Resting in Christ through Prayer | Ep. 51

Clay Kraby

That’s excellent. Thank you so much for the background. Always helpful to get a little bit of an introduction as we begin.  Now, you’ve got this new book out. It’s Prayers of Rest, and so it is a book designed to help people daily in their prayer lives. Is that right?

Asheritah Cuicui

Yeah. So, as I mentioned, I grew up in a missionary family, and my dad was a pastor before that. So I’ve known Jesus for as long as I can remember. And, you know, there’s that old Sunday school song, read your Bible, pray every day if you want to grow. And I believe that to be true.

But I struggled as an adult, as a mom, to make time for prayer. And as someone who’s on social media, I found myself just easily distracted 30 seconds into my prayers. And just as someone who lives with technology at our fingertips, it’s so much easier to even just go to Google with a question instead of turning to God in prayer first.

And so I saw the struggle in my own life of how do I make prayer an integral part of my day, that I would weave it into my day to walk in the spirit, to have this ongoing conversation with the Lord. And as I was talking with my readers and my online community,  I realized this is a struggle for all of us. We know prayer is important, but somehow it’s a challenge to make it part of our daily rhythm and that we would stay focused and undistracted in prayer and involve stillness and listening to God’s voice as part of our prayers.

And so this book, Prayers of Rest is what God worked in my heart, teaching me how to pray because I found myself like the disciples, just turning to him and saying, Lord, teach us, teach us to pray, because even though we’ve been in Church our whole life long, we’re just not doing it. So would you lead us and Prayers of Rest was God’s answer to me and what I hope to share with readers as well.

Clay Kraby

And so the book functions a little bit like a daily devotional in that you turn to today’s page and there’s helps and tools there. And so it’s going to have a scripture passage to read and also some prompts to help you in your prayers. Is that how people would make use of this?

Asheritah Cuicui

Yeah. So I’m a big fan of creative habits when it comes to spiritual growth. And so I’ve adopted all different kinds of fun, creative ways to engage scripture throughout the day and have adopted that same approach toward prayer.

So there is an acronym, REST, that I have found helpful to pray through scripture, but also to pray through hard emotions when something explodes in a relationship. How do I pray through that situation?

This acronym, REST, has proven helpful for me, but I also like to geek out on brain science and habit formation and how God created us to form these rhythms in our days. So the book Prayers of Rest has 365 prayers that you’re right, Clay. There’s Scripture because I believe in the power of praying God’s Word.

And then I offer a few sentences for each of the letters, which we can talk about a little bit. But the hope is that those sentences of my written prayers would serve as a springboard for readers to put into words what’s on their heart as well. But the way that the book is formatted is it really encourages habit formation. The first few pages of the book I walk readers through, how do you create a habit that sticks, that you are consistent with, that will weather changes in schedules and when you sleep in or when you stay up too late? How do we remain consistent in this habit of prayer?

And the book itself is broken down into different collections that are anywhere from ten prayers to a collection, a theme, a topic, to a collection of 66 prayers when we pray from Genesis to Revelation. So it’s not your typical devotional book where it’s like, today is January 7, and this is the prayer for today. Rather, it’s more topical and also need-based – like, what is on your heart today? Let’s pray through that for the next five to ten days.

Clay Kraby

Yeah. And that idea of forming good, helpful spiritual habits is important. The Christian life and growth in the Christian life is not always easy, but it’s certainly not complicated. It’s not always easy to do the things we know we need to do.

That can be hard, but it’s fairly simple of these spiritual disciplines, these habits of prayer and Bible reading and all of those things. And so it is helpful to have tools like these, especially in our prayer life, where many of us, many people admit to feeling, that they’re not where they would like to be in their prayer life.

And as Don Whitney sometimes says, we find ourselves praying the same old things about the same old things. And so he encourages, too, the praying of scripture. So it’s great to have another tool to really help walk people through that you mentioned to this rest acronym. Could you share what each of those letters are and how that can help someone as they try to think through, maybe deepening their prayers?

