A Better Way Wk:6 Guest Panel: Sherawn Stewart, Jake Jacobson, Nina White, Felicia Stewart, Diane Hadrich | October 18th, 2026 |

If we have not met before, my name is Sharon.

And the reality is, if we have met before, my name is still Sharon.

I'm really glad you guys are here.

Justin and his family have taken a well-needed vacation.

They are in a water park.

I'm so jealous to just sit in the waves and play.

But instead, you guys are stuck with me, and for some reason they thought it was a wise idea to give me a mic.

So one of my roles here is that I get to work with the young adults.

So Monday nights, young adults, come see us.

It's great.

You get free food.

So let me go back to my notes.

I got distracted.

Okay.

So to be really honest with you guys, I am in no way a preacher.

And I am really not that much of a teacher.

But what I do know is I really love a good conversation.

And so that's what we're going to be doing today, is we're going to be having a conversation about prayer.

My guess is you guys have always or have all been at a restaurant or a coffee shop where you're sitting there and you hear a conversation.

That sounds really good.

And then you start doing this, listening in.

Well, today you get to do that with permission.

You get to eavesdrop.

So welcome.

I don't know about you, but there's a lot in that video I can relate to.

The realness with God.

I've been many moments where, you know, I've been praising God and like, you're awesome, you're fabulous.

And then there's other moments where I'm like, where are you?

Seriously, where are you?

Today we're going to be hitting all of those.

In it reminds me a lot, I guess I want to make sure I say this, it reminds me a lot of the Psalms.

David, one moment is like, you are the best thing ever.

And then where are you?

You have left me to my enemies, to my demise, where are you?

And yet I will praise you.

It's just an interesting dynamic to have this prayer life with God.

So in Matthew, Jesus' disciples ask him how to pray.

They say, Teach us how to pray.

And Jesus started with two very important words.

Our Father.

With these words, it reminds me that God is personal.

He is inviting us to have a relational experience with him.

Not just this holy God on a throne that we can't approach.

But we have both.

We have a holy God that is somehow chosen to allow us to come up to his throne.

So on that note, I've got these amazing, fabulous humans over here that I'm going to ask them to answer three questions.

Well, they're going to say their name, and then they're going to tell us how long they've been a believer, how long they've been at Eastridge, and what is their favorite time of day.

Hi.

My name is Felicia.

I've been at Eastridge for I want to say around four years, but I've been a believer my whole life.

I think I officially in my little kid brain sat my parents down at, I believe, four years old.

I was like, okay, what's the official prayer?

Like, how do I join this club officially?

What do I say?

Um, but it's been a lifelong thing.

And my favorite time of day, I've always been a night owl.

But I in the last couple years got a job that forces me to wake up at 5 a.m.

And now I've really come to appreciate the beauty and the quiet of 5 a.m.

So I think my answer is just kind of the the ends of the day, the very early beginning and the late evening into night.

Hi, I'm Howie Jacobson.

Law, you know me as Jake.

Um, I've became a follower of the Lord Jesus in the summer of 75.

And it's been a long and interesting walk with the Lord and one that I cherish every day of my life.

I've been at East Ridge since 2007 and love the church so much.

And the favorite part of the day is the morning.

I love the mornings.

My name is Anina White, and I have, I would say I've been a believer my whole life, but I would say a believer without doubt since I was 15.

And I've been at Eastridge for just over four years, and my favorite time of day when I'm consistent with routine is the early mornings.

Hi, my name is Diane Hadridge.

Uh I uh became a believer officially at a Billy Graham movie in February of 1973.

I've been coming to this church for 39 years, and I am definitely a night person.

However, um uh coming to church this morning for all three services, I really like the sunrise.

I I might become a morning person.

Have we corrupted you?

Yes.

I'm a full convert now, yes.

Nice.

So, Felicia, when I bring up prayer, what does that mean to you?

So you gave me kind of a heads up of the gist of the questions beforehand, and I have been trying to pray and figure out what to say, and I had all the intent of finding this eloquent answer and saying so much in-depth, but God spoke to me as he usually does, which gives me one word and then says, You got this.

