Make Your Personality Work for You in Prayer--The Planner — Erica Barthalow

This is the third installment in the Prayer Personality Series, and today’s post is all about The Planner. If this is all new to you and you have no idea what a prayer personality is you can take this fun quiz and find out more here.

Planner’s are some of my favorite kind of people. As someone who regularly plans big events but is not a planner, I appreciate having you on my team ever so much!

You are the one with a plan for your plan. You want to know what you’re having for supper…while you’re eating breakfast. You’re always thinking ahead. Your lists have lists. You are the person that people can count on to get things done! If you said you’ll do it, it’s as good as done. You’re trustworthy and reliable, and nothing gets by you.

As someone who likes to have a plan, I don’t need to tell you that it can really throw you off your game when your best laid plans go awry. You struggle when things are unpredictable and you don’t know what will happen next. However, sometimes the best moments with God happen when you least expect it and you can’t plan for them. You can practice appreciating (or at the very least, surviving) these moments by taking a moment to breathe deeply and thanking God that he’s in the midst of the chaos with you. This might sound trite, and it is if you just read it and don’t put it into practice, but deep breathing and gratitude have both been proven to help relieve stress and change your outlook. Try it—it just might change your life the next time it feels like things are spiraling out of your control.

One of the best ways to stay focused in prayer is to make a prayer list. But we’ve already established that of all the prayer personalities, you are the most likely to have that covered. So the fact that I’d like to challenge you to make a list might get you laughing or rolling your eyes, or perhaps you just pulled out your notepad and favorite pen?

You might be thinking, “Making a list is not a challenge or even anything that I don’t normally do.” We have already established that your lists have lists, and you probably have a running list of prayer requests. But I want to challenge you to try making a different kind of list.

Prayer can become tedious, boring or challenging because we get stuck in our routines and sometimes we just pray too small. I know I’m guilty of this. That’s where our list comes in. I challenge you to create a list of three huge requests. Maybe it’s for the salvation of someone that you think it completely beyond hope. One of the things I’m currently praying for is that a spiritual awakening and revival will spread through our local public school system. Talk about a big dream!

The Bible tells us that when we ask anything according to God’s will that he hears and acts (1 John 5:14-15). If your huge requests fall in that category (salvation, God’s presence and activity at work in the world, for His glory to be on display etc.) you can bet that He’ll be all about it. So then you get the fun job of creating the list and bringing it to him and then waiting with expectation for him to show up. I don’t know about you, but I’ll show up for that all day, every day!

The last thing I have for you is a resource that I think will be right up your alley. Valerie Woerner of ValMarie Paper makes some incredible prayer journals and the 2023 journals are dropping Tuesday, August 16th, 2022! You can head over and check them out here, and while you’re there explore some of the other great prayer resources she has!

The final installment in the Prayer Personality Series is all about The Socialite and is coming very soon. If you take the quiz below, you’ll get new posts delivered straight to your inbox and updates about my upcoming book about how to get over your prayer hang-ups! Hooray!

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