Allow me to share a little about me and how God placed the idea for this prayer system on my heart. You can also check out the video below (it's an excerpt from a radio interview I did on July 13, 2010 at Yes FM, our local Christian radio station).
First of all, you should know that I’m not a pastor, a priest, a minister, a missionary, or a Bible scholar. I’m just a regular person, perhaps like you, who is doing his best to serve God and serve my family. I’m a husband to my wife Kelly, a father to our 4 daughters, an estate planning attorney, and a deacon in our local church. In 1997, I made the decision to give my life to Jesus and follow him. I believed and accepted God’s free gift of salvation through Grace, and became a Christian.
Since becoming a Christian, I have struggled (like many people, I expect) with my prayer life. I was not what anyone would call a "prayer-warrior" - at least not consistently, and for the most part prayer was not a priority in my life. Sure, I prayed before meals and we prayed at bedtime with the kids, but those prayers usually involved a lot of memorized, formula prayers that were more automatic than anything else. When I would actually take the time to come up with a "real" prayer, it was usually because either (1) I was in a bind and had run out of my own solutions to the problem, so then I decided to turn it over to God in prayer, or (2) I was in a group of other people from Church and we were praying for specific needs from our prayer list. Most of my prayers involved some variation of "God, I want you to …, " "God, I want …, so I need you (please) to give me …," or "God, so-and-so needs your help with …."
All of that began to change for me when I was reading a book on scripture prayer my wife had bought for me. It was a book with topical scripture prayers, written specifically for daughters. For example, "I pray that You, God, shall supply all of my daughter's needs according to Your riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)." As I was reading through the book, I found that I really loved the concept, but was frustrated because as I was praying each verse prayer, I had to substitute my daughters’ names into the verse prayers instead of the "my daughter" that was written there. When I finished praying for one of my girls, I had to then go back and consult the Table of Contents to see which prayer topic would be right for the next daughter on my list, and then flip through the book to find that topic, and start the process over. I was also frustrated because if I wanted to pray for my wife, I had to go and get another book, and there wasn’t a book to cover my own prayer needs.
I decided that I liked the concept so much, but was so frustrated by the mechanics of the process in the books, that I would create a prayer system for myself. I used a software program and created a system that would allow me to choose prayer topics for myself, for my wife, and for each of my daughters. After countless hours of research I had found Bible verses covering almost 30 different prayer need topics, and converted those Bible verses into verse prayers. I set up the system to pull the verse prayers for each topic I had chosen, insert their names into each verse prayer, and create a document that I could use to pray specifically for me and for each of them that day.
Right away the difference was amazing. My prayer life was completely changed. I was praying a lot more regularly, and my prayers were more focused. I had left behind the "God, I want …" and "God, please give me this …" or God, please give this person that …." I was now praying for the things that God wanted us to have.
In order to make my prayer sessions complete, I added new sections to the system. I wanted to pray praises to God, so I added verse prayers of praise, arranged by topics of God’s attributes. I also wanted to pray prayers of thanksgiving, so I could express my thanks to God for all of the things he provides for me (of course, when I say "things," I don't mean "stuff"). I also added a section for prayer specific to my Church, and another section specific to the needs of my pastors. At this point the system covered over 50 prayer topics in 6 different prayer sections (Praise, Thanksgiving, Prayers for Me, Prayers for Others, Church Prayers, and Pastor Prayers).
After I had the system to the point where I could share the idea with other people, I shared it with my pastor over lunch one day. He really loved the idea, and encouraged me to share it with the world. That’s when the idea of the website was born. About 4 months later, after a lot of design, tweaking, and prayer, the website was up and running. I hope that it has as much of an impact on you as it has on me.
Thanks, and God bless you!
Richard Chamberlain, Founder of PrayingHisWord.com
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