I recently finished reading "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson and it's definitely changed my prayer life for the better. When we pray we're not looking at God as a magical genie who grants all our wishes; but we look to Him as Sovereign, The One who Created all, The One who knows all and The One who is faithful to keep His promises. Since we serve such an awesome God we're not afraid to bring every desire, every dream, every fear, every concern, every worry and every aspiration to Him in prayer. We know that our prayers and requests are not too big for God. Even when we have unanswered prayers or God simply says 'no', we trust that He knows what He's doing.

In the middle of reading this book, I started to change my approach to prayer. Typically I would pray and wait, pray and wait again, wait some more and you guessed it ..... some more.  I learned that waiting on the Lord is one thing and being lazy, half-heartedly praying or paralyzed by fear is a completely different thing. It's easy to write out a list, lift up a prayer, clamp our hands together & say, "Ok God, it's on you now!" But what about doing our part? What about the work? What about owning our piece of the prayer? What about taking control of the things we can control?  

PRAYER + FAITH+ ACTION = DOING OUR PART  This formula helps remind me to pair my prayers with faith, effort and a willingness to do what I can while I'm trusting God to do the things I can't.

So to break that down a bit I look at it like this. When I go to God in prayer I have faith in His Word, faith that He hears me,  faith that He'll answer me in HIS timing,  faith that He's able, and faith that HIS Will , will be done in my life. I then pair my prayer and faith with ACTION. When I say the word 'action' some thoughts that come to mind may be quitting your job, dropping everything & moving to a different city or  starting a business. However, I'm referencing some action items that we can sometimes overlook. Actions like creating healthier habits, being more productive and less busy, making strategic moves and not aimless ones, shifting our perspectives, changing the way we think, examining how we treat others, enhancing our work ethic, harboring a spirit of excellence, being more mindful of the things we say, evaluating how we respond to disappointment or inconvenient circumstances. These are all examples of things within our control and actions we can take while we wait on the Lord to move on our behalf. Self evaluation is crucial and there will always be areas in our lives that we can begin to take action on NOW. That leads me into the  3 things I took away from the book "The Circle Maker" and 5 items I've implemented in my own life.

3 Takeaways

1. Prayer is essential, relevant and powerful.

2. Don't Limit God.

3. Be specific with your prayers  

5 Things I've Implemented

1. I take EVERYTHING to God in prayer and write almost everything down.

2. I pray BIG. What seems impossible to me is not impossible for God.

3. I pray persistently.

4. I partner my prayers with Gods Word and repeat it back to Him.

5. I understand that prayer is communication, which means it takes two. So I not only talk but I listen to The Spirit in prayer.  

I would like to encourage you to examine your prayer life and look for ways to enhance your time spent with the Lord.  If you'd like to check out a little bit of my prayer journal and what that looks like for me, you can look at my InstaStory  @katriciadenise or hit the Instagram Icon at the bottom of the page! 

If you've read this book and would like to share some key takeaways or things you implement in your own prayer life feel free to comment below! 

With Love,

Katricia Denise