It’s been a while since I’ve been motivated to write or sketch, and that same slump has been creeping into my prayer and Bible study habits.
I decided to get back to using colored pencils during my prayer time this week, and doodling made for such a lovely time of meditating and listening. It’s easy to skip over being still and quiet as a part of prayer. For me, writing out a prayer helps me focus more intentionally, and then sketching quiets my thoughts while I wait and listen.
Accept my prayer as incense offered to you,
and my upraised hands as an evening offering.
Psalm 141:2 NLT
Our prayer is an offering to God. As you pray today, draw an incense censer, and fill it with some key words from your prayers. While you pray over those things, draw the smoke of the incense coming up from each request as a symbol of them rising to God.
Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.
Esther 4:16 NLT
Fasting is most often a tool for praying specifically with laser-like intention and focus on one topic – an important decision, a stronghold of sin, or even a national crisis like the one Esther was facing. Pray and ask God to point his laser beam into your life and show you where you may need a focused time of prayer or fasting. Write that in the center of the page and draw a shape around it. From that central idea, brainstorm actions you need to take and draw the thoughts God brings to you as an idea map.
Mabbat 