Asheritah Cuicui

Sure. So, like I said, this is when I asked God that he would teach me to pray. This is where I landed. The R in REST stands for recite God’s goodness. And so whether we are praying through a scripture passage or praying through, like I said, a hard emotion like anger or bitterness or jealousy, or we’re praying through a tricky relationship that’s coming up and there’s conflict in that relationship, whatever the situation is that prompts prayer.

I like to start with reciting God’s goodness and that is praising God for who he is and for what he has done in our lives. Taking time to reorient our gaze from the problem, to the God who is above those problems and yet close to us in our brokenness. If I’m praying scripture, I might ask myself in this stage, what does this say about God? How can I praise him for who he is? How can this help form my view of him and correct maybe something that I’m misrepresenting about God in my heart? And so that is where we start by reciting God’s goodness and praising Him for his faithfulness and His goodness in our lives.

So that’s the R. The E is express your neediness. And this is time now to be honest with God. He knows everything already. But when we confess our sins in prayer, it’s not for his benefit to inform him about it. It’s for us to come clean before Him, to remind ourselves that he is a Holy God and we are not. And yet, because of the Grace of Jesus Christ, we have a high priest who empathizes with our weaknesses and invites us to come before the throne of Grace with boldness so that we might find mercy and help in our time of need. John says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

Peter says, cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. And so this is such an important part in prayer that we regularly take time to confess sins, to tell God ways that we have fallen short again, not because he doesn’t know, but because we need to be reminded of our need for a savior and of God’s lavish Grace.

Now, every single time we say, God, would you forgive me? The answer is always yes. Yes. Because of Jesus Christ, yes. And this is also when we get to be honest about our needs, that we are not super men and superwomen who can do it all in our own strengths. We do not have to carry the burden of the world on our shoulders. We can come before God and say, God, I need you. I am struggling right now. There’s this sin that I feel like I cannot overcome. There is this wound from my past that keeps coming up. There is this relationship that’s like a thorn in my side. God, I need you. And so we recite God’s goodness.

Then we take time to express our neediness. And Clay, I don’t know about you, but this is the point in my prayer where I would always, like, talk, talk, and then run off with my day and say, “okay, thanks, God. See you.” And yet, as an adult coming back to Scripture, especially in the Psalms, there’s this word selah, pause. Consider. Remember, sit still with what you just said in Psalm 46:11: “Be still and know that I am God.”

And I realized in my own life, I’m so busy hustling and rushing and sometimes even reading the Bible and prayer can be just another item on my to do list for the day. So, building in time to seek God’s stillness, to simply be still with the Creator of the universe, who invites us to this privilege of talking with Him and listening to Him.

That is what the S in the REST acronym is. It’s a time where after we’ve praised God and we’ve expressed our needs, we just sit with Him. Jesus says “I am the good shepherd. And my sheep hear my voice.” They recognize my voice. They follow my voice. He’s placed his own spirit inside us, his children, that we might be led by Him. But too often we don’t make time to listen to Him. And so, the S gives us that built in time into our prayer.

Sometimes it’s just 15 seconds of just being quiet and listening. Sometimes I’ll build in more time, especially if I feel like my life is spiraling out of control. And I say, God, I need your wisdom. I might set aside more time. 10, 15, 20 minutes to be with God, to open his scripture, to pray this way and then be still with Him. And allow Him to speak to me through his word.

And then the T where we wrap up is trust his faithfulness. And now that you have entrusted these things into his care, now that he might have prompted you to do something, to obey in a certain way, to apply what you read. Or maybe there’s a phone call you need to make. Maybe there’s an apology. You need to have a conversation where you say, I messed up. Would you forgive me? Maybe there’s something you need to change in the way you do things.

This is the time to trust and obey, to remember that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. And so we trust that God will be faithful in these things that we prayed about. Clay, this method of prayer is so much more than an acronym for me. It’s a way that it guides me into God’s presence in the midst of my busy life when I feel like, oh, I just don’t have time to pray right now. I remember that Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Rest for your souls.

