Nancy Kennedy - Praying with Women of the Bible

Also by Nancy Kennedy

Between Two Loves

ZONDERVAN

Praying with Women of the Bible
Copyright 2004 by Nancy Kennedy

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition August 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86665-7

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kennedy, Nancy, 1954.

Praying with women of the Bible / Nancy Kennedy.1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-310-25222-9

1. Women in the Bible. 2. WomenPrayer-books and devotions

English. I. Title.

BS575.K46 2003

248.32dc22

2003018765

CIP

This edition printed on acid-free paper.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Zondervan, nor do we vouch for their content for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in association with the literary agency of Ann Spangler and Company, 1420 Pontiac Road S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49506.

Interior design by Michelle Espinoza

This book is dedicated to Caroline Kennedy Smith,
my favorite first granddaughter. May God surprise
and delight you as he answers your prayers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I t sounds so clichd to say that I couldnt have written this book without others help, but thats the truth.

My first acknowledgment goes to Ann Spangler, my agent, who feeds me great ideas and then as I run wild with them, reins me in until I find my focus. Shes amazing. From cover design and title to back of the book copy, her ideas and guidance shine through. Thank you, Ann.

Next, I want to thank Sandy Vander Zicht, an extraordinary editor at Zondervan. Sandy understands my unconventional, cockeyed way of approaching life and has encouraged me to be myself in my writing. I also want to thank my other Zondervan editor, Verlyn Verbrugge, whom Ive never met but hope to some day. The whole Zondervan team so far has been amazing to work with.

I definitely couldnt do what I do without the love and care from my church family at Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto, Florida. I am beyond grateful to them (and the preachers not half-bad, either).

Thanks, too, to my dear friends and cheerleaders Steve Brown and Charlie Wade. Somehow my name found its way onto their daily prayer lists, and Lord knows I need all the prayer I can get! Steves wisdom is as deep as his voice, and so is my gratitude to him for listening to my saga thus far.

There isnt enough space to express my gratitude to my husband, Barry Kennedy, who gives me all the freedom I have ever needed to write books. His fee is quite fair, too. Hes another amazing person in my life.

That said, my deepest thanks go to the most amazing One of all: Gracious Holy God, you who know me at my worst, yet still continue to use and bless me. I will never cease to be amazed by your grace!

I have a confession to make. By nature, Im a skeptic. When it comes to prayer, I pray because I shouldbecause the Bible tells me tobut it doesnt come easily. I know God answers prayer because Ive seen him do it countless times, but I dont know why he does it or how he does it.

I remember when my daughter Alison was about three. As a new Christian learning to pray, I attempted to teach her to pray too. Actually, at that time I was trying to teach her about giving money to Jesus. She had put fifty cents of her own in the offering plate at church on a Sunday morning, then misplaced one of her shoes that afternoon. We hadnt discovered that bit of information until the next morning during our frantic rush to get out the door for preschool.

Only after turning the house upside down trying to find the missing shoe did I think to pray. Alison and I knelt down, put our faces on the couch, and in earnest asked, Dear God, you know where Alisons shoe is and we dont. Please show us so we can get to school on time. Amen.

As a skeptic, I didnt expect God to answer our prayer. Although I knew that he knew the whereabouts of the shoe, I considered it a trivial matter to the Creator of the heavens. I had prayed because I thought I should set an example for my child.

After our Amen, Alison immediately ran to my bedroom and found her shoe under my bedwith a dollar bill in it. Jesus found my shoe, and Jesus gave me money just like I gave him! she squealed. It was a complete and utter surprise to me.

Sometimes the simplest occurrences prove to be the most profound. That answer to my simple request gave me my first real glimpse into the God to whom we pray and into prayer itself. It stirred my skepticism and started me on a quest filled with questions:

What is prayer and does it really make a difference? How should I pray? What should I pray for? Is there a right way (or a wrong way) to pray?

Will God really hear my prayersand will he answer? Or are his answers merely coincidences?

How much faith does prayer require? How long should I pray about something before giving up? Should I ever give up?

The list goes on.

I imagine you have a list of your own questions, too. Thats because prayer is one of those nebulous things, like faith, that defy logic. On the one hand, throughout the Bible God has demonstrated that he works both independently of any human being as well as through the prayers of his people. I am the LORD, he says repeatedly. He is without rival, holy, almighty. He is to be feared.

On the other hand, he is a God who condescends to listen to the prayers of his children and often doesnt act without them. So he bids us to approach his throne with the boldness of a much-loved child to make our requests known.

But prayer is so much more than telling God what we want. From the examples of Gods people recorded in the Bible, prayer ranges from wordless groans of anguish and cries of lament to songs of worship and praise.