28: The Two Notebook Approach to Prayer (Jumpstart Your Prayer Life, Part 5) | S4E28

(00:00) Stephanie Warner: Welcome to Season 4, episode 28. Hello, Father.

(00:04) Marcus Warner: Hello, Daughter.

(00:05) Stephanie Warner: Good to be with you again.

(00:07) Marcus Warner: Absolutely.

(00:08) Stephanie Warner: ….This happy March day. I’m looking forward to this approach that we’re going to get into. It is probably the one that I think about wanting to do the most and that I want to have more practice in. It engages my mind so I like that. Almost exactly a month from now of releasing this episode, is our April 25th online conference. All about healthy community with Michel Hendricks and the Coursey’s and Nik Harrang. Also a bonus session with… I always want to say yours truly, which is not correct, with the “Sir” right over here. With Sir Marcus Warner here. It’s going to be great.

(00:57) Marcus Warner: I thank you for knighting me. I appreciate that.

(01:00) Stephanie Warner: You know, you’re a knight somewhere.

(01:06) Marcus Warner: That’s right, your mom used to call me my knight in shining Volvo back in the day when I drove a Volvo.

(01:16) Stephanie Warner: Anyway, yeah, I totally digressed. I’m so sorry

(01:21) Marcus Warner: No problem. Way more information than people were probably looking for.

(01:26) Stephanie Warner: So yes, we invite you to that. It’ll be a party and we’re really looking forward to it. You can find more information about the conference and also you can register through the link in the description. And also if you’re listening to this after the fact, good news, you can catch a recording of it. So whatever you want, we hope you are blessed by it.

(01:51) Marcus Warner: Yeah, I would point out that one of the reasons I have bonus material for this is I’m actually going to be in Europe doing a training over there for our partner TCM, and also working at a conference for Ukrainian pastors who have had to flee the country. So if you think about that, pray for those things. God’s opened up some really cool doors over in Europe.

(02:14) Stephanie Warner: Yes, it’s so exciting. I’m so happy for all of that opportunity for you and to get to see people in person that you don’t get to see very often. It’s gonna be really, really good. Good ministry. Well, speaking of prayer, the goal of this series is to help you go deeper on your walk with God, specifically in your prayer life. We’ve been going over theology and big picture approaches to God and now we’re into the tactical approaches. We’ve got models.

We have this lovely free Listening Prayer starter kit PDF that you can download that walks you through three different approaches to prayer and that is free through the links below. We hope it’s helpful for you. So last week we were talking about the brain science approach. This week we are talking about The Two Notebook Approach. And I love that. So without any further ado, Father, where does the Two Notebook Approach come from? What is that?

(03:20) Marcus Warner: The Two Notebook Approach, I got the idea from two different sources of people who did this. One was John Maxwell and one was Neil Anderson. With John Maxwell, we think of his leadership. Back when I was a pastor, he had been a pastor for a long time before becoming kind of the “leadership of thought”, leader that he became. He had a book called Partners in Prayer that outlined how he had organized the prayer ministry at his church. And I was like, that’s pretty cool. So I tried my best to replicate a lot of the things that he had put into place, because I thought he had a really nice plan, for just making sure that prayer was a central thing going on in the life of the church.

He told the story of how back in college right after lunch, he would go to the same place for an hour every day and he’d bring his notebook with him. Now, he usually just had one notebook, but it was the idea of using the notebook in your prayer time. Then reading Neil Anderson’s book a couple years later he was talking about how he just really struggled with spending extended time in prayer. And you hear people tell stories of like, I had the best hour in prayer, or two hours alone with God. And he’s like, I am having trouble praying for eight minutes. What are they doing? I prepare, I get longer lists and I’d still be done in eight minutes. So it’s like what?

And that’s when it occurred to him well, what if there’s a listening prayer component to the prayer time that it’s not just me going through my list. And so he had to teach a course on prayer and it got him thinking about all of this. And that’s when he had the flash of insight that, like the steps to freedom, rely on asking God questions and paying attention to the thoughts that come into your mind. What if I did the same thing with my usual prayer life?

As he practiced that very first night, he spent 45 minutes in prayer for the first time ever. Like, my word, so this is how this happens. People are actually having a conversation with God. They’re not just going through their lists. And he’s like, I never looked back. That was the way he did prayer from then on. And then he learned it was helpful to have a second notebook along not just to write down the thoughts that were coming in and what he was praying about, but a separate notebook for what we might call distracting thoughts or attacking thoughts. So the distracting thoughts were things like, don’t forget to change the oil. Don’t forget your taxes are due. Don’t forget you got to get this stuff done. The attacking thoughts were like, this will never work. You’re being stupid. Who do you think you are?

