Drawing Closer to God through Prayer & Worship That Goes Beyond Just Words

Beautiful friends and welcome back to Faith fueled woman. This is your host Kristen, and I'm so glad that you've joined me today. Today we are going to talk about how we can draw closer to God through worship, through song through listen to worship, music, and lots of other things. Hi, beautiful friend and Welcome to Faith fueled woman. I want to ask you, are you ready to accept the invitation we've been given a step into the adventure of pursuing God and what He has for us. I am Kristen. I am an encourager. I'm a Christian, inspirational speaker, author and podcaster I help women grow in their faith, purpose and business so they can have lasting legacy and impact in our homes and in the world. If you want to partner with God and design your life to be less hurried, less stressed, be more excited and feel alive and your purpose and commitment to God and your family. This is the podcasting community for you grab your favorite beverage, your prayer journal and your pen. And let's be encouraged. Hey there, before we jump into today's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I have created a daily devotional journal sheet for you that you can go download for free, you just need to go to Kristin fitch.com/worship. And you can also sign up to join my inspirational encouraging newsletters well from that place. And I hope you will go grab that freebie. All right, here we go. We're gonna dive right in. So today I wanted to talk about how we can worship beyond just quiet prayer and contemplation or filling out a prayer journal. Those are all amazing things of which I do most days. But the honest truth is, sometimes it takes me shaken up a little bit. It takes listening to music that really lets me connect with God or, or singing. But just being able to hear the rhythm, the music, the tone, words inspire me sometimes that really can elevate in my feeling my worship, feeling my connection to God. So that's what we're going to dig into today. And I would just share Psalm 95, one with you, which says, Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. And then St. Augustine actually said to sing is to pray twice. And I love that thing that's so beautiful. And, you know, really it is about how do we go beyond our every day time with God? How do we make sure that especially in times when maybe we're feeling really stressed out anxious, we're going through tough time or a tough day. Sometimes that's when turning on music that lets you kind of worship while you listen to the music while you get things done. Or just to listen to really bring down your stress level and increase your peace, right, increase those fruits of the Spirit that, you know that God talks about? And so how do we do that? Really, it's just find worship songs that you like, or you can, you know, so many of the, I guess music apps now or platforms, you can just literally put in worship music or you could put in Christian you know, whatever you choose, like rock or Christian hymns, or whatever your style is, you could play que love, you know, there's a lot of options. And like I said, You do not have to play music, you could sing a favorite song of yours. Favorite lyrics, you could just listen to music that's instrumental, right? Or an acoustic song. It doesn't have to have all the things it doesn't even have to have lots of lyrics. But if it lets you kind of change your state, change your frequency, so that you're more hoping to connecting with God, I think that's what we're talking about. And it took me about 15 minutes to find this, but I had an old Xeroxed copy or photocopied or whatever you want to call it, I guess that ages me a little bit. But I had this old copy of something that was sent to me in a card years ago, from someone that since passed an older relatives of mine. But it was a beautiful prayer that type talks about how we draw closer to God and what prayer really is. So I wanted to share that with you today. And it is from Joan chittister, who was an author and a lecturer. And it is from I think it was her book called The amount of static way. And this is what it says.

