How to Pray: Stabilize Me!

Welcome to the final Old Testament episode of the Press Movement Podcast! In this special conversation, we close out with the prayer of Habakkuk and discover what it means to trust God when life feels unstable.

Habakkuk’s journey mirrors our own: he begins overwhelmed and questioning God’s plan, but ends by remembering God’s power and declaring, “The Lord is my strength… He makes my feet like hinds’ feet.” Together with recurring guest Sister Alysha Owens, we walk through how this prayer encourages us to remain steady, even when life throws us into rocky terrain.

In this episode, we wrestle with real questions:

• What do we do when God’s plan isn’t what we expected?
• How do we trust Him in chaos?
• How can we be stabilized when everything around us is shaking?

Habakkuk’s prayer reminds us that God builds us to withstand what we’re walking through. 

🙏 PRESS with us — prayer reaches every single situation.

#PressMovement #PrayerPodcast #Habakkuk #FaithJourney #TrustGod #BibleStudyPodcast #PrayerWorks

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the Press Movement Podcast.

This is the final episode of the Old Testament. I cannot believe I am so grateful to God that when this idea came about and I saw 200 prayers, I was like, oh yeah, but to still be doing this and well over halfway through and now going to the New Testament next week, I'm just grateful. And so to help wrap this up, I have one of our recurring hosts back with me, and that is in the person of Sister Alicia Owens.

Welcome back, Alicia. Hi, thank you for having me. Of course, I'm so glad you're here.

We were just having some wonderful conversation about how we are going to make it. We're going to make it today. We're going to see Jesus and we're dragging everybody with us we can get.

I mean, whether you want to come or not. Yes, that is the mission. So anyway, we're going to hop into the book of Habakkuk today and I'm going to let Alicia take it from there.

So we are in Habakkuk and we are in the third chapter verses one through nineteen. So one thing that I found while reading this is this specific prayer, you can't necessarily start with the third chapter without like starting at the first. So I started at the first.

Habakkuk is freaking out about the evil that he's seeing and just like taking his grievances to God. What I kind of realize is I feel like I closely relate to him just because the second scripture of the first chapter is him saying, How long shall I cry in that world out here? How long are you? It was almost like, how long are you going to make me go through this? How long am I going to have to cry about this? How long? And I mean, who hasn't said that? Like, God, how long am I going to be here? How long are we going to go through this? And so he starts in the first chapter and he he's stressed. So you hear him basically going to God like, why? Why me? And he's freaking out and he's stressed about everything going on with within Judah.

And then God answers. God gives him an answer. He's going to raise up the Chaldeans and to bring about justice with Judah.

And even in that, that wasn't good enough. And you know, and so then he starts freaking out about what God, like the solution God gave him, the plan God gave him. And again, how many times have we been there where God gives you the plan? This is what we are doing.

This is the plan. And you still freak out because it's not the way that I saw it at all. This is not what I was thinking that we were going to do.

This is the plan that I have. Like, like the old saying says, if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plan. So this is what I was thinking and all of that.

And it almost made me feel like how many times have I gone to God about something? And you know, he's told me like, this is what we're doing. I've been like, no, I don't want to do that. That's not what I wanted.

And so then he goes from there at this place of sort of struggling in his faith with God, stressing out about what he's seeing and what he's going through. And then skipping to the third chapter, he starts the chapter off by remembering who God is and what God has done. And honestly, from there, the entire chapter, he basically encourages himself just by repeating what God has done before, who God has been before, how God has shown up before.

And basically in that, he's taking his faith and he's, it's uplifting his faith. While he's reminding himself of the things that God has done in three through seven, he starts to recall some God's past appearances and the glory and the power that he showed. And you see how his faith goes from being fearful for what God is planning to do and what the plan of God is to fully and completely trusting in God, whether I agree with the plan or not, whether I am on board, whether I understand it.

He completely, by the end of it, he's completely relying on God and trusting in God and what he can do. And he even ends the chapter by saying, the Lord is my strength and he will make my feet like Heim's feet. He will make me to walk upon the high places.

And so he, that's why I said from the beginning of the book where he is stressed out and he's worrying until the very end where he is, we get to see him walk through and we get to see his faith go from where he's struggling to where it's strengthened and what he knows to be true about God. And honestly, this whole book to me felt like, it felt like me. It felt like where I am with God or where I've been with God before.

And you know, somewhat of where I am with God now, where the season of life where I am right now, I was stressed and I was fearful for what the plan of God was. I was even telling you before this about how randomly I had to get a new car and that was not in the plan. Like I had a full plan for that.

I was like, oh yeah, we're going to pay off the car and then we'll go a year without a car payment. We'll get a car next year. And God was like, yeah, you got to get one now.

And it, it definitely was not within my plans, but I just kept telling God, I trust you with this. I trust you with everything, with my new car. I trust you with a new job.

I trust you with all of this, this stuff that is currently on me. And yeah, so I just, I really, I really liked this book. I even went into looking up like the significance of Hindsby and, and the descriptions that I saw even about that was the Hindsby are like, you know, the feet of a deer.

