Why is prayer so hard? Some simple tools to help you get better at it.

5 things worth sharing this week.

Hey Crashers,

My Dad is one of those guys that gets up early to pray - he always has for as long as I can remember. In fact, I remember waking up as a little girl and hearing him pray in his study. He was praying for me as the day dawned. 

Not so long ago, I was sitting on his couch when he started to tell me about how he once went to a conference a long time ago with a guy called Dick Eastman. He talked about "THE HOUR THAT CHANGES THE WORLD." My Dad left the conference with a road map of how to spend 1 hour in prayer each day. If you ask me, that’s pretty inspiring.

True confessions... if you are anything like me, your mind wanders when trying to pray, and working on being disciplined enough to stay focused is a real thing.

Recently I've been in many conversations about what God requires from us in the season. More often than not, the conversation comes around to the fact we need to be people of prayer. But many of us struggle in this area. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. So we should probably allow him to school us, too.

This week the Rapid 5 is all about prayer. 5 things to help make prayer joyful and an easy response to God, with some tools to help you develop the habits we all need.

PRAYING LIKE MONKS, LIVING LIKE FOOLS.

Last year a friend put this book in my hand, and it felt like drinking a cold glass of water and life for my soul. It motivated me to pray, to try new ways of praying, and to find a new ease in prayer that I hadn't ever had before.

Here's a blurb from the book to whet your appetite...

Prayer is the source of Jesus's most astonishing miracles and the subject of Jesus's most audacious promises, and yet, people find prayer to be boring, obligatory, or confusing. Join Tyler Staton, author, pastor, and national director of the 24/7 Prayer movement, as he invites you to discover the incredible gift of prayer.

Within the pages of Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, Staton addresses common roadblocks to prayer and gives you the confidence to come to God just as you are. Through timely biblical teaching, powerful storytelling, and insights on historic Christian practices, Staton gives you the tools you need to:

• Express your doubts and disappointments about prayer

• Discover and practice multiple postures of prayer, including silence, persistence, confession, and more

• Understand and embrace the wonder and mystery of prayer in everyday life

• Open or reopen the line of communication with your Creator and experience afresh his divine power on earth

If you're feeling disheartened, disappointed, or distracted in your prayer life, let Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools be your guide as you learn to enjoy prayer in its purest form: a vital, sustaining, powerful connection with God that is more real and alive than you could have ever imagined.

Here's a link to the book!

And here’s a great chat from Tyler’s podcast: 👇

LECTIO 365

I regularly have my phone in my hand. Call me a product of my generation, but it's true. I guess most of you are probably reading this on your phone right now. Instead of constantly scrolling or texting, why not install a prayer app? It will guide you in prayer both morning and night. It helps you know what to pray for and how to pray and even gives you words to use. It's pretty incredible, and if you want to know how it all started, the Lectio story goes like this:

We started in 1999, when one simple student-led prayer vigil went viral, and groups all over the world joined in to pray non-stop. Now, twenty years on, thousands of communities have taken part in 24-7 Prayer (in-person and virtually) in their churches, communities and cities. We’ve helped individuals all over the world to encounter God in prayer rooms – now we want to help people develop a daily relationship with Jesus. This is our vision for Lectio 365: to help millions of people to learn to pray the Bible every day and go deeper in prayer each morning and night.

Here is a link to install the app for iPhone or Android and a heap of other prayer resources

And you can join Peter Greig in a prayer course, too, if you like. 👇

INNER ROOM

Okay, this is a good one! Have you ever promised someone you would pray for them? How do you remember to do it? I often attach prayers to activities. I pray for Matt Crocker and his songwriting whenever I start my car and for different things when I brush my teeth. My morning coffee is a chance to remember a new friend who needs a miracle…. but how do you keep track of everything I have committed to pray for? I found a brilliant tool called Inner Room.

Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your inner room...” (Matt:6:6).

You can “add people and situations to your visual prayer board, then personalize it with photos and points to guide your daily prayers. And use Inner Room’s suggested categories to be challenged to pray in new areas – for your friends, church, or country.”

Check out the Inner Room App here.

EVERY MOMENT HOLY

A friend once slipped this into my hands right at a time when I felt unsure of what words to pray. It's beautiful and gives us prayers for the moments when we feel like we run short.

EVERY MOMENT HOLY brings new prayers for the practices and rhythms that form us. These prayers are ways of reminding us that our lives are shot through with sacred purpose even when, especially when, we are too busy or too caught up in our busyness to notice.

THE SOUNDTRACK OF PRAYER

I don't know about you, but I think everything is better with the right music. Over Covid, my friend David Andrew started recording instrumentals of old and modern hymns. I love turning this on in the background when I walk and pray or at my kitchen bench as I cook dinner. Listen to David Andrews's Hymns here.

Check out this video with 5 hours of modern hymns.

YOUR TURN NOW…

We once made a prayer wall…. a list of our team's many needs and requests that we could pray for. Then we committed to remembering them before the Lord regularly.

If you want to be a part of a digital prayer wall, we encourage you to write your prayer request below. You can keep it as generic as you like. Rich and I will pray for you by name over the next few weeks… and you can pray for each other too.

Drop your request in the chat - anything from job needs, to healing, to songs, to work, to creative block. If you feel it's something to take to God in prayer, we will join with you in it. We look forward to seeing how God answers. So remember to let us know!

And, don’t forget you can email us at rapid5@thehopefulrhino.com if you have a topic you’d like us to cover or if you’ve seen or created something inspiriting to share.

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THIS WEEK IN THE HOPEFUL RHINO JOURNALS

This week, we're debunking some myths about the creative process in the 'Rhino Journals.' We'll set you free from self-doubt and set you up for success.

Do you ever look at people and think, "Why does it come so easy to them, and it's so hard for me?" or "How can they create such great stuff, over and over again, and my stuff never goes anywhere?"

At times I've thought that way when it comes to the songwriters we live amongst. But then I realized it was different from what I thought.

Grace and Peace,

Cass & Rich