By: Jen Schmalz
I don’t know about you, but I worry WAY too much! I just feel responsible for so many things! And so many things that matter (and truthfully some that really don’t)! I’m a mom, a wife, a staff member at our church, a sister, a daughter, a friend! There’s plenty that I care about deeply. But feeling responsible for those things can morph into an attempt to control them.
Truth be told, I know in my head I’m not in control of all of this! And I don’t want to be! Yet often times I find myself carrying the weight of them. And I KNOW God is actually in control! But the way I respond to things, the way I carry things, shows me that my head might know the truth but that doesn’t always translate to my heart.
I received a gift last Christmas that God has used to show me some things that I needed to be reminded of. The gift was a beautifully hand carved wooden bowl, with a small tag that had Philippians 4:6 written on it. That scripture reads, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
I proudly put that prayer bowl on my living room table. And every time I sat down with the weight of the day, I would look at it and be gently reminded to pray about it. And then I started to actually write things down and put them in the prayer bowl. One of the first prayers I wrote out was for my husband. He has his own business, and it was the start of a new year, so my prayer for him was that his business would “boom”. There was more I wanted to write and so much more in my heart as to the why… but that was all that I could fit on that little prayer card! A week or two later we were sitting at the dinner table and my husband started sharing about how his business was literally exploding and he couldn’t keep up. I sat there with a grin on my face remembering what I had written on that prayer card. I went and got the prayer bowl and shared with him that I had been praying for him and his business. I showed him the prayer that I had written for him and then asked quietly if he wanted me to take it out. Through a soft smile and tear-filled eyes he asked if we could just write another prayer request for some full time help to now support his business
Friends, we are instructed to pray… continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17)! This prayer bowl has reminded me that praying means also letting go of those cares and worries. So as I’m writing my prayers down, I’m letting them go. “May my prayer be set before you like incense…” (Psalm 141:2).
It’s also reminded me that we don’t even need to have all the right words! There’s no need to complicate prayer! To fit those prayers down on a little prayer card, I had to keep it short and sweet. And Romans 8:26 says, “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” I’m so thankful for that!
And one last thing I was reminded of as I practiced using the prayer bowl… we need to pray with expectation. A prayer is not a last ditch effort, or something we do when nothing else can be done! If we are praying with hope and confidence that God hears us, and we know that He is the one that is in control of it all, that is the 1st place we need to go. 1 John 5:14 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him.”
So….get yourself a prayer bowl! And I challenge you to use it! See what God does in and through you as you spend time with Him each day in prayer! And tell us how God uses it in your life!
1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you”. He cares for you and all that you care about! And thankfully we don’t need to carry the weight of those cares because He IS in control!
A special thank you to me sister, Jen for writing this devo. I too have a prayer bowl and I love it! Truth be told it was a homemade gift from our dad. You don’t need a beautifully wood carved bowl to put your prayers in though, it could be anything! Just remember to pray continually, you don’t have to have the right words and pray with expectation.
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