So the way that they are is like, there are certain parts of the feet where it helps you to stabilize. So like, I literally saw a picture of like a deer on like a mountain and they were like walking up a mountain and the way their feet are constructed, there are certain parts of their feet that make it so they can stabilize on rocky terrain, things where places where it wouldn't necessarily be the easiest place to stand still and stand strong. Their feet are created, are crafted and made to stand strong and to stand still in places where you wouldn't normally be able to be stabilized.

Even in that, it just made me realize how much I want that to be able to trust in God so much that I stand still in moments where I wouldn't, normal people wouldn't be able to stand still and they wouldn't be able to be stabilized, but I'm stabilized and I'm trusting in him. And that is my first response rather than a response that I have to work up to. I am already there.

And so that was, that's pretty much what I got from this chapter. Yeah. And I think those are some interesting observations.

I do love that as godly people, I believe the Lord allows us to be human. Yeah. And so a lot of these prophets, a lot of the books really got to see they're human and they have questions.

They're just like, yeah, they have hopes. They don't always know as I say that there's a chapter three. It's like, hold on, this moment is hurting.

Yeah. But like you said, the resolve of a person who is godly always ends with he's with me or he's great or he's good. That is the resolve of every day, every hard moment that he is.

And so it's not surprising to me that he recognizes he makes my feet like hinds feet. Yeah. There's a scripture in Psalms 26 and 12 that the Lord has just been dealing with me on these past few months, well, probably the past few weeks.

And I've never really heard it read in church much, but I was telling God, it's just such a weird place that I've been in turbulent times. Things can feel like chaos. So this scripture just spoke to me because it said in verse 11, 26, 11, but as for me, I will walk in mine integrity, redeem me and be merciful unto me.

And then verse 12 is what stood out though. He said, my foot standeth in an even place and just the stability of God. Yeah.

That it can be whatever. Yeah. It can be things.

Yes. Maybe they were questioning his integrity. They were questioning whatever else and there's enemies and you read Psalms 26, but he said, my foot standeth in an even place.

I do not have to lose my balance here. I don't have to fall apart here just because there's chaos around me doesn't mean I'm unstable. And I heard that as you were saying, it reminded me of just how the Lord keeps encouraging me.

My foot stands in an even place. I'm not reactionary. I'm planted.

Yeah. I'm planted, which is so weird because that's usually not me. I am the absolute, like I trust God, but something has happened and I'm going to freak out about it.

And then I'll calm down. I'll become rational later. The season that I have been in life, I don't even have time to freak out.

It's just, I have to trust God immediately. And I have never been there before where it's like, I don't have time to freak out, but I learned what it means to be stabilized and not be torn every which way. Every time something happens, like you said, in the meeting we had on Sunday, you're like 2025, it's a jerk.

It's a jerk. It's a jerk. I hope it's been great for somebody else out there.

For me, it's a jerk. For me too. It is an absolute jerk.

But you kept saying, it's a jerk that I'm not going to let win. And I love that because while freaking out is what is, it comes natural to us. Cause it's like, what is going on and why is this happening? I think that there has to be the determination that kicks in and says, I will continue and I will fight.

I won't let this take me out. And above all else, I will trust God, whether it's comfortable, whether I'm happy with the current conditions, I will trust God regardless. Trust Him anyway.

So yeah. I just looked at the last line to the chief singer on my stringed instruments. This was a song.

And Becca decided we're going to sing this thing out. And to me, I don't know why that just encourages me, but I do know that sometimes when the Lord will give a song or sometimes music has a way of reaching into your soul in a different way than even just reading. It's like it plants it in your soul and you start to sing it.

So to know that he didn't just make a declaration to himself or in a corner, he wanted this to be a song. He wanted it to be out loud. He wanted the musicians to know it.

He wanted this congregation to know it. This was the conclusion of everything is he's not going to let me fall. No matter the terrain, then he'll build me for the terrain because he makes my feet like hinds.

It doesn't even say that I was already like that, but whatever accommodations God has to make for me to survive where I am, that is something to sing about. He makes them. Yeah.

He'll build for it tough. And if he has to rebuild you, he'll rebuild you. He'll rebuild you.

So I'm just encouraged by that, that God knows, yes, 2025 is a jerk and maybe I wasn't built for 2025 in 2024. But guess what? We adapt. And he'll build me for 2025 in the midst of it.

He will build me for it. In the middle of it. And I appreciate him for that because this is, like I said, this is a space I've never been in.

I think that when you're walking with God for so long, there are obviously things that you learn about him and all of that good stuff, but it doesn't help the human part of you sometimes where it's like, I want to lay down and I want to cry about this. I want to go to God and be like, why me? Why is this happening? But even like I said, how he started out, how Habakkuk started out the third chapter with reminding himself of the things that God has done. Like my mom always says, sometimes when your faith is wavering, you just need a good, you just need a good memory.

You just need to remember what he's already done and that carries you. So yeah. And I believe that is a great conclusion to this book and to the Old Testament.

Just have a great memory. When you go to God, have a great memory. If you can't remember what he's done, remember who he is.

Remember what he said about himself. And I just believe that when we do that, we'll know. Prayer reaches every single situation.

It reaches everything. There's not one thing that prayer cannot reach. Every time.

Every single time. We'll see y'all in the New Testament next week. Bye.

Bye-bye. Join the movement. Join the community.

Like, share, and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and were wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice.

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer.

It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com