This past weekend I served on the LifeWay event team for a Going Beyond event team with Priscilla Shirer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. One of the most meaningful parts of these events for me is a Saturday morning prayer time with the women. It is so humbling to watch a group of women pour their hearts out to the Lord. And even more beautiful to watch as women who don't even know one another surround the brokenhearted.
It is always amazing to me as I talk with the women after the prayer time. There are always some of the women who say they've never participated in a prayer time like what they just experienced. I'm not sure of all the reasons for this, but it stirs something in me as I think about girls' ministry.
We prepare for promotion Sundays and the start of new small groups. We choose Bible studies and devotions to teach or share with the girls. We plan the events that will take place during the next school year to equip students to live out their faith. We even begin planning for next summer's camps and mission trips. But are we intentional about having designated times during the year that call girls to prayer? Prayer experiences that help teach girls to communicate with their heavenly Father?
How do we help girls learn to make prayer a lifestyle and not only a designated bowing of the head before meals?
One thing I'm trying to teach my girls (my biological girls and my spiritual daughters in the faith) is that prayer is the one time you can talk and say anything and not get in trouble for it. When you are in prayer, communicating with God, He already knows your thoughts, your motives, and your heart. There is nothing you are going to tell Him that will surprise Him. God is not going to punish you for communicating your hurts, your frustrations, your anger, your jealousy, or your bitterness. He is God and He can handle it.
Although there are lots of more well-known verses that emphasize prayer (Philippians 4:6-7 to name just one), one of my favorites is Psalm 32:6 which says,
Therefore let everyone who is faithful pray to You at a time when You may be found. When great floodwaters come, they will not reach him.
This verse comes right in the middle of Psalm 32 that focuses on the joy of forgiveness. As I read through the entire Psalm it reminds me to remember the joy of my salvation and the joy of being able to communicate with the only One able to forgive my sin. It also reminds me that I have no idea what trials and difficulties my girls will face in the future. I don't know what "floodwaters" will threaten to overwhelm or overtake them. All the more reason to help them now to learn how to communicate through prayer with God who will walk with them through those floodwaters and overwhelming circumstances.
The floodwaters will come. They will come for our girls just like they come for grown women as I saw first hand at Going Beyond this past weekend. I know there have been plenty of times in my own life when the floodwaters in various forms threatened to overwhelm and overtake me. Yet, prayer has been that big red flotation device that kept my head above water and pulled me closer to God and His safety and protection when I thought I would drown.
When great floodwaters come, they will not reach him. - Psalm 32:6b
What are some ways you are teaching girls in your girls' ministry the power of prayer? What unique prayer experiences are you using? How are you keeping prayer an intentional and purposeful foundation of your ministry?
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