Um, but the one word that consistently came back to my mind was communication.

It's whether it's processing things, just talking about your day, or whatever it is, just communicating with our Lord.

Beautiful.

Jake, how about you?

If I were to say, what does prayer mean to you?

How would you describe it?

To me, I think of prayer as a conversation with the Lord.

And where I get that from is I envision when Adam and God were walking in the garden together, and how God would interact with Adam, and Adam would interact with God, and Adam would share concerns he has, what God wants him to do for the day, and how God would speak back to him and say, This is our plan for the day, Adam, this is what we're gonna do.

I want you to know that I love you, Adam, that you're my son, and I appreciate you, and that Adam would return in response, I love you, Father.

That's beautiful.

I've heard that twice already, and this time it just really hit.

Wow.

So Matthew 6, 9 to or 9 through 13 says, Um, our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy, may your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us, and do not let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

That was how Jesus taught us to pray.

Our Father, relationship, your kingdom come, surrender, daily bread, dependence, forgiveness, grace, and lead us trust.

So, Miss Nina, out of all of those with the Lord's Prayer, what specific section would you say pops out the most to you personally?

It would be your will be done.

Um I find such comfort in knowing that he has a plan for me and as much stress or everything that goes through my day no matter what, um he has it already laid out for me.

And so I know I can trust in it and and just rely on it, and so it's his will.

And I'm just a very small part in it.

Hey Diane, obviously you have the mic, so you know I'm coming to you.

What part of the Lord's prayer really stands out to you and is personal to you?

Jesus starts out by telling us that we are to talk to our Father.

And as I was uh studying the prayer, that's what really struck out, stuck out to me was that I am that's he's my God is my focus.

The things that follow after that are not I'm going to make sure that I obey your ways and I'm following under your kingdom.

I'm gonna make sure that I ask you for this, I'm gonna make sure it's not nothing about the prayer is about me.

It's you, your kingdom come, you give me my daily needs, you forgive my sins, and you lead me in the way that I should go.

Everything circles back up to um God our Father.

And as I was looking at the, so we start with God the Father, and as I was looking at the things underneath that, it occurred to me that there's nothing in that prayer that I would say to anybody else in the entire world except to God.

I would never say to a spouse or a parent or a friend or a sibling or a co-worker, hey, you're gonna supply my needs.

You're gonna forgive my sins.

Those are words only that I would say to God.

So for me, it kept circling back to our father, my father.

Okay, I'm gonna throw you for a little bit of a loop again.

Um our father, and I'll say personally, is a um hard word for me.

When you have a holy God and you don't have a great relationship with a father, how do you reconcile having the ability to come before the holiness of God with maybe some baggage and also some anger?

Yeah, if you've had a uh a tough dad on earth um and somebody tells you that you're gonna be praying to your father, that can kind of trip you up.

But we have to remember that we have an earthly father and we have a heavenly father, and they're not the same people.

Um so, like in the movie, if we're mad about things, we might not have dared to talk back to our earthly fathers, but we can rant at the heavenly father about the things on earth that have been unfair.

God, I don't like it.

This isn't fair, and he will listen.

When when uh Sonny was ranting in the movie at the towards the end, when he says, What do you want from me?

What do you want from me?

Did you hear the thunder?

And I kept thinking, he's gonna be smote right now, but he wasn't.

And um and it was just quiet.

God isn't gonna smash us for expressing the feelings that he has given to us.

We have a safe heavenly father.

Might not have been the same for our dads on on earth, but in heaven, he's different.

Thank you.

Nina, when you look at the Lord's Prayer altogether, um what do you think the Lord's intention giving us that prayer is?

I mean, is that something that we're supposed to recite, or is that something that's how how do we put in application that prayer?

Is what's your opinion?

Well, I think first of all, he gives it to us as a father would, right?

It's instruction.

It's this is how you pray.

Um so he's instructing us.

It's something that we could always go to as a constant.

So when we don't know how to pray or we don't know what to say, we could use that.

So I love that it's always there.