Clay Kraby

Yeah, it’s always helpful to have some of these tools, even simple tools like an acronym, as you’re trying to pray, because we do get distracted and we do fail in forming these habits. So reciting God’s goodness, expressing your neediness, stillness, trust is faithfulness. I really like that because it begins with reminding yourself of who God is, being honest about who we are and all our brokenness and neediness and our sin.

Stillness I think is important, too. How often do we really just kind of pray as we’re doing something else? Then we rush off to the next thing and we put the headphones in and we listen to music and a podcast. It’s always kind of go and we forget the “be still and know that I am God.” Where we can have that time of intentional quiet to really kind of think on what God is saying to us through His Word and how we can apply that to our lives.

I think that’s an important step to be reminded of  that we all need in our prayer lives. And of course, ending on trust, understanding that God is good. He knows what we need. He desires to give us what we need, even if what we need is not always matching up with what we want in our lack of complete knowledge and wisdom as He has.

And just trusting that the Lord of all the Earth is going to do right and he’s going to take care of you. So really helpful that rest acronym. And of course, it brings to mind the ACTS acronym that people might be already familiar with, with Adoration and Confession and Thanksgiving and Supplication.

Are there some important distinctions that you like maybe better about the rest acronym over the ax acronym in your own life and as you recommend to other people to take up and use?

Asheritah Cuicui

Yeah. So, I grew up with the ACTS model of prayer and it was so helpful. I’m so grateful for it. And if that’s the way that you find it’s easiest to talk with God, then by all means use it. I am in no way putting that down. I’ve just found in my own life that I need to be reminded  to be quiet with God. I need to be reminded that prayer is not something that is done and checked off my list.

Prayer is another word for conversation with God. And conversation is two ways. We talk, we listen, He talks, we listen. He does that through His word. And oftentimes in that time of stillness, He brings to mind passages that I’ve memorized. Right. But I need to set aside time to be quiet with Him in prayer.

And so I would say that’s probably the biggest distinction is the S portion and the T portion of REST. The stillness that is built in, Clay. To be honest, the reason I put that in the middle of the prayer and not the end is because knowing myself, if the stillness was tacked on us to the end of prayer, I would probably skip it.

But built in it’s like, okay, I guess I’m doing this.

Clay Kraby

It would ruin your acronym too.

Asheritah Cuicui

It probably would for sure! Right. But it’s made all the difference to have time to be still. And I don’t  necessarily have a five point explanation of how God speaks to us today. I just can tell you He does not in an audible… I’ve never heard an audible voice of God, but I have for sure felt His Spirit prompting me in my spirit about situations.

And oftentimes, like I said, it’s scripture that He will bring to light. That wasn’t what I read that morning, but it sure is applicable to the situation. So that stillness portion is so important. And also the trusting His faithfulness  brings it full circle. Where we start by reciting God’s goodness and remembering who He is and meditating adoring Him, worshipping Him for that, and then ending our time of prayer with a commitment. God, I trust you. This thing that I’m worrying about, this thing that keeps me up at night, I am going to and I’ll often say this out loud, even if the rest of my prayer was silent in my mind. This part I will say out loud because I need to hear it.

It’s a declaration. God, I trust you with this relationship, with this child, with this project. I trust you. It is not on my shoulders anymore. It is not for me to carry or worry. I choose to trust you because you are faithful. And that comes back to reciting God’s goodness. And sometimes I’ll spend some time at the end of my prayer just remembering all the ways he’s been faithful in the past, all the prayers He’s answered in the past. He has never let me down. He has always been faithful. And so, in this situation today, and this burden that is heavy on my heart, He is worthy of my trust. And I don’t know about you, Clay, but sometimes I’ll pray and I’ll give something over to God, and like, 6 hours later, I’m worrying about the same thing again. Does that ever happen to you?

Clay Kraby

Absolutely.

