Mrs. PIE

Walk of Faith: Building a Consistent Prayer Life and Embracing Spiritual Growth

• Shelley Jeffcoat • Season 3 • Episode 49

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Ever wondered how to build a strong and consistent prayer life? Join us on "Walk of Faith" as I share my personal journey and the transformative power of dedicated prayer. Drawing from my own experiences, learn the significance of setting specific times and places for prayer, whether it's early mornings or a quiet moment in your car. By creating a structured environment, you'll cultivate a focused and profound connection with God. Discover how intentionality and the use of scripture can enrich your prayer experience, allowing you to commune with the Lord more deeply and meaningfully.

Moreover, we discuss the vital role of regular engagement with spiritual teachings and the support of a faith community. Tune in to hear about my commitment to preaching and teaching five times a week, and the gratitude I have for our incredible YouTube viewers. Exciting events, like our upcoming prayer revival, are on the horizon, and we warmly invite you to participate. My hope is that our content continues to bless and uplift you, encouraging you to stay connected and involved in future videos and events. Join us and let’s strengthen our spiritual journey together.

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Speaker 1:

Hey there, welcome to Walk of Faith. Watch this quick intro and I'll be right back. Thank you, all right. So you're still here, all right.

Speaker 1:

So this is a really quick short series. I'm calling Walk of Faith and I think this is really good. So what we're going to talk about today is setting time, place and intention for prayer. This series is basically just me. I'm just going to give some insights and lessons from my personal journey with God, and my hope is that some of the practices that I've developed over time will be helpful to you, and so this video is really good for whether you're a new believer or maybe you're just. You know, you're just looking to rejuvenate your prayer life. I'm just going to share some of the things that I've learned over time.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing that I'm going to talk about is setting time and just being intentional with the time that you set and the importance of dedicating specific times to prayer. Now, something that I've shared in our prayer group if you're on the Facebook street is I've actually broken down the different times that we pray, based on the word of God, and what some of that means what it means to pray between 12 and 3 am, for example, and all of those things. But for you as a believer, you know, just in our general walk, it's so important to have specific times that you set where I have times where I just meet the Lord. So for you maybe it's you know, you're setting the clock for 5 am and I mean like you're getting out of your bed and you're going to go pray. I don't mean like when you lay back and you greet the day and you kind of say a couple of things. I mean the kind of prayer life where you have pulled out your scripture and you've gone into the word and you're communing. You set a specific time to meet with the Lord concerning your situation, your job, your life, your family, anything. So that's really important. So setting time for that and being consistent when the time. So, for example, we have our prayer phone line calls and we do it every Thursday Y'all know this right One o'clock, seven o'clock. We always invite you. But that means that on my schedule, on my calendar, there is no interruption. I don't take any other meetings because that's a specific time that I'm meeting with the Lord. Same thing for when we do our Monday, tuesday night prayer. You know, because we're praying as a group that's intentionally setting time where we're meeting with the Lord. But my personal prayer life I have a time that I set aside where I just want to come into his presence. It gives me a time not just to pray where you're just speaking right, it's almost like a monologue but it gives me that time set aside where I can also hear from God as well. So the first thing that I want to encourage you to do is to set the time. It's really important to dedicate specific times for prayer.

Speaker 1:

Now, the second thing I want to talk about so that set time is set place and choosing your place, where you know it's really just about having a place where you can focus and you can connect with God. So I know a lot of people have prayer closets. I don't have a prayer closet, you know. I have different places where I will meet with the Lord. So, for example, my office is where most of my because I'm always communing with him in here and the Lord and you know this kind of where we do, you know, kingdom building business together, you know. So my office also, because it has a door, so I have some level of privacy. I can come in here, like I am right now talking to y'all, but it's really important to have a set place where you can go.

Speaker 1:

And again, it doesn't have to be a big fancy prayer closet y'all, please don't spend money trying to decorate somewhere. It's about, you know, just finding a place where you can consistently go. Some people have, you know, beautiful backyard decks that they can go and that's where they go. Maybe you have a balcony, you know, maybe it's your car, I mean, quite frankly, maybe it's the park, but it's really, again, finding a space or you know that you can, you know, be consistent. This is the place where you kind of go and you meet with the Lord. So that set, that's set place.

Speaker 1:

And the last thing is setting your intention being intentional about your prayer life. So when I'm thinking about being intentional now it's what do you want to get out of your prayer experience? It should be to build a deeper, more meaningful prayer experience where your intention is to learn more, meet the Lord, connect here from heaven, get guidance. Maybe you want to pray and reason with the Lord. I use my prayer times as a way for me to share what's on my heart. I mean, obviously God knows what's going on, but you still want to speak to your father, so, but I'm very intentional about the time that I spend.

