…Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. –Exodus 17:10-13

The thing that I love about the above passage is that Joshua wasn’t in the battle alone. Not only that, but Moses didn’t even have to hold up his hands by himself. There was one war being fought and each person had a role to play in it. When each person did his part the battle was won.

I’m heading into my own battle or sorts this week and I could use your prayers.

Today I’m getting on a plane and heading to the She Speaks conference. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I write for the She Seeks division of Proverbs 31 Ministries and that I also attended this same conference last year. I love these women greatly and I think they put on one of the finest conferences there is when it comes to equipping women for writing, speaking and women’s ministry.

I have several friends I don’t see often that I will get to spend a few days connecting with. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of me that’s desperately afraid to get on a plane, head all the way to the other side of the United States and do crazy things like participate in a speaker evaluation group where I will be critiqued so that I can better hone my speaking skills or sit down with a bestselling author for fifteen minutes and pick his brain on how I can better go about getting a new book contract.

This last week has been very difficult for me. As I prepared to teach at women’s Bible study at my church on Tuesday night and leave for this conference this morning I was met with opposition. First, I was plagued by the most intense bout with insecurity that I’ve experienced in years. There were voices screaming in the back of my mind that God was most certainly done with me and I should not be going to a conference full of experts and fresh talent.

Then the physical ailments started. A fever and headache came out of nowhere and sucked away my concentration as I tried my hardest to prepare to teach and speak. It was strange.

I spent a lot of this week on my face begging God for the strength to do what was before me and for the courage to walk in my calling.

That’s where you come into the story. I’m really hoping I won’t have to go to She Speaks alone. I’m asking you to go with me, to lift up my hands. If you feel so compelled, I’m asking you to storm the gates of heaven on my behalf from now through Sunday.

Some of the things you can pray for include:

▪Safe and on-time travels. I will be flying into thunderstorms and I have a tight connection that will barely get me to North Carolina on time to attend a dinner I need to be at on Thursday night. Please also pray my suitcase arrives safely with me.

▪Fresh vision and purpose about what God has for me in this season of life

▪Affirmation and confidence in my calling

▪New friends and strong ministry relationships that will be mutually encouraging

▪Bonding with my friends on the She Seeks team

▪A radical experience with God in the prayer room at the conference

Please know you will not waste a prayer on me. If you choose to pray for me this weekend I would love to know about it so I can personally thank you. So please leave a comment below.

I promise a full update after I get home from the conference. Thank you for your prayers and your support. I really couldn’t do what I do without you—and honestly, I wouldn’t want to either

Please also feel free to let me know how I can be praying for you.

Have you talked to someone and noticed they weren’t listening? I hate that—especially when what I am saying is important. Nothing makes you feel worse than the indication that your cares are not significant.

Sometimes we feel that way about God. Recently I’ve received a handful of emails or Facebook messages from those of you who feel like your prayers are bouncing off the walls of heaven. God doesn’t listen, you think. God doesn’t care. Then you begin to wonder if He’s even real.

I’ve had my own unanswered prayers. Some I’m grateful for—like the fact I didn’t marry the guy I had a crush on when I was fifteen. Others still break my heart—like the time God didn’t heal my grandpa when he was dying.

In the emails I receive from girls I’ve noticed a pattern. Many of you pull out a verse and use it like a trump card. Jesus says in Matthew 18:19, “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”

Then you cross your arms in defiance and say, “I had all of my friends praying with me about this and God didn’t answer. So He must not be real.”

Now, what you are trying to do here is good. You are looking in the Bible to see what God says He will do and you’re holding Him to it (just like we talked about on Monday). Great. But there is a problem.

In most books of the Bible (Proverbs excluded) you cannot just pick one verse without consulting the verses around it and assume you know what it means. Context is everything—it’s true in all written correspondence and even in our speech. I once had a girl write to me to say my book Being a Girl Who Loves inspired her to stay in an abusive relationship because it would give her an opportunity to be more loving.

When I read that I couldn’t respond fast enough to tell her that was not the best conclusion to draw. I then encouraged her to love the person by leaving him and reporting him so he could get help. Imagine if she never wrote to me and kept getting beat up thinking it was what Jesus wanted her to do! The thought makes me sick.

We always need to read in context. Matthew 18:19 is couched between verses on church discipline and how the leadership should handle a member of the church living in habitual sin. They need to pray and come to an agreement on how to proceed. As they do God will be with them and do as they ask.

Unfortunately that verse isn’t a free pass to ask for anything we want and get it. If it was there would be far more millionaires and no more starving people. People would probably never die either. A world where everyone could pray for whatever they wanted and get it would be impossible too since someone’s prayers would most likely contradict someone else’s.

