Welcome, friends! This month FACETS of Faith is talking about one of my favorite spiritual topics─prayer. But before you get some picture of stuffy, formal displays, scrub that imagery from your brain. That’s not at all where God led me on this month’s writing journey. I can’t help but think God is going to bring people in need of hope to our posts this month. Know that you are getting prayed for by our team. We pray you have hope as an anchor that helps you hang on. We pray you have hope for today, tomorrow, and your future. We pray you have hope for  yourself, your family, and your friends. We pray that, even in hard seasons of life (and especially if you are in one RIGHT NOW) you are able to feel the love and hope of Christ alive in your heart.

My first house was a cute Cape Cod in a small lakefront community. I loved the place! Cute as a bug! (Ladybugs are cute, right?) Anyhow, it sat perched high on a hill overlooking the lake.  It was adorable. Fenced yard, a huge deck to take in all the water views, my first home a little slice of heaven. Except.

Except that one neighbor. You know the one (especially if you are familiar with unincorporated living). He never took care of a thing! His home sat disheveled as his lack of care and concern for his property diminished the value of everyone else’s. He was a nice guy. He just didn’t pay attention to what he had and how his lack of upkeep negatively impacted everyone else in the neighborhood.

Thankfully, I had a buffer. One home sandwiched between mine and the neighborhood eyesore. It got so bad at one point that my next door neighbors, the ones who took exemplary care of their yard, were forced to plant huge lilac bushes to block the sight of junk piling up in the backyard. Before long the neighbor whose property was diminishing returns for everyone else’s home values ran out of room in his back yard.

His neglect was smack dab in the front yard for all the world to see.

His boat and trailer sat front and center for years. Not sure how many. Enough to start growing weeds inside. Not quite the flowerbed you’d see on HGTV giving that home curb appeal.  Nope!  More like, more clutter and visual chaos than the eye can easily consume. His grime-covered boat with wild flowers (aka weeds) growing out of it sat so long on his driveway that it sank into the asphalt and would one day require a tow truck with a lot of torque to remove it once the “red tag committee” got involved.

That boat and trailer sat. Years. No love. No care. No fuel. Only neglect.

We can be like that sometimes.

We can have a shiny, new boat sitting in our driveway. However, without taking care of it, the boat loses its luster. Without adding fuel, we go nowhere. Fast. We need fuel to get where we’re going. How can we get anywhere on empty? Over time, without fuel our boat and trailer sink into the inky asphalt. Tires go flat, melting in the warm sun, becoming one with the driveway. Before we know it, there are well-worn ruts from the weight of the boat. Sinking. Sinking. A slow sink, unseen to the naked eye on day one, day two, day twenty. But before long, people begin to notice, even if we don’t.

“I wonder what’s going on at the neighbor’s house. Things are looking pretty shabby over there.”

Condemned houses don’t start out that way. Somewhere along the way someone just stopped caring. Perhaps, the people living inside lost hope. Life can get hard. Sometimes when life gets hard we curl into a ball, hide inside our houses, and don’t come out much. We think staying inside where the world can’t see us, and we can’t see it, will somehow make our situation better. But it doesn’t. It get’s harder. Lonelier. More isolated. Right where the devil wants us. He may even fertilize our futility.

“You don’t need them anyhow. You’re better off by yourself. No one will hurt you ever again. Just stay right here, locked in this cage that you think is freedom. Keep thinking that way.”

Weeds grow up entangling our hearts in hopelessness.

Heartbreaking to watch. We all need someone! All of us! We try to hide, but we can’t really. People eventually see what we think is a secret. People notice our neglect. The weeds that people once thought might be wild flowers are seen for what they are. Weeds.

One weed turns to two turns to ten. Condemned. Because, again, that’s right where the devil wants us.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Through sadness and despair we can see hope peering through the far off distance if we squint our eyes and look through the haze of hard things. Like a star to the naked eye. We know it’s there, fuzzy, distant, but it’s not false. It really does exist.

Hope really does exist!

I’ve seen people hide under a blanket of futility. It’s hard to watch. So hard! As I see them sinking, I want to impart every ounce of wisdom-infused, hope-filled message God has ever delivered to me. He’s certainly pulled me out of several ruts I was sinking into over my lifetime. I want to say, “See? Look where I’m standing! I didn’t think it was possible. Hang on! Have hope! Keep going! You’ll get there!”