And so what happened was that he said, having the second notebook accomplished a couple of things. One, he found that he actually ended up with a to-do list when he was done with his prayer as well. All these distractions just turned into that by the end of my prayer time, not only did I pray, but I had kind of a peace that comes from knowing I’ve got a plan of what I have to get done next. It’s laid out. And then he also began to notice the attack patterns that the enemy was using against him to try to keep him from praying, and it was pretty consistent. Like, I’ve now written down the same attacking thoughts, several times in a row. So the second notebook approach came from that. That’s where I first learned about it.

(07:16) Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. So in brief, notebook one, is where we’re writing thoughts that seem to be from God. You’re having a conversational prayer time. Notebook two, is where you’re writing thoughts that seem to be from the enemy or that seem random or distracting. And you can figure all that out. And this is actually a really good process for building discernment as you are tracking your patterns and seeing the sorts of things that God tends to bring to mind? What are the sorts of things that the enemy tries to attack me with? Should I deal with that?

All right, so let’s dig deeper into notebook one. You created, shockingly, an acrostic. Actually, I should say startlingly, an acrostic. I keep joking with him because the acrostic is START, but the ‘T’ is thinking/ listening. So I said, “It’s startled.” So in brief, the START would be, scripture, truth, asking, replying, thinking/ listening, not to startle you. So the first one is, start with scripture.

(08:29) Marcus Warner: Right. I’m going to spend some time with God, maybe start with a Psalm or something, but I’m going to open up the Bible. I’m going to get my head into that space. I’m going to interact with what’s in the text and kind of see where that takes me. I often find that “Aha moments” in my scripture study put me into a really good place for prayer and for conversational prayer. I like to open up the scripture and do a lot of underlining, a lot of colorizing, a lot of that kind of stuff. I will generally look for, ‘what’s the big aha takeaway’ for me in this. And that can happen in five minutes, or it can turn into 45 minutes of its own thing, depending on what’s going on.

(09:23) Stephanie Warner: Yes, so then the “T” is thank God for truth that stands out to you.

(09:31) Marcus Warner: Exactly. God, thank you for that “Aha moment,” thank you for the thing that jumped off the page there. Thank you for this new insight that I got, it’s appreciated. It’s also an opportunity to say, are there any further thoughts you want me to have about that? So it’s the beginning of a conversation. It’s transitioning now from scripture to conversation.

(09:55) Stephanie Warner: Yes, and then the “A” is the solid, ask God to bring to mind the first thing he wants you to pray about.

(10:01) Marcus Warner: So once I’ve transitioned into that kind of conversational mode, it’s a simple question, bring to my mind things that you would like me to be talking to you about. Or just remind me of the things that I ought to be praying about, and take it one at a time. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? It might be that a war is going on over there and there’s a lot of people suffering. Let’s take some time to pray for the people being affected by this war. Or a particular person might pop into mind and yeah, that person’s going through this rough thing right now. Let’s take a little time.

God, would you just intervene for them? And I’m trying not to be prescriptive and say, God, what I would like you to do is this, this, this, and this. Because he’s got a much better plan than me, but this is what I would like. This is what is in my heart for this person and what I’d like to see you do. If it’s your will, would you please do that? If there’s anything else you want me to know, show me what that is now too. So you take each one as kind of a conversational opportunity, as well to ask for what’s in your heart for that situation or that person. And then to see if there’s something God wants to show you about it as well.

(11:17) Stephanie Warner: Which is blending with the next one, which is to reply by asking God to act or intervene in what comes to mind.

(11:24) Marcus Warner: So that would be the” R.” After he does show you, then okay, so God, thank you for bringing that to mind. So my reply to that is, this is what I would like you to do. And is there anything else? I guess that’s the final “T”, the thinking or the listening. Is there anything else you want me to know about this? So it helps for me to remember my own acrostic, so it’s scripture. It’s thanking God for the insight in the Scripture. It’s also like transitioning with thanksgiving into the conversational part.

And then you’re asking, what do you want to have a conversation about? What’s the first thing? And then let’s reply by praying about that thing. Then let’s ask Him for thoughts that we should be listening to that are related to that, and that he might want to show us. I don’t always get stuff. He’s not always showing me something deep or profound or whatever. Sometimes the thought is just the next thing he wants on the prayer list, okay let’s let’s pray about this now

(12:33) Stephanie Warner: It reminds me, I just had this random flashback. During the Asbury revival somebody came up and gave a testimony in the chapel. Everybody there was confessing and doing things and people were having testimonies like, God, what do want me to do? And he came up and said, “It feels really weird for me to say in the face of all this, but I just feel really strongly that God said, “be still”.  Bring a thought to your mind: what do you want me to do? And it’s not always what we think. Sometimes he’s calling us to action or he’s calling us to the whole prayer list, but sometimes God’s like, yeah, thanks for being with me. We’re gonna enjoy just being still together. That’s the beautiful thing, God is an active participant in this. It’s not just, let me pretend I’m talking to God and get stuff done.

