why in the world would the God of the universe desire to listen to me complain? Who am I to complain in the first place? He’s GOD. I’m His creation.
Not long after that I was reading Psalm 62 – one of the passages in today’s Bible Reading – and came across verse 8 and it set me free:
Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.
Pour out your hearts to Him.
Aren’t those gorgeous words?
That means that all those times I went to Him weeping or frustrated or even whiney, He listened. And He not only listened, but He did so with love, willingly. He offers His ear to us and allows us to pour our hearts out to Him. What a beautiful Lord we serve.
And what precious hope for us long-winded women.
We can find protection in our God. We can escape the troubles of this world by running to our God.
That thought soothes my soul and makes me long to run into His arms.
Psalm 62:8 has become my life verse. I stand on the promises that it holds – not only God’s protection, but His love of us, exemplified by His willingness to hear our feeble prayers no matter what they contain.
Thank you, Lord, for your love.
How has knowing God is your refuge changed the way you connect to Him?
An entrepreneur at heart, Jill’s passion began as a teen when she spent a summer working with her father who ran his own business. When he put her in charge of a Coke machine and allowed her to keep the profits, she saw the benefits of being her own boss. She is the founder of the popular Christian work-at-home website,CWAHM.com. Jill is a contributing author in several books including Faith Deployed … Again and co-author of So You Want To Be a Work-at-Home Mom. Jill also has articles published in In Touch Magazine and P31 Woman magazine, as well as across the web on sites like DrLaura.com.