PRAISE & PRAYER PROMPT ••• In the writing world, there’s a lot of discussion about finding your voice.
It’s a crazy-important topic because though all writers use the same word bank, no two writers use it exactly alike.
But writers are so self-critical.
Heaven knows I am.
I almost never re-read my own writing because I go into full-scale edit mode and will tear it apart.
And my poor mother…
I can’t tell you how many times she’s read something I wrote, complimented me on it, but my personal doubts respond with, “Well you have to say that. You’re my mom.”
It’s not just writing though… most of us are our own worst critics, no matter what we do.
Even when we pray.
I remember as a kid, when the pastor would call on someone in church to pray, the prayers often intimidated me.
I have no doubt that those prayers were genuine and sincere, but I still found them intimidating.
Praying with thee’s and thy’s just didn’t work for me.
And I assumed everyone else prayed that way, and I was the only one who didn’t get it, so I didn’t pray for a long time.
But here’s the truth about our amazing God!
He made me uniquely me with my own special voice, designed to talk to Him in a personal way.
I don’t need to pray like others do as long as I go to God with a sincere heart.
And the same goes for you, you, you, and you!
In Jeremiah 29:12, God said, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”
Note, He didn’t say “if you pray to me with big, fancy, impressive words, or sound like you just walked out of a different century.”
A simple prayer is just as musical to His ears as a bold, big-word prayer.
He just wants sincerity in our prayers.
Besides the amazing fact that the God of all creation listens to our prayers, the more we talk to Him, the more comfortable we are talking and being ourselves with Him.
Think about your best friend.
More than likely, unless you were in the womb together, there was a point at which you met and in doing so, you had to learn to talk to each other and how to communicate.
Eventually, the comfort level was so great, you felt comfortable being you with your friend.
You no longer felt like you had to impress them, you could use your own unique voice.
And trust that they loved you anyway. It’s the same with God times infinity!!!
Especially since He already knows us from the inside out (Psalm 139:13; Jeremiah 1:5), and still wants to talk to us!
So it’s up to us.
We use prayer and our own personal voices to get to know Him.
And He welcomes us to know Him.
Going back to Jeremiah, the next verse, Jeremiah 29:13 says, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.”
I love that promise, straight from the very voice of God.
Today, as you pray, thank Him for your unique voice.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you lift it up without fear or hesitation, trusting that God loves to hear from you and is listening.
