Hey there, prayers of rest listeners. We've just wrapped up an amazing season praying through

the fruit of the spirit. And we have a new season of prayer coming up this fall. But in the

meantime, rather than taking a complete break, I thought we'd take a few weeks to refresh our prayer

life. And by that I mean, I want to invite you to try new and creative ways

of growing your habit of prayer. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while,

you know we use the same acronym to guide our time of prayer together. That's R-E-S-T, and that's why we call it Pers-O-R-R-St. The R stands for

recite God's goodness as we praise God for who He is and what he's done in our lives. The E stands for

express your neediness, where we confess our sins and our need for God's forgiveness, and we

surrender ourselves completely to Him. The S stands for the part of prayer that most of us neglect,

and that is seek his stillness. And we take time to simply be still before God and listen to his voice.

And the T, of course, stands for trust his faithfulness.

We declare to God, I trust you.

And we trust to him the burdens and the worries that weigh us down.

Because he is who he says he is and he will do

what he said he will do and we can rest in his loving kindness. So that's the framework we've

been using to pray for over a year and a half now. And I honestly think it's a great way to help

us pray when we don't know what to say. But as helpful as an

acronym like rest can be, it also runs the risk of becoming so predictable that we miss out on

all different kinds of prayer that can bring freshness and vitality and a sense of adventure with God in our conversations with

him. And that's what I hope to help you with with this little mini season during the time

that we would usually take a break in between seasons. So each week for the next month and a half until we start our new season

of prayers of rest, I'll be sharing with you a creative prayer idea that I have tried in my own life.

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