Preparing Your Gift for Others

Praying for “You Incorporated” – Part 7

The Business of Prayer – Part 5.7

If I were to ask you how’s your marketing strategy, what would you be thinking? Would you think I’d lost my mind? Hopefully, you’d expect me to ask such questions by now since it’s our goal to take you to the next level. Questions like this promote next level thinking. More than likely, you’re asking what marketing strategy? Or what do you mean by this? In “The Business of Prayer” the key thought is to think of your life as the business that God has given you, because that’s exactly what it is. You Incorporated. That being the case, what are you doing to market your business and do you understand that you are marketing something, it just might not be what you intend on marketing.

Uncommon is the person who updates God on his/her marketing results.
How would you update God on your marketing results?
If God were to ask, how’s your marketing going, what would you say? In order to be ready to give an answer, you need to know a couple of things:
1) What’s my business or better stated what am I here for, and
2) How do I promote it? What’s your marketing campaign for your life, your business?
Scripture teaches that we should be salt and light. ^[1] Let’s discuss this light portion. Being light means one must be seen. In other words one must be projecting or promoting something that is worth seeing. Many of us are promoting something, that something just isn’t worth promoting. The average person doesn’t promote something that others would like to see. In fact, that’s what it means to not be light.

Everyone is selling something, be it products, ideas, or an attitude. Hopefully, you’ve discovered your purpose, it’s what you should be promoting. The word advertise means to call attention to. What is it about your life or about who you are that you’re calling attention to? Is what you’re calling attention to worth calling attention to? How would God rate your results in this area? How do you rate your results in this area? And this is where your prayer begins. Give God your report or assessment on where you are and your plans on where you’d like to be with regards to how you market your gift.

Because this is next level prayer, our goal is to give you some next level ideas and examples on how to take your prayer to the next level. In the business of prayer, here’s what you’ll find and want to define for yourselves in prayer. I have four areas I’d like to share with you.

Family Vision Statement
Do you have a vision plan for your family? Can you state it in a sentence? Why does your family exist? Having a family or personal vision statement is vital to living a life that’s worth reporting to God. How else will you know what you should be doing if you don’t have one?

For those who don’t have one, don’t feel terrible, that’s common. I don’t expect an average person to have this, this is for the uncommon. This is a message on how to be anything but common or normal. Therefore it’s time you drafted a family or personal vision statement. Start by asking God what you should place in yours. This is next level prayer!

Family Goals
Family goals are the goals that everyone in the family can share. Set goals for your family. Maybe you set goals around meal times or vacations. Whatever it is, write these goals down so that your family is clear about these goals. Again, one should not feel bad about not having family goals unless you think of yourself as something other than common. In order for your family to be something other than average, your family will have to do what the average family won’t do. This is the business of prayer!

Focus Statement
Our focus statement is one statement that we establish each year. It’s a phrase that we focus on all year long. It’s this focus that helps us to improve our lives in a particular area each year, all year. What’s the action, attitude, or change you’d like to make this year and let that be your focus. Then during prayer, speak with God on the progress or lack of progress you are making towards this statement. This is next level prayer!

Family Values
Our family values have to be my favorite. You see where family values are strong, peer pressure is weak, and where family values are weak, peer pressure is strong. Pamela and I have established family values within our five life’s growth area categories: home, work, church, recreation, and relationships. We believe that since we set our own values we don’t have to worry about someone else trying to set these for us. We asked God to help us form our family values. Therefore, they are unique to us and how we do life, which is our business. You must do the same. This is the business of prayer!

I recently reviewed my resume, which is a document that we use to promote who we are. In this document, we paint an overall picture of who we are, but more important what we promote. It’s how we promote ourselves. I actually enjoyed reading it because it was no longer a bunch of descriptive words to impress someone I don’t know. But rather, it’s a document that promotes who we are and what gifts we have to offer along with the experiences we have in using our gifts. How are you promoting yourself? It’s time we prayed about this because that’s what it means to take prayer to the next level.

Question: How are you showing off your life as a light worth shining?