Life Audio.
Teach Us to Praise brought to you by Life Audio and is a part of our Faith Toolkit series. For more inspirational faith affirming podcasts, visit lifeaudio dot com.
Welcome back, friend. You are listening to the Teach Us to Pray podcast, where we teach believers practical and real life tips on how to grow your faith and relationship with God through the power of prayer. I'm Christina Patterson, host of the Teach Us to Pray podcast and founder of Beloved Women, where I encourage, equip and empower women in the love of Jesus Christ and the truth of God's Word. I am so excited to share today's episode with you because it's an interview with my good friend,
Heather Dixon. Heather is an author, speaker, and Bible teacher who understands living with a story that is not easy. Diagnosed with an in curable and terminal genetic disorder that she inherited from her mother, she is passionate about encouraging and equipping women to trust God, face their greatest fears, and live with hope, especially in the midst of difficult circumstances. If you have ever wanted to have a stronger prayer life.
This episode is for you. I know that many of you already know the importance of prayer, but maybe you desire to grow in this area. In this episode, Heather is going to share with you practical steps that she's taken and is still taking to grow in the discipline of prayer. In this lighthearted and fun conversation with Heather, you will learn practical steps to make prayer a daily part of your life, how to use the Lord's prayer to start your day with God, and how daily prayer
can drastically change your life. So if you are ready to strengthen your prayer life life, enjoy this episode.
Let me tell you one of the ways that God is challenging me with prayer and will I will say, of the spiritual disciplines, prayer has probably been the one that always needed where I needed more growth in. Like I love reading God's word, like love it like that's an easy yeah, I know you do, two sisters, so eat that's an easy one for us. And worship love it. Worship is fun, Worship is encouraging, you know. I love spending time you know in worship, whether it's singing or
just you know, telling God who he is. But like actual prayer and like praying for all the people that ask for prayer, request and literally praying that one was kind of a doozy for me in terms of figuring out, you know, Okay, how do I incorporate this into my life and actually do it well, I guess, or do it in a way that is well. I don't want I want to attach values on prayer, but you know
what I mean. But you know, I just I wanted to do it better, you know, But I just really felt like that spiritual discipline was probably an area where I could grow. So I started this year. In the morning, I you know, wake up and my body is very cranky because number one, I'm forty five and number two, you know, I live with a connected tissue disorder, so that often means just cranky joints and cranky body in
the morning. So I roll my joints out and you know, and I kind of, you know, stretch a little bit. And then before I go I've gone to bed at night, I placed one of my big pillows right next to my bed, and so I get up and I like roll over on the side of the bed and I land on the floor on my pillow, face down. Okay, Okay, so I'm like face down because that's about all I got in the mornings, and I'm face down, and I
started reciting the Lord's Prayer. Most of us, if we can recite anything from the Bible, can probably recite that, if we've grown up in the church at all. And if you can't, it's fine, it's there.
You can.
You can learn it. But I start, you know, face down, saying that prayer, and as I get through, you know, in my mind, I'm just thinking through all the different sections of that, like our Father and you just like just stop there, and the truths that we can think about, like our number one Christina, You and I are sisters in Christ. We are a member of the same family humanity believers in Christ. We are all one united family. We have one united father, our Father. We are a
part of a royal family who are in Heaven. Okay, He's in heaven. He is in control. He is not just some dude behind a curtain like the Wizard of Oz, like he's you know, he has created the earth. He's created the heaven and the earth. He is the creator. So anyway, I just I go through each a little
little piece of that. I let my prayer where it's just spin off of whatever, you know, whatever comes to mind as I hit those phrases in the Lord's Prayer and I get up and get some coffee because another reason why I'm reciting the Lord's prayers because I have zero words and the first thing in the morning, you know, but those you know, easily roll off my mind and it is changing my day.
I love it.
Yeah, here's why. Number one. I mean, I've seen God moving in situations that I have prayed for or I've just done like little small prayers. But like in this prayer, something we had a family member, something was going on with her and it was, you know, we needed medical attention, you know, very quickly. And I remember the caregiver calling me and she was like, I don't know how this
happened so quickly. And you know, my husband looked at me, he says, because you started your day because you were face down, And I was like, thank you Jesus. I'm seeing, you know, God moved throughout my day. I'm recognizing he's moving. And because I have started my day giving him glory, it reminds me to give him that glory as things go go, you know well throughout the day or I
see answered prayers, it also is convicting me. So when I start to worry or get anxious, I can remember, you know what I give us this day in my daily bread, you will give me what I need to get through this moment. And so, you know, my brain is starting to connect the you know, the circumstances of my day with the words that I've prayed in the morning. And I don't know God is I mean, I haven't
come to a lot of conclusions yet. I can just say that God is really teaching me a lot through that practice right now, and it's really changing the way I'm walking through my day. So what would you say about prayer?
One thing that I always like to say is to start with you have you know, because I know when you're always like really busy and you know, tired and things like that. But like any other spiritual discipline, it's something it's a spiritual muscle that you can build up, you know, So you might not be praying hour every morning like your grandma did you.
Know, I'm not me either, but she sure did, didn't she?
And so but maybe you can still with two minutes and then maybe five minutes, and not even like you need to be like timing yourself like we were talking about before, as as far as like putting a grade on it, like a longer prayer is necessarily a better prayer.
Like no, there's so many like just quick, short prayers in the Bible as well that God answered, that God heard, you know, And so just encouraging women to look at prayer as not an obligation or something that we need to check off, but like I'm connecting with my father and he's hearing me, and I'm hearing him, just like you would be excited to talk to your girlfriends, you know and having a conversation with them, and so really
just trying to shift that mindset on prayer. And for me, it's I have my set times where I pray, particularly trying to pray before I go to sleep at night, before and then maybe before I do my devotions in the morning, but then also just like little prayers throughout the day, you know, as I'm driving, Lord, let us get to school safe, let the kids have a good day at school, or even before we're doing an interview, you know, I'm like, oh God, let it go, well,
you know, and I'm just kind of like just a little quick prayer in my head, you know, just acknowledging that like God is here with me in this moment as well, you know, and he's he hears and he sees, and I'm not alone in this moment. And when we just pray little prayers throughout the day, it reminds us of that. What a power packed episode with practical tips that we can implement today to strengthen our prayer lives.
It is my hope that today's episode has provided you with insight and helpful tips on how you can pray. We have so much more to talk about when it comes to prayer, so I hope that if you are encouraged by today's episode, you will share it with a friend and subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes of the Teach Us to Pray Podcast, where we will continue to learn how, just like breathing, prayer can become a natural, consistent, and life giving part of our everyday lives.
Until then, be sure to connect with me at Belovedwomen dot org and check out the show notes to download my free five day prayer guide. I also want to invite you to study the Bible with me by downloading the Beloved Women app available in the Apple and Google play stores, or at Belovedwomen dot tv. Thank you so much for taking time to listen today. God bless you and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
Teach Us to Pray is a production of Life Audio and the Salem Web Network. If you enjoyed this episode, would you take a minute and leave us a review in your podcast app? It really does help more people like you find the podcast To hear more from Christina Patterson, be sure to check out her fantastic site, Belovedwomen dot org. A special thanks to Kelly Gibbons, Steven Sanders, and Stephen
McGarvey for their production and editing on this episode. You can find more podcasts like this over at lifeaudio dot com.