Giveaway Winner Announced and a Tangible Tool for Powerful Prayer

The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

James 5:16

Y’all. The most adorable thing just happened as I was writing this post.

Last week, I hosted a giveaway for a Psalm 46:10/Be Still and Know canvas painting.  You didn’t know this when I hosted the giveaway, but my intention behind it was to pray for each of you that entered the giveaway by name. The Bible tells us that prayer is powerful. And I fully believe that if we have any desire to see victory in our battle with anxiety, we have got to include prayer in our strategy.

So that’s just what I did a few minutes ago. I prayed for each of you that entered the giveaway by name. Don’t worry…if you didn’t enter the giveaway I prayed for you also. We pray for all the people over here at The Rescued Letters!

Here’s the adorable thing: my son, Thomas, came in the room as I was praying and asked if he could join. I want you to know that his little heart lifted you up this morning, and I am quite certain that his prayer was pretty powerful.

I’ve said before that it is the simplest of prayers that God often answers the swiftest. Indeed, God hears all prayers. But sometimes, when we are battling something like anxiety, it helps to put a little power behind our prayers.

My favorite tool for doing this is to stack our prayers with the Word of God. Just now, I prayed all of Psalm 46 over each of you and I substituted your name in place of every pronoun. I’m using my name as an example here, but it went like this:

God is Heather’s refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, she will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within Heather, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with Heather; the God of Jacob is her fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. He says, “Be Still, Heather, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with Heather; the God of Jacob is her fortress.

-Psalm 46

If you find yourself in an anxious moment, stop what you are doing and pray God’s Word over your name. Praying God’s Word is especially helpful when you are at a loss for what to pray. The Psalms are always a good place to start and easy to find – they are smack dab in the middle of your Bible! But you could also try it with Matthew 6:25-34. We’ll be returning there tomorrow:

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

-Matthew 6:25-34

The Giveaway Winner!

I had my assistant, Thomas, draw names out of a roman soldier costume hat for the giveaway and the winner is….Tracey!

Yay! Tracey, I’ll contact you this week to get the painting to you!

Until tomorrow, carry on, warriors!

Please excuse the no-makeup/no-shirt policy in this picture. We’re out of school because of Hurricane Matthew today and that’s just how we roll. I can’t promise it’s not how we roll on any other day…hurricane or not.