Intentional Listening & Prayer

For the past year and a half our core prayer team has been have been going through a specific time of intentional listening and prayer. As we have walked through this period of time, it is becoming more clear to us of our need as the body of Christ to listen more, especially in the midst of prayer.

Have you thought about how people pray when we are “praying together” as a group?

Have you taken some time for Intentionally Listening?

How hard is it for pray-ers, intercessors to be quiet and to be one who is intentionally listening, especially in the area of prayer!

We should be thinking about being intentional in prayer. Which should cause us to think before we pray. . .

Reminds me of a story –A story of how God showed the need to listen and the need to speak. He is calling us right now, for such a time as this. [Esther 4:14]

Most of the time we just start praying and fall into the trap of praying the same old, same old prayers. Even getting stuck in the patterns that we are comfortable in.

Look at Paul’s prayer portions that have been recorded in Romans:

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Romans 15:5–6]

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. [Romans 15:13]

I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen. [Romans 15:30–33]

It does not sound like Paul was stuck in his prayers!

For the month of August our core prayer team took some significant time for intentional listening and prayer. We have been asking God what it is HE WANTS TO SAY TO US as we pray for those things that He is putting before us to say words for, in our times of prayer and prayer times with Him. It really is about time in prayer with Him.

Looking into the end of this year and what is on the horizon was a key area of interest to us.

Let me share a short part of what I have been hearing as I have been listening intently this past month. Asking the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to allow vision out onto the prophetic horizon. [Just beyond what we already know in the physical -to what God sees in the world of eternity. . .  we look at thing differently than God does with our segmented “Eternity past, Eternity current & Eternity future” mode of seeing the world. God’s picture of Eternity is one whole picture. Much like His one whole picture of the Bible.

Asking for help to move us from those who see segments, to a larger perspective of one who looks at the whole picture. So that we might know better how to effectively pray.

HARVEST

There is a tsunami on The horizon… It is looming off in the future, but beginning to show itself. It is the Harvest, a huge harvest…

Critical Times, My Sheep

In fact the sheep have wandered… they are not familiar with the Shepherd’s voice. Some have bought into the lie that they cannot hear or understand what the Shepherd is saying to them. “The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice.” [John 10:3-4] “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” [John 10:27] “But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” [John 10:26-28]

Keep looking to Me, Keep abiding, Keep asking

The Lord is telling us in this season, “Don’t look to the things of the past or the former things, for behold, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?” [Isaiah 43:18-19. It is a new season, a season of the new, and of the MORE. A season of different. Prepare to be enlarged… “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left.” [Isaiah 54:2-3] “Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. [Matthew 7:7] “So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. [Luke 11:9]

“Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, all who have nothing to give… who want to receive! Listen diligently and let your soul delight itself in richness… Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.” [Isaiah 55:1-6] “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” [Isaiah 55:8-9]

Can we trust Him in bringing the CAPACITY for the “NEXT SEASON”?

The Lord is the equipper. It is He who brings the ability to have capacity. He is opening the Harvest. It is a time for all who dwell with Him. Do not fear, He will not leave us. “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them”. [Isaiah 42:16] “This is a great and exciting time!” [Psalm 18:19]

Step in…

“I have given you every place where the sole of your foot treads, just as I promised Moses.” [Joshua 1:3] “God has commanded us, ‘Be strong and very courageous’.” [Joshua 1:9] “Do not look back; only go forward into the new.” [John 8:36] God is taking us INTO the “next”.

God is always in the Chaos -Learn to rest in Him in the middle of it all!

Winds of change are blowing… God is in the chaos, He always has been. Remembering back to the time of the disciples questioning him when he was in the back of the boat, fast asleep on a pillow in the middle of the storm, “Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they *woke Him and *said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” [Mark 4:38] We must learn to rest, even in the midst of the storm, the shift or the change.

Praying for the body of Christ to allow the Father full access, time to work in and through us, as we trust Him for the capacity that will be needed for the more that is coming.

Capacity