Keep Alert And Pray

Keep alert and pray. Otherwise temptation will overpower you. For though the spirit is willing enough, the body is weak! Matthew 26:41

Sometimes forward movement in life needs to come by supernatural intervention. However, as women, we feel a need to maintain control—kind of help God out—when what he wants us to do is release our prayer requests, hopes, and dreams to his care. We women often carry heavy burdens for our husbands, our children, our extended family, our future, and the future of all those we love. How can we learn to let go? Jesus told his disciples in the garden to “keep alert and pray” (Matthew 26:41). He gave them an assignment while they waited and prayed.

One summer a group of women and I gathered with our photo scrapbooks as part of a women’s prayer project. We created prayer pages for each person we cared about. We listed requests we were praying for each person and then found verses to pray for each request. We left plenty of space for a photo and a place to write the answers to our prayer requests.

By creating a tangible prayer reminder, each day we could commit the people we loved to God’s care. We saw some amazing results: we became less controlling and less pushy with our families. We felt more peace and calm. And we became more aware of small answers to prayers—movement in the lives of those we love. And creating a photo album gave us an assignment to do while we waited and prayed for the work God would do in the lives of our loved ones.