God’s love, grace and mercy infuse hope. Like an IV drip, He gives much-needed nourishment.

How, you ask?

How did He give me hope?

Prayer.

How does He give me hope?

Prayer.

Whether for me or for someone I care for, prayer gives me hope.  It helps me hang on.

I’ve grown to love prayer so much! It’s my lifeline. It also helps me to be a lifeline for others, not in some unhealthy, co-dependent way. Rather, healthy helping.

When I’m praying, God will put someone on my heart (basically bring them to my mind), so I know that’s who He wants me to pray for that day. Often, I’ll quietly ask in my head, “How should I pray?” And then I get a sense of what God wants me to pray for that person and the situation they’re in. You see, I used to want to fix it for people, to solve all the world’s problems and to wear the weight of that all by myself. (Even before I was a believer, I wanted to help people.) But helping people in dire need of hope is just flat-out too hard, too much to carry without Christ. We can’t! We can’t fix the world. We can’t even fix our own little world, the one that sometimes turns upside down in each of our lives.

Nope.

But we don’t have to. It’s not how God designed things.

He desires to help us! He desires to give us hope!

How do I know?

Time and time again He’s demonstrated it to me. All along He was, I just didn’t hear Him in my younger days. I tuned Him out. Tone deaf. But once I started having conversations with Him, for that’s what prayer is, a conversation with God, I have been astounded at how much He has to say about me, about life, about big things and little.

I’ve been blown away at His sweetness, His sensitivity to me and my heart. And He’s helped me to not only hang onto hope for myself, but for others. I’d venture to say that’s almost harder.  Hope for others.  You see, I know what’s in my brain. I know where I’ve been and I have a sense of my own struggles (even if I don’t always fully understand them). With others I pray for, I can’t see inside their heads. I don’t REALLY know what’s in their heart.  People can be a mystery. People can be misunderstood.

But with prayer, I hear things on their behalf. God can (and does) reassure me. He helps me have hope for others who don’t have it for themselves. Through prayer, God will help me to know what’s next, not every step to get to the final destination, but what’s next.

Without prayer which fosters a deep, intimate relationship with Christ, how do we not give in to the futility the enemy wants to shackle us in? “Sink lower, deeper. Deeper still. And let your lack of care and concern start to contaminate everyone around you.” We know darned well the enemy wants to wreak havoc in every relationship. It’s his specialty, and one of the areas he is at his sneakiest, twisting and distorting truth to hinder any sense of healthy relationships with others.

Prayer gives us hope in those scenarios too.

Changing of hearts doesn’t happen through what I say or even what I do. God may give me an assignment in a situation, but the miracle-working power of transformation only happens when someone allows God to change their heart. Our prayers are spiritual fuel to change hearts. My energy is best spent praying on others’ behalf.

Prayer is also our spiritual buffer, protecting us from absorbing other people’s problems in an unhealthy fashion. Prayer is for our protection, so we can help without hurting others or ourselves in the process.

Something that gives me unbelievable hope is how I’ve seen God answer my prayers. Countless answers. I trust Him. I trust He hears me. I trust He loves me. And I hope you do too. Better than that, I pray you do!

And remember what can happen in unincorporated areas. Weeds grow. Sinking into ruts. Condemned. Instead, let Christ live in your heart.

Join the conversation here or on our Facebook page.

If you would like Christ to live in your heart, pray this prayer.

Jesus, I don’t really understand all that it means to let You live in my heart, but I do know I need Your help! I need Your hope! So I surrender my heart and my life to You. I will grow to know You over time, and I thank You that You will help me to learn how to hear Your voice. Show me through prayer and through others how to experience You, Your love for me, and Your love for others. Help me to follow You forever and to embrace all that You have to show me, to teach me, and to heal within me. Instead of sinking deep in despair, help me to sink deep in Your love! Thank You for your gentleness. I pray You show me how gentle and loving You are, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Thank You, Jesus, for living in my heart from this day forward, forever and ever. In Jesus’ name, amen!