Category: prayer

Anchor Angel Project, hope, prayer

Free Downloadable Prayer Images for Inspiration

The Kedge Anchor

⚓ “We all need encouragement—an anchor in the storm, a reminder that we’re not forgotten. Sometimes the simplest way to lift someone’s spirit is to let them know they’ve been prayed for. That’s what the Anchor Angel Project is all about and is here to help make it easy. 💙

Below you’ll find free prayer images you can download, save, and share with anyone who needs a reminder of hope and encouragement today.” Just right click and save to your device. The next time you are praying for someone, let them know, send one of these images with or without a short message of your own. I will never forget the day a friend of mine dropped by my office at work to have lunch with me. It was a wonderful surprise and really lifted my spirits. We don’t always have that ability to surprise a friend at work, but we can still let our friends and family know we are thinking about them.

While I have you here, please head over to my YouTube channel and check out my crafty Christmas card DIY videos repurposing old Christmas cards giving them new life. Check them out

God sees us, nothing goes unnoticed by him. Sometimes we just need to reminded in the storm when we can’t see past it. (2 Chronicles 16:9 – “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.”)

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We Have a Good, Good Father

The Kedge Anchor
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“Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him,6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8 But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.

9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” (NLT) – Luke 11:5-13

I have read this passage so many times and always thought that my nagging or constant and incessant prayer about something, I thought that, that is what it would take for God to grant me whatever it was I was asking for. The bottom line, my prayers are almost never answered how I anticipate, no matter how persistent. I have discovered some key design principles that can apply to prayer. I will provide links to some earlier posts.

While there is nothing wrong with persistent prayer, after all, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “pray without ceasing.” The parable in Luke give an example of being persistent, shameless persistence. But that’s not what gets the neighbor out of bed. It may be easy to come to the conclusion that we need to nag God for Him to hear us and answer our prayer. But this interpretation would mean that God is reluctant in providing what we need. And that just isn’t so. Persistence or boldness in the greek anaideia can be hard to translate. A more clear, literal meaning would be “without shame.” Jesus is trying to illustrate that the neighbor tucked in bed for the night isn’t motivated by his friend persistently knocking on the door. What is motivating the neighbor is his reputation. He wants and desires to do the right and honorable thing, “without shame.”

Back in the day, Israel was an honor-based community. A person’s reputation was of utmost importance and was extended to family and the community. The neighbor didn’t want to shame himself, his family or his community and this is what motivates him to get out of bed.

Jesus makes a point about about prayer that is simple: God answers our prayers not because of our reputation, but because of His. This reminds me of the Wedding at Canaa. (If you haven’t watched The Chosen yet, there is a whole episode about this) Jesus, Mary, his mother and his disciples were invited to a wedding. Wedding celebrations lasted a week. This family was friends with Jesus and his family, his own mother was there, so they had to be somewhat close. Mary comes to Jesus saying that they have run out of wine. He tells her his time has not yet come and what is he to do about it, why is she coming to him? So Jesus gives instructions to fill 12 jars with water and turns the water into wine. I believe Jesus performed his first miracle to protect this family’s reputation, his mother’s and most importantly, his. This takes the focus off our righteousness and puts the focus on God’s desire to keep His honor. It’s not about us at all. Instead prayer is received and answered because we have a holy, righteous and good, good Father. Verse 11 – 13, “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” This realization relieved me of so much pressure. If a prayer didn’t get answered, I must have not prayer right, or included something, I was doing something wrong. It’s not about me, it’s not about us. How silly of me to think I could persuade God to do anything but be a good, good, Father. Prayer is not a religious way of nagging God to answer our prayers. Prayer is simply asking God to be who He is, God.

Further reading:

Design for Life – Alignment

The Chosen TV Season 1 Episode 5 “The Wedding Gift”

prayer

Praying Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

The Kedge Anchor
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“Be careful what you pray for, you might get it.” We’ve all heard that saying before. Sometimes what we get isn’t necessarily what we don’t want, it’s not what we expected and that can be either good or bad, depending on your perspective.