So you can’t call God a liar or non-existent because He doesn’t answer every prayer the way you want Him too. But you should still pray. Why? God invites us to.

Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

What’s the point?

Oswald Chambers says it best: “Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means for getting something for ourselves; the Bible’s idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.”

Get to know God. Pray. And trust Him to answer in the best way possible.

But He did—over and over again. While at the conference I was exposed to some excellent teaching that will yield much professional and spiritual growth for me as I seek to apply it. But the thing that took my breath away wasn’t the teaching. It was the prayer room.

Proverbs 31 Ministries, the organization that puts the She Speaks conference on, is composed of some of the godliest women out there. When someone signs up for the conference they begin praying for her by name immediately. In the week leading up to the conference each woman’s name is printed on a strip of paper and once the staff gets to the hotel they take those strips of paper into the prayer room.

Throughout the prayer room the names of God, and verses explaining each name, are laid out on large sheets of paper. The names of the women are prayed over and then spread out across the names of God. Their prayer is that each woman’s name would be divinely placed on the name of God that best correlates with what she needs Him to be in this season of her life. Some of the stories women were telling about where their name was placed gave me chill bumps.

After a particularly moving time in worship on Saturday night I decided I was ready to meet with God in the prayer room. I recently finished Beth Moore’s Stepping Up Bible study and she taught us the discipline of praying on our faces. So, I ventured into the prayer room because I wanted to get facedown before the God of the universe.

But before I got on my face, I walked around looking for my name. When I saw it I began frantically looking around for a pen. I needed to capture every word and Scripture reference from that piece of paper because the prayers of the Proverbs 31 team had been answered. My name was placed just where it needed to be.

There in that prayer room God confirmed some things that He had been speaking to my heart all weekend. Things that only He and I knew. I. was. undone. And I was able to get on my face before Him in honest surrender and fully submit myself to whatever He had next.

This post isn’t long enough to explain the background information that makes my name being placed on that particular name of God so significant. And, in all honesty, right now it’s still something I would like to keep private between God and me. The story will come in time. Those of you who read this blog regularly will probably be among the first to see it. But, right now what name of God I most associate with isn’t important. The more pertinent question is which of His names most speaks to you.

When was the last time you studied the names of God? Pull out your Bible right now and use your concordance to help you locate some of His names that you may have forgotten about or might not even be aware of. During this season of life, what name of God best represents what you need Him to be for you?

Sometimes it can be so frustrating to watch all of your friends pairing off and getting boyfriends—especially when a school dance or other big event comes along.

Even though the man who will one day sweep you off your feet isn’t in your life today, it is important to remember that he is out there somewhere and you can be praying for him. The odds are in your favor, most people aren’t called to celibacy. Chances are you probably will get married even if it takes awhile.

 The years spent waiting for your future husband don’t have to be wasted. On Wednesday we talked about how those years can be put to good use. But there’s another thing I want to mention before the week is out.

Every day you spend waiting is a day you can spend praying. I seriously began praying for the man I would marry when I was in college. Maybe it was the swarm of unattractive and immature guys around me that prompted me to pray for the man I would call mine. But I think it was something more than that.

I regularly prayed that the man God would have for me would have certain character qualities—patience, kindness, gentleness, godliness, etc…And I also prayed for his purity and that the Lord would be drawing him into a deeper relationship with Himself.

But there’s a period of months that still stands out distinctly in my mind. During that time I was prompted to pray that God would show my future husband that the relationship he was in was harmful and destructive. I wrote out a series of prayers in my journal asking God to give this man—whom I didn’t know—strength and resolve to end the relationship. I felt so strongly that this is what I should be praying that I prayed these prayers every night—and I wrote about them and dated them in my journal.

Years later when I began dating my husband the topic of past relationships came up. He only had one—during that very same period of months. It was destructive and he ended the relationship right around the time my burden to pray those prayers stopped. (My old journals serve as a written testimony in case there are any skeptics out there.)

I will never forget the look of amazement on Michael’s face when I told him about my old journals and those prayers. He was stunned and overcome with emotion all at the same time. The fact that God could be prompting my heart to pray about specific circumstances in his life when I didn’t even know him was truly an amazing thing.

So, take some time (it doesn’t have to be every day) and pray for your future husband. Ask God to build traits of godliness in him and make him a strong leader. Pray that God will give him boldness—especially when it comes to pursuing you when the time is right. Don’t be afraid to pray for his sexual purity and protection even from pure relationships with the wrong girls.

You may be amazed at what God will do. Keep a written record of your prayers with a date next to them so that someday you can have a written testimony of what God did in your love story long before you even knew the man you would marry.

What are some things you can (or do) pray for your future husband? Do you do anything special like keep a journal of letters to him? What are some ways you can take your longing for a relationship and turn it into something productive?