But it also gives us the structure that we need uh to come to to our Lord God in prayer by first recognizing him, giving thanks to him, and all of the structure below it is it's about him.

And you can come to him and ask him your things, but this is where we start.

And so that I feel is like that instruction and the structure is what it helps provide.

Beautiful.

I love it.

Yep.

To me, it's like a little outline, um, which I love.

Okay, so not one of my favorite parts.

Felicia, um, tell me what your day-to-day prayer life could look like.

For me, I think because of the moment that prayer became important to me was when I had gone through a lot, found really unhealthy unhealthy coping mechanisms, and pushed everybody else away.

So prayer was what I had left to try to pull me out of that and figure out how to.

So that was when I realized that God's with me all the time, even when nobody else is.

And I think that's kind of translated into the day-to-day because the first thing that comes to mind is any episode of The Office where they're just going about their day-to-day life and something happens and they sign up with a camera, and they're like, You saw that, right?

We're just gonna acknowledge that.

And then later in the one-on-one interview, they say their real thoughts and kind of rant about it and whatever.

And I feel like my ADHD really presents itself in my daily prayer life with that because now I'm like, you're always with me, and you saw that, right?

So now things will happen.

I'm like, hello.

And as much as I do intentionally take the time to sit down and pray, a lot of the day to day is just going through the day and kind of side-eyeing him and be like, we're gonna talk about that later.

And just as things come up, rambling about it.

That's very fair.

Jake, how about you?

What does it present?

What does your prayer life present like?

Well, for me, um, I try and structure it so I do not in any way not acknowledge him the first thing in the morning.

So when I rise, the first thing I do is meet my creator and have a devotion with him and see what he is putting on my heart for the day and how he is going to intervene with me throughout the day, whether it be through employment, through getting together with friends or family, or just my interaction with whoever comes across my path.

And then Paul says to pray without ceasing, and I always struggled with that because I thought, how can you be in prayer 24-7 in that?

But then God tells me, He says, just make me part of your life on a daily basis.

Whenever something comes up, turn to me for answers, turn to me for solutions.

And so I started doing that in my walk with the Lord, that just little nuggets of time I would take, and Lord, what do you think I should do in this situation?

How do you think I should respond?

Lord, give me your wisdom and your insight as I deal with this situation.

And then at the end of the day, before I put go down for my before I lay my head down in bed, I always thank the Lord for the many blessings he's given me that day.

I thank him for all the people that are praying for me.

I thank him for his mercy and his grace, his goodness and his sovereignty.

So that when I go to sleep, I know I've been grateful to God for all he's given me.

Beautiful.

What does it look like in your life?

So day-to-day prayer.

Um, adulting is hard, right?

So my routine can change frequently, but something that is always going to be happening is I'm in my car, riding to and from work.

I am dropping my kid off at the school, I'm going to the grocery store.

So there's always time in the car.

So I made my time in the car, my time with God.

I I call it my park and pray.

So every time I get to work and I park, I pray.

When I drop my kid off at school, I park, I pray.

I will go to the grocery store, I pull in my car in the garage and I park and I pray because I need to fit God into my life every part of my day, and those moments are always happening.

So anywhere that I can, I'm trying to do that.

So that's it's my prayer chair or my my car.

Fabulous.

Miss Diane.

Well, like Nina, uh, she's got a prayer trigger in uh parking and praying.

Um, first thing in the morning, I learned uh a line from Pastor Justin when he said, When you start your day, the first thing you can say to the Lord is, Jesus, you are Lord again today.

And that keeps my focus on him, and I'll so I'll be following him all through the day.

Another trigger I have is a siren.

If there's an ambulance, uh a police officer, a fire engine, or even the helicopters if I see them taking off from the hospital or going back.

At the end of that ride, there's somebody who needs God.

There's a medical emergency, there's a medicalist staff who don't know what they're gonna get into, and it's scary.

They need peace, they need protection.

You know, maybe they don't know the Lord.

We want to give them a chance to know the Lord before they uh before they pass away.

So uh my daughter Josephine has gotten very good about doing the siren prayers, so that's that's good.