Asheritah Cuicui

That’s where this T comes in. So I’ll go back and I’ll pray through REST again. It might be an abbreviated version, but I’ll go back to that passage I prayed. I’ll be like, God, whose name I praise. You are my rock. You are my refuge. I’m still worrying about this right now, God, you know, this is heavy on my heart. And I will take maybe just 10 or 20 seconds to picture myself, my feet planted on the rock of my Salvation. If that was the passage I read this morning, and then I’ll come back to the tea. God, I trust you. I was starting to worry about it. I was starting to take that burden on myself. But no, no, I trust you. You got this. God, I trust you.

Clay Kraby

And you can really see just hearing you explain the different aspects of that REST model of prayer, of how they can really contribute to kind of keeping our anxieties down. And when they start to bubble up again, okay, who is God? What has he done for me? And what is it that my need is?

Even if you’re now, instead of praying for the actual issue, you’re praying for your worry about the issue, your anxiety about the issue, or the fact that you can’t stop thinking about it now. That’s the focus of your prayer and taking that time for stillness.

And again, like you said, we’re not saying that you’re going to hear a booming voice and some special revelation for God. He’s giving you special revelation, His Word. And maybe you have drawn to your mind, the Spirit applies some other passage that you read two weeks ago. It’s not necessarily that day’s passage. There’s lots of things that can be brought to mind. And then also taking that time to remember  in that stillness, you might remember I was in a situation like this ten years ago, and it turned out fine. God proved faithful yet again and bringing you in, closing out with that, I choose to trust as weak and feeble as that sometimes is. Lord, help me in my weakness to do that.

Asheritah Cuicui

Exactly. And I think, Clay, I mean, I’m kind of jumping around here, but I think there’s such beauty in those of us who are parents sharing those stories with our children. We see so much in the Psalms and throughout the Old Testament where God commands his people. Now you are to recite this to your children. You are to tell them their history of God being faithful to his people.

And that’s something that my parents gave me as a gift since I was a little child would tell me stories of  how God provided um for them in Romania under Communist persecution, how God protected them, how God delivered them, how God was their rock and their Salvation. And these are stories, firsthand from my parents of them telling me God is faithful, not just in the pages of scripture. Let me tell you how he was faithful in my life. Let me tell you how I lived this out, how I didn’t know if I would see the day of tomorrow, and yet he came through for me. We don’t inherit Salvation, but I think we can inherit a greater dose of faith as we stand on the shoulders of generations that have come before us.

And so this is something that I’m so passionate about that when we encounter God, let us not keep those stories to ourselves.  I say we all suffer from soul amnesia, forgetting who God is and what he’s done for us from one day to the next. And so if we do not recite those stories of God’s goodness and faithfulness to ourselves, we’re going to forget. And if we don’t recite them to our children, then stories of God’s faithfulness die with each generation because we don’t tell them to the next. And that’s a missed opportunity. And that’s a way that we can bring to life the stories of scripture as we show our children and grandchildren how those stories of God’s faithfulness are just as true in our lives as we’ve lived it out with Him, too.

Clay Kraby

Lot of just practical benefits to remembering that yourself and instilling that spiritual heritage in your children, but also very biblical. What does God say more often than not in the Old Testament when speaking to His people? He says, “I am the Lord your God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

He keeps repeating this over and over to generations of His people, Israel, for a reason – so that they would be reminded of who God is, what He’s done for them in the past, and why they ought to trust Him with whatever new calamity has been visited or they brought upon their own heads.

And the same is true for us. So I think that’s absolutely the case now whenever the topic of prayer comes up. I’ve not done a study on this. I have no statistics, but I’m willing to bet that the number one issue that people say is that they get distracted. They’re often distracted in prayer. I know that’s the case for me. If I have either a focused time of prayer, or, hey, I’m going to keep the radio off as I’m driving from point A to point B. And I’m going to pray three minutes. And you find that you are remembering movie lines from old movies that you watch growing up. And you’re like, well, how did I even get here?  You just start thinking through these mental rabbit trails. So it’s a common hurdle that people face. How can we overcome distraction when we’re praying?