Speaker 1:

I also use scripture in my prayers, as you guys know. We use scripture, you know, in our prayers. So so just some tools that I use. Again, the most obvious one, obviously, is the Bible. I prefer the ESV version because that's just the one I've been using. I used to use NIV.

Speaker 1:

The one thing I will say there's a lot of different translations of Bible, but you don't want, don't do the ones that, like, dumb it down so much, where you feel like you're just talking to your friend because you end up missing some of the power in the words and what God's words say. So I try to stay clear, you know, away from the ones that literally dumb the word down where you know, I mean, we have the Holy Spirit helping us to translate what the Lord is saying. So I'm sorry if I'm stepping on anybody's toes, but I use the Bible and, again, you could use the Bible app or whatever. I'm a Bible paper girl, a book version girl, so I use the Bible because I also am able to have my sticky notes and all the things. So, again, if you don't have a Bible and you're a new believer, you need to go get you one. If you can't afford one, you can get the Bible app. We have no excuses, but you do want to have a Bible, and I know I'm saying this to some people, you know. Again, maybe you're like I mean, I know this, but if you're, if you're new to this walk, you know I mean, someone's got to help you, right, all right.

Speaker 1:

So the second thing I have is a journal, and again, I have a journal. For what you would consider having a journal, but for me, I use the journal. I document encounters, I document dreams, I document messages from heaven, I write down what's bothering me. So I don't treat it like a regular journal, as you would, where I'm journaling my feelings. I'm not doing that. What I do, though, is if I'm going through a situation, I will put that in the journal, but I will counter it, balance it, with the words. So, for example, if I'm dealing with something with my daughter and I'm asking God for protection, then I'm putting I'm kind of documenting what the situation is, but I've found scripture to go along what God says concerning this situation, and so that helps my prayer life, because now I have both the situation and the word Right. So that's what I do with my um, my journal.

Speaker 1:

I do have two other things, though, cause you know I'm a little bit extra, but I have a separate, smaller uh journal, and this one is it's a daily journal and this one I like I don't use it as much, but, um, sometimes I'll get um scriptures. You know the Lord will put a scripture on my heart and sometimes if I have like a heavenly visitation or something like that, then I document it separately. But if you ever have an experience with the Lord, an encounter, even if it's like an amazing blessing or things like that, start documenting when you're having dreams, document the dates, and I keep the documentation of the dates and the time of those encounters, and you'll be blown away if you go back, even months later, to see how God has been showing up for real in your life. So I just encourage you if you don't have, these are just diaries, these are ones that I invest in in my normal life, right, so in business. So these are Smythe's and I think that's how I pronounce it. Don't matter, I can afford it. So, michael, come for me, but I have these diaries, and so one is a daily, one's a weekly, and I use these to kind of document other things that are happening that I don't want to put in my journal. So that is me being intentional with, again, I have my Bible. Something else I want to encourage you all of us, me included, y'all as we're going into church is bring your Bible with you. And again, because I'm a old fashioned girl, I'm bringing my Bible, actual Bible, with me. But there's something about, you know, coming into church bringing your Bible with you and we've gotten so used to looking at the, you know, the screens in the church and reading from the screen. And maybe you're someone who you might, maybe you want to bring your journal and document, take some notes while you're in service. Or, you know, if you're someone who you're not going into a church building and maybe your church is virtual, then just make it a habit of documenting as God is speaking to you, keeping that journal, having your Bible handy and all the things. So those are the three big things I wanted to share with you. I hope this encourages you.

Speaker 1:

Again, this is just going to be a really short series called Walk of Faith. I'm just going to share some of the things that I'm doing. My hope is that this is going to encourage you If you've kind of fallen out of the discipline. That video that you watched talks about our discipline. Building up our prayer life is. It requires discipline. When I talk about setting time, setting a place and setting the intention, that requires discipline. So, because we are all about, you know, we want to soar this year, we want to live lives that are blessed, we want to experience breakthrough, not just for ourselves but for our family. It does require discipline. So I really truly hope that this is going to inspire you.

Speaker 1:

You know, again, I'm here. I think I preach and teach five times a week. So if you're watching this video and you're someone who is watching us on the YouTube channel we are so grateful for your support Go to graceandgritmediacom. We also have free events. We have a revival coming up, a prayer revival coming up, so I'm really hoping to get to see all there. But I hope that this is blessing you and y'all. Have a great rest of your night. Y'all take care and come back and watch another video, take care.