Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.
1 Pt 5:7 NLT
My mornings begin with a very large cup of coffee (so large that my family calls it a tankard) and a sit-down session with Jesus. He is my number one go-to person. I want to run everything by Him because it is His opinion that I value above all others. I’ve learned by experience that whatever perspective or direction I receive from Him is so much better than anything I could come up with on my own.
There is one problem with my fervent desire to hear from the Lord. It is that I often find myself 20 or 30 minutes into my time with Him and all I’ve done is verbalize my list of issues. I’ve done all the talking and have left no opening to receive His input.
One of my spiritual mentors has great wisdom on the subject of prayer. She recently shared a strategy with me that has truly revolutionized my time with the Lord. Because it has helped me contain all my wayward thoughts and enjoy Jesus more, I call it the Glad Bag technique. It goes something like this:
- Generate a list of the things that are vying for your attention right now. Take a couple of minutes (no more than 2) to transfer your concerns to paper.
- Identify the 3 items on your list that are the most pressing.
- Choose one of these 3 high priority concerns. Bring it to the forefront of your awareness, and then let it sit in your lap. Feel the weight of this issue.
- Picture a colored paper bag and put the item inside.
- Repeat this weighing and bagging procedure for your top 3 issues, choosing a different color bag for each item.
- Ask yourself which one of these 3 items is the heaviest and, therefore, in greatest need of your prayers at the moment.
- Before going to prayer, turn your attention to the other bags and say, “Right now I’m going to talk to the Lord about something else. You are important and I will get back to you later.”
Once I started to practice the Glad Bag technique, I quickly realized how much anxiety I had been carrying! This strategy helped me to prioritize and deal with the things that needed my immediate attention. It also gave me permission to let other matters wait, to be handled in God’s timing. It was reassuring to remember that God knows best when and how to address every concern of my heart.
Why did it surprise me that the Lord is really good at getting around to dealing with the items I entrust to Him in a timely and excellent way? Worries that never materialized were forgotten and brilliant solutions were implemented for the rest.
One morning I approached my prayer chair, coffee in hand, after several weeks of using this strategy. In my mind’s eye I saw all my bags still sitting there in a row where I’d left them the day before. “Yes!” I exclaimed, “God’s still holding the bags!” I was glad to realize that when I give my concerns to Him they don’t automatically revert back to my care each day at dawn. What a relief!
Now that I understand that it isn’t necessary for me to repeat my prayers about each issue each day, I am more relaxed. Having transferred all those responsibilities to God, my mind is uncluttered. I’m ready to listen and tackle one topic at a time.
So nowadays, unless there is a new circumstance that needs to be addressed, I begin my day liberated from the distraction of problems to be solved and decisions to be made – those are sitting in a row awaiting the Master’s wise and loving solutions. This new practice has opened the door to deeper intimacy with Jesus. It is a joy to simply sit down with my coffee and say, “Lord, what is on Your heart today?”
Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
Proverbs 8:34 NIV