(13:45) Marcus Warner: Exactly. I think there was the time that God told Moses to stop praying and go. And then when he was at the Red Sea it was like, don’t stop praying, I know what I’m doing. Let’s go do this thing. We have these things not because they’re prescriptions, but just because they’re like training wheels to kind of help us get started, especially when it’s a new practice. It can help to have guidelines and things to practice to learn how to do. I learned this from Jim Wilder, when somebody has never learned a skill you have to break that skill down into its component parts, and then make it as simple as possible. Like validating, name the emotion and name how big the emotion is.

So let’s explain how does one do that? Because if you don’t have the skill you don’t know what you’re actually trying to do. You have to break it down to component parts. So when we’re learning to pray it can be helpful to have some of these prayer guides, and some of these prayer patterns to break things down for us into smaller parts to say, okay, I can do this. I know how to do this and I can do that. And then I string it all together. And I’ve now created this prayer experience. That doesn’t mean it is now the recipe for how you should always pray and that if you deviate from that, you’re doing it wrong. It’s just meant to be a guideline to help get us started.

(15:14) Stephanie Warner: It reminds me of, in writing circles or in art we talk about you have to learn the rules before you can break them. There comes a point where you’re like, well, sure, I know that you’re not supposed to use fragments, but this actually calls for a fragment and it’s okay. But until you know what the guidelines are and why…I’m such a huge believer in, don’t just learn what, learn the why. I will digress, so let’s move on to notebook two. So notebook two is for the attacking and distracting thoughts. And you already covered the basics of thoughts of, this is stupid, it’s never gonna work, who do you think you are? And how it’s good to start tracking and noticing if there are any patterns to those thoughts. And then the distractions. I made a note that God cares about your daily needs too. It’s okay to come out of your prayer time with a to-do list. It’s okay to write down the random things and God cares about it all. It’s helpful then because once you’ve written it down it’s not like you’re not trying to hold on to it like, yeah, I need to focus on this but I’m gonna remind her or whatever.

(16:28) Marcus Warner: No, I get it. I hear what you’re saying. The thought that came to me as you were talking on the distracting thoughts, sometimes they’re not even thoughts. Sometimes they’re feelings. I think for me one of the common things is a sudden feeling of hopelessness. Not necessarily the thought of this is hopeless, but it is this feeling underneath that this prayer won’t change anything But that’s not the thought I’m having. I’m just having the feeling of, this is pointless, this is hopeless. So sometimes you write that down. It’s like, just going into this, the feeling I’m struggling with right now is hopelessness. Or the feeling I’m hammering now is anxiety. I know I can pray about this, but I really don’t think God’s gonna do what I want Him to do here.

And so I’m having anxiety because I want God to make sure that I get millions of dollars for this thing and that thing, but I have a feeling he’s going to ask me to just eke by. So I’m paying attention too sometimes not just to the thoughts, but also to the emotions that things are generating. And I may just write down the emotion, this is causing me anxiety, this is causing me despair or shame. And then sometimes you can circle back later to press into those things. You are just noting it. And sometimes just identifying it helps you move on. Okay, I don’t want to stay stuck there let’s move into the next thing

(18:02) Stephanie Warner: God loves to meet us and wants to meet us in the point of our honesty and if we’re not even being honest with ourselves then it can be hard to get things done. It’s like checking in. We talk about in group circles and we do this as a staff when we’re coming together as a group. You start off and you’re like, I’m checking in a little frustrated, a little overwhelmed, but happy to be with you. Or I’m checking in as content and blah, blah, blah. So being honest with yourself and God in your prayer time is a really good thing.

(18:39) Marcus Warner:  I think one of the lessons I had to learn, because I didn’t do a whole lot of journaling until really midway through being a pastor. And that was when John Eldridge and Wild at Heart started to be really popular. And I’m like, okay, I’m going to start journaling because that seems to be the thing to do. But my journaling was just depressing. I would finish my journaling being more anxious and more depressed than when I started. Because all I was doing, I realized later, was just writing down all the distracting, and attacking thoughts. That was the focus. It’s like, God, I’m feeling anxious.