So typical Holy Spirit fashion.

I'm gonna hijack a little bit here again.

Um Jake, you have walked with the Lord for a long time, right?

If you were to look at your prayer life when you first started walking with him compared to your prayer life now, what's changed?

I would have to say when I first started walking with the Lord, becoming a follower of Jesus, I wasn't quite sure how my prayer life would be or how it should be.

I would seek to do what I thought was the thing to do is have regimented time every day to be in prayer, but I didn't want to become religious about it.

I wanted to be from the heart and be pure and honest before God.

And I think one of the biggest things that happened as I grew in the Lord and walked with him was how God placed upon my heart that I would just seek him continually and he would modify our time together.

And I think one of the things that really changed my prayer life recently was when my wife became ill and how I would intercede with him continually on behalf of her.

And I think that's one of the things that motivated me to continue to just seek after God and walk with him because I believed in a healing to take place, and I believed also in his grace and mercy to envelop both of us and comfort us through this time.

Thank you for sharing.

Diane, you are also one of the longer amazing walks of life with God.

You've been walking with him for a while.

But I would love to know what that looked like in the beginning compared to what it looks like now.

Like what has has anything shifted?

Does it look very similar or does it look drastically different?

Something that has happened even just recently has been uh that I uh have a greater sense of God's presence.

When I was younger, I had uh uh come up with a uh a formal prayer of my own.

I would I would ask God for health and uh protection, and and it was uh you know, it was almost like my own Lord's prayer, but everything was um uh in its own order.

Now my prayers are more free flowing, but also the difference is that I've become much more raw, open, Diane like in in just praying to God.

And and He will um the I call them moments of surprise and delight.

And this happens when I open up uh uh on To God and just say, I'm this, this is what I need help with.

I'm really struggling with this.

Sometime that afternoon or whatever, he comes to me and he does something that only I would recognize as coming from God.

It's a surprise and delight moment that just says, wow, thank you for saying hi.

Thank you for showing up.

I know that you heard me.

It's like a reassurance of something that I'm not expecting, where he will come in and say, I heard you today.

And it's it's particularly when I am most honest with him.

So when I am most honest with him is when I he'll it's weird.

I I can't explain it, but it's like, oh thank you.

Yeah, he's very personal.

I I'm learning that.

Isn't it interesting how that time changes and you realize just how approachable he actually is?

Um so I'm gonna ask Nina first this one.

Um for those who are out here, because we've all been here.

So for those who are out here and say, this is all good, but God's silent.

I pray, I talk, but I don't hear him.

What what what could you say to somebody to encourage them?

Or maybe an experience.

It's up to you, however the Holy Spirit leads.

But sometimes what you're praying for, um you're looking for the answers that you want to hear.

So that's not maybe his will.

I suggest and know from experience.

Sometimes you have to change your prayer and ask for you to get out of the way.

What you need to hear, what you need to see, or what you need to do, and and ask for that clarity in that, or just to help me get out of my own way, or know that it will take time and give me the patience that I need, or know that this is your will, and help me see that lesson in this time that I'm I'm experiencing.

Um, there's been multiple times where I've not wanted to experience what I was experiencing, but it all it all comes back to testimony.

It's what I share, it's what I've experienced, and I've had to experience because somebody else is going to experience it too.

And I could help tell my story with that.

One of those is when I was looking for an answer, I was holding a lot of bitterness.

My parents had divorced, and I was witness as to why the one of the reasons of why the divorce occurred.

And I held a lot of bitterness in my heart with that.

And I had a hard time forgiving my father for it.

And it affected my life, it affected my health, it affected relationships all around me.

And I knew I needed to let go of that bitterness, so I prayed on it.

How am I to let go of this?

How am I to get rid of this?

I know I need to forgive my father.

Can I just do that with prayer?

Can I do that with you, God?

Or do I have to have a conversation with him?

I prayed that prayer over and over again.

And I was blind to the answers because he kept on showing me.

He kept on using people, he kept on showing me.

And I still didn't want to listen because I didn't want to do confrontation.

