This series is entitled "prayer resources". The purpose of this series is to give you a bunch of hands-on aids to work with at your own time and in your own way. Many people do not realize how many excellent prayer resources are available to them, so they don't use them to help themselves grow in prayer and intercession.

We will focus on two types of resources.. WWW pages and good old-fashioned books. This series is just a scratch on the surface. Our goal is to wet your appetite and get you hungry for more! The series will consist of this introduction, one lesson on World Wide Web (WWW) resources and reviews of several good books on prayer and intercession.

Overview of Web Resources

BROWSERS FOR BEGINNERS

The web resources lesson is not intended as something to sit down and read.. it is more of a reference, like a roadmap. Please spend some time online and follow the links to the resources. Browse their pages and look around. We will only have one week of web resources in our teaching series. It is our hope that you will spend some time going and visiting one or more of these during the next few weeks. We believe you will be blessed by them. There is some excellent material on the WWW.

Some of you are technical experts and will want to skip the next few paragraphs, as all they do is explain how to use a WWW browser. Some of you may not know now to use a WWW browser. The next few paragraphs will help you learn how to use it comfortably.

Many of you have email readers that support links.. all you have to do is click on the link (it is a different color than the rest of the lesson and is usually underlined as well). If you click on a link, it will bring up a browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer are the most common ones) and take you right to the WWW page. Try it here.. see if this works: click on the indented line (a link) and see if it brings you to the prayer-school WWW page:

link to prayer-School WWW page

If your email reader did not take you there, you can still get there through your web browser. Bring up your WWW browser .. Netscape or Internet Explorer. There is a place to enter an address near the top.. it is a long rectangular box (it is titled "Location:" on Netscape). Cut and paste the URL from the link into that location rectangular data entry box. The URL is the part of the link that starts with "http" and is between the quotes. (You will see something that starts with an angle bracket ("<") followed by "http" and then a colon (":") and two forward slashes ("//") and then the rest of the address. If you have an old-fashioned email reader that shows the html code instead of the link, you can easily cut-n-paste the address into the location box. Then push the "go" button (or hit the carriage return if you don't have a "go" button). This will take you to the WWW page. In the above example, the portion of the html link that contains the address is the part between the quotes and it says:

http://www.godspeak.net/prayer/pr_index.html

The Prayer School has it's own www page.. did you know that? The page has not been updated recently, but it does contain some really good articles (the "best of the best" of posts from folks on the lists). The URL is http://www.godspeak.net/prayer/pr_index.html and the previous section explained to the beginners how to get to it. (If you need help getting to the prayer-school page, here is a link.)

Please go there now. Scroll down the page until you see the article entitled "Crowns Down" (#1) by Sheila Conner. It is a prayer that I believe will bless and inspire you. Click on it and read it. Then click "Back" to go back to the index page.

Next, scroll down to the article entitled "A Man Of Like Passions" by Don MacIntyre (#5). Read it. When you are done, notice the link at the bottom of the screen entitled "To Prayer-School Index". Click on it and it will take you to the index page again. Feel free to select and read any other articles on that page. If you would like, you can follow the links to the teaching pages. (You may particularly like the Workshop 100 series, entitled "Dialogue WIth God.")

Books and Study Habits

Of course, it does not require a technical expert to pick up and read a hardback or paperback book. The internet is wonderful, but there are times when nothing shy of a real honest bound book will do. For me, reading is a form of leisure. I work on the computer all day and I minister on the computer a lot as well. So, when I want to read for edification and such, I like to get a nice book and curl up on my sofa or guestroom bed with a blanket and a cup of decaf cappuccino.

If I am studying, I like to have a highlighter handy and underline as I go. I bend the top corner of the page if I want to find something I underlined quickly. Later on, after I've read the book long ago, I like to pick it up and skim it by reading the parts I've highlighted. It serves to refresh my memory and bring back the important stuff from the book without having to spend a long time reading it again. These techniques I described are basic study habits and there are many other excellent ones as well. Perhaps you have your own study habits that work well for you.. if so please use them! In fact, I am hoping that folks will share some of their effective study techniques on the prayer-school email discussion list the week we discuss this lesson.

Spiritual Aspects Of Reading A Book

Did you know that the Holy Spirit enjoys being involved when you read a book, just the same as He likes being involved when you read the Bible. Once, I did not know that. I was trying to read a book on some spiritual subject. I think it was a book on healing. The Holy Spirit made a comment to me about the book.. and I was so surprised that I asked Him to please be quiet because I was trying to read. (At the time, reading and listening to God speak to me seemed like mutually exclusive activities.) As it turned out, the Holy Spirit honored my request.. He was quiet while I read. In fact, He was too quiet.. He did not speak to me again that day! But He certainly spoke to me the next morning. He asked me why I refused to listen to Him when He tried to talk to me about what I was reading. Ouch!

I found out that God wanted to be involved in my reading.. and I have since learned to invite Him to join me in reading whatever book I happen to be working on.

That backfired on me at first.. because He did not like all of the recreational novels I read (mostly science fiction and fantasy). He would make comments like "I don't like this book" or "Why are you reading this garbage?" Well, that put a damper on some of my recreational reading. In fact, after prayerfully exploring the topic with the Lord, I found myself totally reworking what I could read. I ended up going over my book collection with the Holy Spirit. He told me to give many of them away because He did not want me reading them. Other books He told me throw away (instead of giving away) because He did not want anyone else reading them either.

I feel it is important to note that I am not suggesting that everyone get rid of their science fiction and fantasy books.. it may be perfectly OK with God for you to read them. In my case however, (and probably due to my past), it was NOT ok with God for me to read them. This is what I am suggesting, find out from God what He does and does not want you reading, and adhere to His wishes.

Once we got past His censorship of certain books, our reading began to take on a whole new dimension. God would frequently talk to me while I read. There would be times where He would let me read quite a bit and only make occasional comments. There were other times where He would have a great deal to say. Sometimes I would read 1 or 2 sentences and suddenly we were into an extended dialog.

Then our reading took on another new dimension when I discovered that I could ask His opinion about what I was reading.. I did not have to wait for Him to comment on it to me. It began one time when I read a paragraph I disagreed with violently. However, I respected the author immensely. So it created a dilemma for me... and I felt frustrated. If I had a Christian friend in the room, I would have probably read them the paragraph and asked for their opinion. But no one else was in the room. So I found myself saying, "I don't know about this God.. What do you think?" To my surprise, He answered me .. and in great detail!

There are some of you who have not yet discovered the joy of inviting the Lord into your reading. God wants to become more involved in your reading.. to quicken things to you, to discuss the material with you, to use it as a point from which to challenge you to launch into a deeper dimension of Him in some area of your life. Give it a try.. it will open a whole new dimension in your relationship with Him.

Summary

We will spend the second week looking at WWW resources. Our hope is that you go visit some of these sites. Browse them, skim articles, familarize yourself with some of these sites. Set bookmarks to the ones you like.

Then we will spend the next several weeks looking at various books that address aspects of the subject of prayer. We will provide summaries or highlights of these books. We don't expect you to read them all (but you are certainly welcome to do so). Please prayerfully choose at least one book that interests you and read it. But when you read it, please invite the Holy Spirit to read it and discuss it with you.

Our prayer is that will be blessed and expanded by this short series on Prayer Resources.