Asheritah Cuicui

Yeah, well, Clay, I’ll say there was a study done on this. Actually, in 2018 Crossway published one of their studies that reveals that the number one obstacle to a thriving prayer life is distraction. We are all living just in a distracted age. And so some things practically, that have helped me. And I’ll just start by saying it comes with practice. We have conditioned our brains because of social media and the stimulus input. The endorphin rush of having a notification or having someone like your post or whatever.

We do not sit with boredom very well. And we do not sit in quiet contemplation very well because we have conditioned our brains to require a constant stimulus. So this will come with practice. Just as our brains have been trained to meet something new and exciting all the time, we can also train our brains to be still to not require that. So I’ll just say to listeners, do not be discouraged if you like everyone else, like me, 20 seconds into your prayer, you’re thinking like you said about that movie line.

Or I’ll be like, gosh, I’ve got laundry in the wash. I need to switch it over to the dryers before it spoils. Or I need to pull the meat out of the freezer. Or, oh, I forgot. I need to call and make that appointment. All those things will come to the surface and quiet because we are so rarely quiet.  And so there’s all of this humdrum kind of buzzing beneath the surface that we don’t pay attention to. So when we’re quiet, those are the things that will come up first.

So, two practical things that have helped me deal with these distracting thoughts. One is to allow them to actually be prompts for prayer. So instead of I used to get so annoyed with myself, Clay, I would be just shaming myself like, Asheritah, you get to speak to the God of the universe. And really, you’re thinking about what you need to shop for your friend’s birthday gifts. Really, you can’t do any better than that.

Once I turned that on its head and said, you know what? God cares about that, too.   So instead of berating myself about it, what if I made that part of my prayer? And so now, when a distracting thought will come in, I learned this from someone else. It’s called palms up palms down. And I’ll take that thing, whatever it is, and palms down I will put it in God’s hands. Right? So that birthday gift for a friend. I am notoriously bad at buying gifts and so this produces some anxiety for me. And so it will come to mind, and I’ll be like, God, you know me, I’m not really good at buying gifts, but you know how precious this friend is to me. Would you please lead me to a token that would represent how much I cherish her?  Would you just bless her today? Would you be with her today? And this next week, as it’s her birthday, I just pray you’re blessing over her life and her family.

And so, palms down, I will take that distracting thought that interrupted my previous line of prayer with the Lord. I’ll just grab it Palm’s down, I’ll put it in God’s hands and give it over to him. And then I’ll physically turn my palms up and say, God, is there anything that you want to give me about this situation? And sometimes I’ll just sit in stone this for a few moments. Sometimes I’ve had this happen, Clay, where the answer will come to mind. And I’ll suddenly remember, like, oh, she loves Harry Potter. I can just buy her some Harry Potter socks. And she would be thrilled with that. Just something out of the blue like that.

And I’ll say, thank you, Lord. I love keeping a little notepad or some sticky notes next to me when I pray, because I’ll jot that down really quick and then I’ll go back to prayer, and I’ll continue praying until the next distracting thought comes up, and I’ll take it and I’ll put it palms down in God’s hands. And then I’ll turn my hands out. Palms up. God, is there anything you want to give me about this situation? And so that palms down, palms up.

And the sticky note of jotting things down and being able to write them down and release them from my mind has helped me enter into a space of soul stillness. And my mind quieting down. And I found it so helpful to take time to do this because sometimes I’m not even aware of how much noise is buzzing in the background of my brain because I haven’t made time to sit and just think thoughts. I’m always listening to something. Listening to podcasts, listening to music, listening to my kids telling me about their day, listening to my husband about whatever’s going on. When we sit with Jesus in stillness and invite him to be a part of these thoughts that come up, then suddenly, the distractions are not shameful. They actually serve as prompts to prayer. And it can be such a beautiful thing.