Think about the times you have prayed for someone, for their situation, for their salvation or for a situation to change and the outcome or the answer wasn’t what you expected. One thing that God has brought to my attention is as I pray I need to trust Him. Honestly, sometimes scenarios are going through my mind of how things will work out or how God will work things out. I don’t think that’s for me to know, I think that’s for me to trust.

“Not my will, but yours.” It’s God’s desire for all men to be saved, “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” 1Timothy 2:3-4. When you are praying for someone to be saved and know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, what are you thinking?(Not “what ARE you thinking?) What are you imagining to happen? Maybe that they will be driving along one day and have this overwhelming desire to know Jesus and be forever changed. Not that, that can’t happen. But look at Saul or Paul, he was stopped dead in his tracks and made blind for a while. I know I think of easy transitions, smooth sailing for others and for situations. Rarely does that ever happen. That’s not how God works. I am learning that.

Only God can work through situations and change hearts and for Him to do that, He sometimes has to bring us and others to our knees, whatever it takes if we are sincere in our prayers. That’s also not to say we are wishing ill on them or bad things to happen, heavens no, we want to see changes and sometimes that takes hard times. Look at Jesus and His ministry. His ministry was to preach salvation to all. He came to earth as fully human and fully God as a baby to grow up in stature, teach, and to one day die on the cross and rise again in three days. Things got bad before they got better, same with Paul.

This was an “ah-ha” moment for me. When we are praying for God to change situations, change hearts, we need to be prepared that things may get worse before they get better. We need to trust God. We don’t know how God will work in each individual or situation. God knows the details of every challenging situation and the hearts of the people He created. He works “all things together for our good and His glory” Romans 8:28. God will work things out according to His plan, we have to trust. God may direct you or use you in the plan (be prepared for that) and He may give you specifics through the Holy Spirit pressing in on you to say something or do something specific.

Think back to Jesus in the Garden, things had to get worse before they got better. Sometimes we or our loved ones need to go through situations that will get worse before they get better.

We need to remember this:

  1. Trust God, His Providence, His timing.
  2. Things may get worse before they better.
  3. Ask for endurance, courage to get through the next few days weeks, months, however long it’s going to take for God to work things out.
  4. When we get to the other side, when victory comes, remember to give thanks. “Give thanks always” – 1 Thessalonians 5:16 so let’s remember days, weeks, months, even years later to recall God’s goodness in the situation, or any situation. It’s good to keep remembering what God has done for us.
  5. Keep praying for the situation or person. “Pray without ceasing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Now that things have changed, ask God to help you not make the same mistakes, to keep walking in His light, continue to pray for the person or situation that the person will grow spiritually and the situation will remain stable.

We have to trust God when we are praying for changes in others and in situations. We can’t know how God will work things out, other than He will work them out according to His plan for our good and His glory and that can and will look totally different than what we imagine. That’s dangerous prayer, are we bold enough to pray dangerously?

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Devotionals

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Reading God’s Word daily is essential to the Christian life. It’s our lifeline. Reading the God breathed words in the Bible is one way God communicates to us. Praying is talking to God and without prayer and daily communication with God… how does that relationship survive? How do we cope?

Our quiet time, devotionals, Bible study, time with God, whatever you call it looks different for everyone. Some are morning people, some are before bed people, some mid day people. I don’t think it really matters what time of day, just that we “get away often” as Jesus did. Luke 5:16 “But Jesus often went away to be by himself and pray.” The Bible doesn’t say what time of day or for how long, just often.

Now my point here is if you are in the habit daily of getting away and setting time for God, how many times have you said, or heard someone say, “my day just doesn’t go right if I don’t start my day with my devotional” or perhaps something similar. Well, what about the just before bed people? Does that carry over into the day for them? Will their sleep not go well? What about the morning people, will their sleep not go well?

