Praying Through the Valley

The Valley of Vision is an great Puritan prayer book. It has meant a great deal to me over the years as material for meditation and encouragement... Several years ago, my friend, Dr. Ryan Whitley posted about a schedule for praying through this book on his blog, Just One More! If you are looking for a great devotional encouragement and a focus for your praying...I strongly recommend that you travel this journey of "Praying through the valley".  Enjoy!

PRAYING THROUGH THE VALLEY
Joe Horn, lead pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Saint Charles, Illinois, has developed a schedule of The Valley of Vision for his personal use.

Horn writes, I rearranged the prayers into 3 daily readings, five days a week, and scheduled them to be read/prayed at 9am, 12pm, and 3pm Monday through Friday. This method took me through the entireValley of Vision in 13 weeks, only repeating two prayers one time.
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To stay on top of the discipline I used the calendar/alarm feature on my phone to alert me when it was time to pray (otherwise I would forget), and with those alerts I would stop whatever I was doing, pull out The Valley of Vision, spend a moment in prayer with the assigned reading, and then return to work. If I was in a meeting, I would excuse myself, step outside or even hit the washroom, and meet with God. Occasionally I found myself in a situation where I simply had to wait before I could get away, but most of the time I could slip away without a problem.

I found that when using this schedule, my days were rich with an awareness of God’s grace, and I was encouraged me to look to God throughout the day in a new way. I looked forward to these appointments/interruptions and my prayer life is better because of it.

I thought others might benefit from the exercise, so I asked Brian Malcolm to design a printable version for download. He was able to fit the entire schedule onto one page so you can easily print it and tuck or tape it inside your own copy of Valley of Vision. He has created versions for the leather bound edition, as well as the paperback (page numbers and sizes are different).

You should consider this guide and approach to prayer as one tool to help you seek God and maintain a posture of prayer throughout the day. It should not be the totality of your prayer life. Think of this as a means of fueling your meditation on Scripture, dependency on the gospel, and exercise of faith in and love for Jesus. I have used this schedule a few times now and have been richly rewarded. I hope it’s a blessing to you as well.

To download the Walking Through The Valley of Vision prayer guide, head over to its dedicated page here.

If you don’t already have one, you can order your copy of The Valley of Vision here (leather), or here (paperback).

I am inviting you to join me on this Valley of Vision journey for these first months of 2016. Come and join me on this journey. It’s going to be awesome. You can do it. Let’s do it together.

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