Does God Want You to Play?

On April 25, 2020, I wrote that every day the Lord shows me something new about prayer, or gives me a new prayer to pray, or teaches me something from his word, a gift from a person of prayer.

I feel like I could write about prayer every day for years and years. It’s where my heart dwells.

So I was very taken aback when I sent out a request to my prayer team, asking if they would pray for direction for what to do next.

The day after they started praying for the next idea, I had a strong impulse to create a course on Poetry Journaling™.

This didn’t make any sense to me.

It’s poetry. It’s not prayer. It doesn’t feel entirely on brand.

Now, yes, I do like to write, and my Poetry Journaling is often even part of that, but still.

I was getting nowhere with the idea.

Finally I asked the Lord. I don’t understand. You’re asking me to do something, or I feel like the invitation is there to present something to the world, but I don’t understand how it fits. If anything, it seems wrong.

And I felt like what the Lord said to me was,

So much of what you do is so intense, and so important, and so deep. When do you have time to be artistic? When do you have time to express yourself? When do you have time to enjoy the small moments of life that I have given you?

You don’t have that time. You don’t make that time.

You can get in this mindset of, “I have to change the world, and encourage others that they can change the world. We can change the world!”

And while that is true, and I did send out the disciples, and Lydia did lead a group of believers in her home. But also women and men throughout history have expressed themselves in beautiful ways to me, and that too, is an offering.

If you come and celebrate the life I’ve given you, how could that be lesser?

If you don’t have those times of celebration or those times of lament, those times where you are deeply pursuing the enjoyment of the life I’ve given, or entering into the life I’ve given, you are the more poor for that.

I think the invitation is to be to be ready to come and enjoy and partake.

When I wrote those paragraphs, I had almost finished my Poetry Journaling course. I needed a bit more time to figure out the technical details—like receiving payment and delivering the content.

Then I met Bob Perry, and my life took a sharp turn.

But recently my healing prayer person Cindy McFaden has been pressing on me to play.

Ah.

Time to revisit Poetry Journaling: a few minutes to create a lasting memory in a beautiful form. Find complete instructions here.

Celebrate!

Amy Joy