May 2018 – Cynthia Cavanaugh

When I was a little girl if I was in trouble, I often heard the phrase,

“Wait until your father comes home.”

Because I heard this phrase continually, I would withdraw and hide from my Dad.

By projecting the image I had of my own father I learned to see God as someone who was mostly angry with me and waiting to get me.

I realize even now at times, I hide from God when I am afraid, or think he won’t accept me or forgive me.

I built a false image of God in my heart that keeps me from praying.

Once I released that image, I learned I could come to God as the writer of Hebrews tells us to—“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God” (Heb. 4:16 NLT).

Albert Haase says in his book, Living the Lord’s Prayer,

“Our image of God is one of the most, if not the most important aspects of our spiritual formation. Our God image shapes and colors everything about our personal spirituality, from why we pray to how we understand personal suffering and evil in the world.” (click to tweet)

Maybe you too have created a false image of God that keeps you from the rich intimacy of prayer with God. Look at this list and circle any false image of God you realize you’ve adopted.

Arbitrary dictator

Divine traffic cop

Chess master

Puppeteer

Divine trickster

Warden

Tyrant

Controller

Now that we’ve identified our false images of God, how can we be free of that image so we can enter into communion and prayer with God?

The answer might surprise you.

Pray!

To correct the false image of God we have constructed in our minds we need to pray the truth over the falsehoods. (click to tweet)

The Bible has treasures of promises of the true image of God. Once you start digging to find them and praying these verses, it will begin to shape a new image of God in you and change the way you pray.

Since today is the National Day of Prayer, I thought I would share the above excerpt from a new book that I wrote with my cousin Andrea Tomassi

Live Bold: A Devotional Journal to Strengthen Your Soul.

The book is divided into 12 themes that encourage the reader to live bold daily for Jesus Christ. It is a 52 week devotional that focuses on a theme and includes an action step for the week and a bible verse related to the theme to meditate on throughout the week. We also have a Facebook Community Live Bold Series and for the month of May our theme is prayer. Please consider joining us as we focus on prayer this month and learn to pray bold prayers for Jesus!

To learn more about the Live Bold Community go to www.livingbold.org

Live Bold is available on May 15th and available now for pre-order