Um, but eventually he came in such a way through my mother, who sat in a room and told me, I think you need to talk to your father.

And whoo, man, the power that came in that room, the light that came in that room, it was overwhelming and undeniable of what I needed to do.

So I went to my father and I brought my sister along, who also wanted to do the same thing because she was encouraged by me to do so.

And we were able to talk to him and be able to forgive him and get that lift that we needed to be able to change the relationships, to be able to change what we needed.

Wasn't the answer I wanted, but it was what I needed.

In some ways I can relate, in a lot of ways I can relate, but the situation that keeps going through in my head is when I was diagnosed with cancer.

And thankfully I'm cancer free.

Right?

Thank you, Jesus.

But not before I literally went through every step needed.

He didn't take that process away, but he made sure he was with me the whole time.

I didn't hear his voice.

That whole time he was silent, but he was present.

I went through that during um COVID.

So going through all the treatment, none of my family could be with me.

Um I had to rely on him, and he was silent the whole time.

But his presence was there, and that's that interesting part of prayer where I was still communicating with him, but there was really no words.

He just was always there.

Um last little we're gonna have to make it real quick, so I'm not putting you on the spot too much.

But you made a statement a couple times here, and I'm at I'm I'm literally saying this because I'm curious, because I don't know what I did.

Um, but I think if I was out here, I would want to know.

You said that in in the past that something, the way I lived my life, the prayer ministry that I've been a part of, whatever, has spurred you on to have a relationship like this with him, but I don't know exactly how I displayed that in such a way that made you want that.

Honestly, I think it's just because you were real about it, and you were real that you didn't know, because I was able to see the behind the scenes of putting together this ministry, and how do I run this?

And then when different things would happen, okay, never done this before, how do we approach this?

And praying about it, and I think because I was able to see the day-to-day and realize that it doesn't need to be this big thing.

This interesting that you ask this because there's been a phrase, um, actually song lyrics, that have been going through my head all morning, but there's been nowhere to fit them in.

So I was like, okay, maybe I don't need this.

Um, and now I don't have my phone on me, so I'll see if I can remember it.

Um, but it's say a prayer, say it loud, speak it now, then live it out, because faith is all he wants to see.

And I think that kind of sums it up because I was able to see you be like, I don't know what this is gonna, how this is gonna go, what we're gonna do here, but you were able to pray it, speak it out, and then live it out because you had gone to him in prayer about it first.

And I was able to see that, and then just that faith is all he wants to see is he's not wanting this big, elaborate prayer.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy or formal, and just go to him and be real.

And I was fortunate enough to have parents that were willing to be uncomfortable and not know.

Really raw, really real.

Yeah, well, thank you, because I I that was not stated, I truly didn't know.

So thank you.

I didn't know that.

Um, so quick little Sunday school answer, since you're right there, Felicia.

Why?

Why can we approach this holy throne, a holy God, creator of everything?

Why can we do this?

Jesus.

The most stereotypical answer, but it's true.

That was totally staged.

I thought it was fun.

So if we go to Hebrews um, it says, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the mo enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, we can have confidence because of the blood of Jesus.

And our sin and our brokenness and our rawness and our anger and our frustration and our joy and our praise that we can approach his throne because he sacrificed it all for us.

Let us draw near with a true heart, full of assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from the evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

That's that's it.

He chose to come, he chose to bleed, he chose to die because he actually wants a relationship with you.

Not just devotion, but faith and conversation in real he wants to know you and he wants you to know him.

That's why that's why we can come before him.

That's what prayer is allowing yourself to be real with the holy God who loves you more than anything else in this entire world.

So let me pray.

Father, thank you for inviting us near through Jesus.

Teach us to trust you, to depend on you, to have faith, to keep coming to you when we don't understand and we don't want to when we're angry.

Thank you that we can do that.

Thank you for sharing in our joy and our excitement.

Appreciate you, Lord.

Help us to know you more, help us to grow deeper in our faith.

Help us to stand together as a church family and pray for each other.

We trust you and we thank you, and we pray this in the holy, precious name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.