Clay Kraby

Yeah, it’s helpful. Now, obviously, when we’re on the topic of prayers, there’s plenty of examples given to us in scripture. So what do we learn about prayer, particularly when we look at the prayers of Jesus? How can that inform our own prayer lives.

Asheritah Cuicui

Yes, I loved studying these prayers. There’s actually a collection in the book called Praying Like Jesus. And it’s taking the Lord’s prayer and breaking it down and praying through a line at a time.  But what I noticed as I was looking at Jesus prayer life is we have several passages that talk about him getting up early in the morning and going out into the desolate place so that he would be alone to talk with the Father. But also there are plenty of scriptures that show us that Jesus was talking to his father all the time. He’s talking to God before meals as he’s multiplying the bread and the fish. He’s talking at the tomb with Lazarus.

There’s a sense of ongoing conversation between Jesus and his father. And that was one of the things that stuck with me is that I had idealized this perfect hourlong, quiet time of prayer with the Lord every day. Like that was my ideal. That was what good Christian women did as they got up before the crack of dawn to pray for an hour. And I went through a season where my children – one child in particular – did not sleep through the night for four years. I was so sleepy, Clay. I would be, like, in the middle of prayer and falling asleep and feeling guilty about it. And it was in that season, really that I clung to this model of Jesus ongoing conversation with the Father. Wherever he was. He was talking to his father about it. He said, I do nothing except what the Father tells me to do. Yes, there were set aside time to pray. And I have found those times to be so refreshing and lifegiving.

And now I’m in a season where that child will sleep through the night. And I do get up early to pray. And it is my joy to meet with King Jesus before the rest of the world. And we talk. And it’s such a beautiful thing. But if you are in a season where that is not possible, please hear me. God welcomes you to come to him right where you are.  And there is nothing magical about a 1-hour prayer time. He wants to be an ongoing conversation with you.

And so if the REST prayer model serves you to help you when you’re in the car or folding laundry or wrapping up the work day at work or cleaning house, we have a collection of prayers for the house. So you can pray over your dining room and the kitchen and the bedrooms. If it serves you in that way, then praise be to God. But if you find another, whatever it is that helps you walk in the spirit, that helps you be mindful of God’s presence with you right here, right now, in this place. That is my heart prayer, not that the REST model would become the next ACTS model. It’s not about that at all. It’s about encouraging this generation of Christians to become people of prayer.

Because I really think that the greatest danger facing Western Christians today is not external persecution. It’s this internal distraction that keeps us from living and breathing conversation with God. So that is my prayer for listeners today that they would be encouraged from this conversation to start small, start where you are linked to something you’re already doing and start a habit of resting in God’s presence through prayer.

Clay Kraby

That’s great. Well, if you’d like to see the show notes for this episode, you can check them out at ReasonableTheology.org/Rest. Our guest has been Asheritah Ciuciu. She has her new book, Prayers of Rest and I encourage you to check that out. We’ll link to that in the show notes as well. Just as we close, where can folks go to learn more about you and pick up a copy of the book?

Asheritah Cuicui

Yeah, so probably the best place would be PrayersOfRest.com. That’s where you can find the book. You can also find the link to the podcast that I mentioned every week is a new ten-minute prayer guided prayer based on the REST format. So PrayersOfRest.com. And I believe when this airs, we are still a few weeks away from the release of the Prayers of Rest. So, our pre-order bonus, if you go ahead and pre-order it now, you’ll get the best price guaranteed. But also we are giving away an audiobook of prayer. And so that collection that I mentioned, praying from Genesis to revelation and discovering God’s love for us in the pages of scripture. That free audiobook is our thank you gift when you pre-order before the book launch on May 17 so you can get all that information at PrayersOfRest.com.

Clay Kraby

Well, thank you so much. Again, you can find the links to that, I’ll make sure that you’re able to get to those things easily at ReasonableTheology.org/Rest. Or you can go right to the links that were mentioned there. Our guest has been Asheritah Cuicui. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the podcast.

Asheritah Cuicui

Clay, thank you so much for having me.