And then I’d spend the rest of the time trying to analyze why am I so anxious and what is going on that is causing me anxiety? And God, I feel despair that I’m never going to get past this anxiousness. By the time I was done, all I had done was kind of focus on all the negative emotions in my life. And it wasn’t helpful at all. I didn’t finish with peace. I didn’t finish with that. And it was because I didn’t have any structure to it.

That’s why when you’re first starting things, it can be helpful to have some structure and some guidelines and to identify those things. But don’t just camp out and then get sucked into that vortex that’s sucking you down into some place you can’t get out of. And I had to learn that, it’s a place for honesty about my emotions, but I can’t just be a place where all I do is stay stuck in my upset emotions.

(20:16) Stephanie Warner: I will also just note that there’s a way to pray in general where you’re not getting stuck there, but sometimes we do need external help. Sometimes we are just stuck and we don’t know how to get unstuck. And that’s where it’s really helpful to pray with a prayer minister. I’m going to make a note to myself here to put the link in the description for a list of Deeper Walk certified prayer ministers. There’s a whole lot of people there, but sometimes we just need that external help.

(20:59) Marcus Warner: So for me, not everybody struggles like this and not everybody’s wired like this. Mine was so focused on trying to be honest with my emotions that I didn’t have any other agenda and that was what ended up happening for me. And I actually just stopped journaling for a while because I was like, this is becoming counterproductive. It’s because that’s not the only point of journaling and there’s all kinds of different types of journaling. So you can’t just say, I journal. That means a whole lot of different things to different people.

(21:36) Stephanie Warner: It’s true, it’s true. Even since I was little my diaries were basically prayer journals of just like, dear God, here’s all the stuff and things. Anyway, I like the weeds. All right, can we talk about any strategies? When you picture this, how long do you tend to picture this taking? Is it okay if somebody does this and it’s still 20 minutes?

(22:15) Marcus Warner: Yeah, absolutely. The goal here isn’t to hit some magic number. You know, I spent an hour with God, I spent four hours with God. I would say on average for me it’s between 15 and 30 minutes. There are times when you have this extended thing in prayer.  I had felt really guilty about that for a long time, but I think that God wires people differently. And some people are a little bit more action-oriented and some people are a little bit more contemplative and still-oriented. I think of a conversation I had with Jim Wilder about this.

And I can’t remember, my brain science knowledge is limited, but he said there’s a difference in like people who are dominantly parasympathetic and people who are sympathetic in their nervous systems. Some people hear from God best when they’re out walking, and some people hear when they’re just quiet. They need no distraction, absolute stillness, and quiet. So depending on how you’re wired, it can be different for you.

I tend to be a little bit more active. It can help me to have some motion. Whereas complete stillness isn’t always the answer to everybody. I think it’s helpful to understand and experience what works best for you and try a variety of things along the way. And it doesn’t mean that because this is best for you, it’s the only way you should ever do it. It’s just realizing that it is normal.

(23:58) Stephanie Warner:  I take us back to what I said about the why? If you understand the principles and you understand the why. It’s also okay for there to be different seasons. Sometimes God calls you to different things or sometimes you’re in a stage where you need more of a certain kind of prayer or spiritual discipline than another. And so just be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading with that. And I do really encourage people to try out the different styles and more than just the three that we’re presenting here. Try out different things, because you learn things about yourself and you learn things about God and how you are interacting, and then you can take the “whys” with you.

So even if you’re like, you know what, the two notebooks, that’s not for me, but I really like this idea that I need to pay attention to the distracting and the attacking thoughts and relegating those in a different way. Maybe I’ve got two voice notes or something. Or maybe I’m just giving myself permission to track that or giving myself awareness to track that ball, staying focused on the one thing. There’s a lot of room here.  I guess with that, I will just say thank you again for being on the trail with us. And next week, we are going to be looking at the word picture approach and wrapping up this series. I’m looking forward to that. Father, do you have any final thoughts for this episode?

(25:29) Marcus Warner: I find very few people who are satisfied with their prayer life. Almost everybody feels like there’s a gap there, like I ought to, I should, why don’t I? And I’m like, at some point we have to stop beating ourselves up and start where we’re at. And let’s go forward from here with what’s next. I can look back and go, man, I’m struggling with some of the same things I struggled with 20 years ago. You know why? I thought I’d be past all of that by now. And so the devil wants to use that to discourage you. And so some of the discouraging thoughts are, I can’t believe that’s still an emotion you struggle with, or I can’t believe that’s still an issue for you. And just realize that I think it’s really easy for us to get so focused on the gaps in what is missing in our lives, that we just do what we can and start where we are and enjoy the process from there.

(26:28) Stephanie Warner: Good word. See you next week.