The question is not whether or not God is with us. The concern is whether or not we're really with God, aware of God, open to God's actions in our life, alert to the presence of God in this moment. Whatever its nature, however it feels to be for ourselves alone, even in prayer is not holiness. We must pray for the needs of the entire world that God have created. Otherwise what we are calling prayer is simply spiritual narcissism. There is no magic and prayer. The magic lies only in our willingness to do ourselves, what we pray for, make peace, show love, do justice, show mercy, work hard, be patient, do you want to others what you would have others do unto you. Prayer is not only words, sometimes words get in the way. Prayer is silence. It is dance, it is poetry, it is song, it is tears, it is laughter. Then, little by little, it becomes life. First of all, I love that that small verse had so much to say so much, goodness, so much information and so much knowledge. First of all, that it's there's no magic in prayer, it's that we are showing up and living the way that we've been asked to live that God has told us this is how we can be like him. And then secondly, that prayer is not only words, it is not only speaking to God, and listening to God, but it's, it can be silence, it can be movement, it can be sound, it can be connection, you know, and so I think that's so important. And the other thing that I think pointing out that she points out in that verse is that it has to go beyond us. And you know that the prayer can't just be for ourselves, always and forever, right? And I love that idea that she calls it spiritual narcissism. And surely, I'm not saying we shouldn't pray for the things in our lives, pray for guidance and direction. I think, of course, we should. But I think she's just pointing out that if we find ourselves over and over, never getting beyond ourselves, and both our prayer and what we pray for and our actions, and how we actually show up as humans, then that is not what we're called to do. And I think it's the same in our prayer life. And in Bob coughs book, dream big, he says something about prayers, and I just want to share this little bit. It's a he says, someone wiser than me once asked, If God answered every one of your prayers, would it change anybody's life it except your own? And I think that's maybe a good litmus test, if you will. And I'll just say that again, someone wiser than me once asked if God answered every one of your prayers, would it change anybody's life except your own? Ah, that is so good. And I think really, you know, it comes down to one, are we praying for other people in our lives? Are we praying for our leaders? Are we paying praying for our pastors or ministers, you know, the people in our lives for our children? Are we praying for communities for a change to happen? Are we paying for miracles that would take God to make happen? And I read so many examples where sometimes we say like, Ah, I'm praying for and it's something, let's say that it's probably very attainable, just from maybe someone we know, in our actual circle. But instead of actually just putting it out there and asking people, we pray, like, oh, gosh, God, maybe you can provide this, when we might actually have the power ourselves or someone we know, to make that happen. So I think we do need to make sure that we're praying for things that are going to let us see that God moved. Right. He moved mountains in the prayer in the answering of the prayer. And I think that's so important. And so today, the reason I brought this up is how do we get closer to God? How do we draw closer to Him? And I think it's through so many of the things that I talked about today. One, it's find ways to worship that aren't just your quiet prayer time. Throughout the day, throw on a song that you love, put it on, repeat, put on your favorite music or a worship song, while you go about doing your chores, or while you make dinner while you're in the car. Listen to something that lifts you up, and really helps you have another perspective, you know, and feel closer to God.

Shake it up more often. You know, it doesn't have to be quiet. It can be loud, it can be movement, it can be laughter, it can be, you know, reading stories that remind you of just how mighty and powerful and loving God is. So just keep out adding things to your life to your weeks that will allow you to draw closer to Him to really worship at a different level. And to keep it from being too routine. Because I think sometimes when we get stuck in the routine, routines are good. I mean, having time to do a devotional or Bible study or get do a group Bible study are great, and they're amazing. And so much comes from those, those times of day that we do that. But sometimes the routine, too much routine without kind of shaking it up for us, we can sometimes lose the magic, those divine connections or moments that we just feel God closer to us, you know, those moments where we get goosebumps, because something literally moved us that way. And I would say that something is the divine, you know, or a divine connection or a divine feeling, you know, but that's the type of thing I'm talking about. So if we want to draw closer to God, I think that is what we're talking about. Make sure that we are stepping out and we're caring for people we are showing up, you know ready to go and the day that we're worshipping him and all the things we do and that we are we are praying for the people and we're showing up for other people in our lives. Thanks again for listening. And if you would like to be encouraged and lifted up, I have a seven day encouragement challenge. If you'd like to sign up go to faith fueled woman.com and just enter your email address and you will be sent seven days of Christian encouragement inspiration to your inbox. Thanks again for listening to faith killed woman. If you enjoyed the show. We would love it if you would share it with a friend. And if you would leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts because it helps us get discovered by more people who spread more hope in the world. Thanks again for listening in.