Often times when we get up and hit the floor running, we sometimes don’t have time for a devotional and the day gets away from us and the day seems to go sideways, the car breaks down, sick kid at school, boss got crazy, lose your keys, computer crashes and you think, “see, I didn’t do my devotional.” Well, have you had days when you did your devotional and the day still went bad? I know I have countless times. And here is where I think the difference is; regardless what time of day we choose to spend time with God, life is going to happen. The car will break down, the kids, will get sick, the day can go sideways regardless. God is not punishing us by making the day hard and things braking down because we didn’t spend time with Him. He may use those things to remind us or use them in some way for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28). But I know there have been days I have spent time reading and praying and the day still sideways.

So, often it’s easy for me to attach a superstition to this and that’s just another subtle tactic of Satan to get us to feel guilty, like we are a bad Christian, or his popular lie, you’re a failure. God sees your heart. He’s not ready to beat you down with a bad day if you skip or miss time with Him. He never leaves us or forsakes us, (there are many verses about God always being with us, Google it) He is always waiting for us to come to Him. Sure you’re likely to feel a void or an emptiness because you’ve been out of synch but being aware and just having thoughts of God on your mind can be worship. Because think about it, when we worry and have a problem occupying or hearts weighing us down, thought churning in our heads, we are worshipping the problem. God has thought about us, Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” (KJV). The difference is, when we spend time with God, no matter what time, when the car breaks down, when the kids are sick, when the day goes sideways, we handle it better. We have been armed with God’s Word (Ephesians 6:11-15). We deal with problems differently. God’s mercies are new each morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). Your day is going to go the way it’s going to go. God sees it, no surprise to Him. Just try and make it a priority. Priority just means it gets done, not necessarily first, but done. Keep the lines of communication and worship open when your quiet time looks a little different, sing, think about God, think about getting away with Him and then do it.

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“Please Be with Me”

The Kedge Anchor
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How many times have we all prayed a prayer, “Father, please be with…” I started to think, why do we ask that? We already know that God is omnipresent. Deuteronomy 31:8 “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Jeremiah 23:24 – “Can a man hide himself in hiding places So I do not see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.”

Think back to the Garden when God came looking for Adam. He was there. Nothing goes unseen by God. So why do we feel the need to ask? Habit perhaps?

So maybe there’s a better way to pray. I realize I don’t need to ask but to recognize whether I feel His presence or not, He is with me. I know this because the Bible says so, so many time throughout scripture. I thank God for His being with me, for His omnipresence, that He will never leave me or forsake me and I acknowledge that He said so in His Word. I thank Him for being with whomever is needing prayer at the moment, because I know He is. He promised to never leave us or forsake us.

If God says this in the Old Testament and repeats it again in the New Testament, then He not only means it but it pertains to us still today. Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

We have a big God. Thank Him for being ever so present.

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Persistent Prayer

The Kedge Anchor

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We can be left feeling bewildered by our unanswered prayers. God at times seems unwilling to answer our prayer according to our expectations and timing.

Jesus’s disciples asked him to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1). He also told a story about a man who pestered his neighbor for some bread (Luke 11:5-8). In the end it wasn’t the fact that the neighbor gave his bread to this man because the man knocking was his neighbor, it was the man’s persistent knocking and request.

However this doesn’t mean that God is more inclined or motivated to grant us our request because we have pestered Him or because of our persistence rather than his love for us. The story illustrates that we have the freedom to ask God but it does not dictate God’s response to us. God is not a servant waiting for a list of things we want or tasks we want done, neither does He need us or define our needs or offer solutions, or tell him when and how He should act.

But God is eager for us as His children to form a habit of asking for His help (Luke 11: 9-10). That still doesn’t mean He will be guided by our limited knowledge and understanding of our circumstances (Luke 11:11-13). God will answer our prayers. He does answer our prayers, in His time according to His plan in His own way.

He wants and asks us to trust Him to supply our needs and when to supply them. God knows our needs before we (Matthew 6:8). Our calling is to ask persistently and if we surrender our hearts and wants, we can grow in the process.

Our persistent request of needs or wants causes us to turn to God often without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) and in turn God will use that to grow us in the process (Romans 8:28) for “… we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (NIV)

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