Prayers for Ordinary Days

INTRODUCTION

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The longer we live the more sensible we should be of God’s goodness to us in keeping us alive! And shall not the life thus kept by his providence, be devoted to his praise?

—John Wesley

Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament,

commentary on Joshua 14:10

The apostle Paul wrote, Not that I have already attained, or were already perfect, but I press on to reach the goal, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (Phil. 3:12, author’s paraphrase).

This book offers a year of prayers in that same spirit of aspiration, of pressing on in hope and in full confidence in God’s unshakable promises.

Most of these prayers arose from private devotion. They were not written for other people, really. But as I began sharing my prayers on Facebook, people started asking for a book of prayers. Apparently, my prayer experience—my prayer aspirations—echoed in other folks’ hearts. The reason, I think, is that our human needs are so basic and shared, regardless of age, gender, or culture. And because God’s character and grace are so constant.

Maybe these prayers express the experience and aspirations of Christians globally, in many cultures, and through the ages. They breathe hope for the kingdom of God in fullness. They transcend nations and ethnicities, human philosophies, and political creeds. We lift our hearts in prayer to the God of the universe, the Lord sovereign over nations and nationalities, who is equally concerned with people everywhere, not just with our own nation or church or tribe.

Yet these prayers are deeply personal. Most arose from early-morning devotions. That is why some prayers refer to dawn or the morning hours. However, they can fruitfully be used any time of day, morning to night, or in hours of darkness.

Mostly these are prayers of praise, consecration, and intercession. Some, however, express confusion or vent frustration or anguish. Many arise out of questions, puzzles, even doubts. But deep down they are all aspiring prayers, praising God’s goodness, asking his help, invoking his promises. As prayers of aspiration they are prayers of respiration—breathing in and out to God; God’s Spirit responding with the Spirit’s own inbreathing, stirring hope, courage, insight, and new strength.

Full-orbed prayer always includes praise and thanksgiving. Not all the prayers here express praise, however. Many are simply prayers of petition and intercession, like some of the Psalms. Such prayers do not embody the totality of a normal prayer life. The prayers in this book are no substitute for your own prayer and praise. Rather, they are supplements to help enrich your prayer life. They may serve as prayer starters, leading to fuller prayer and praise.

PRAYER RESOURCES

Books of prayers abound, as they have throughout Christian history. For millions of people in the English-speaking world, the classic volume is The Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican tradition. This gem is unsurpassed in depth, breadth, beauty, and literary quality. So I commend The Book of Common Prayer.

Other useful helps are the small Field Guide for Daily Prayer by Winfield Bevins, Celtic Daily Prayer from the Northumbria Community, and Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard Foster. These last two books, in turn, list many other resources.

The small collection you have in your hands doesn’t replace proven prayer resources, it just supplements them. Since these prayers arise mostly out of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, they may speak particularly to people in today’s world, even as we benefit from time-tested earlier resources. Because these prayers are mostly personal, you may find a depth of honesty and passion and concern and questioning, a mix of topics, and a comprehensiveness of scope not found in other prayer books.

With each prayer I include Scripture, a hymn excerpt, or a quotation from some other source. If no source is listed, the comment is my own.

Many of the prayers are paired with words from Psalms. Psalms has been called the prayer book of Jesus. It has become the prayer book of the church. No doubt many of the Psalms’ prayers and phrases were often in Jesus’ mind and heart as he communed with the Father in the Spirit.

King David was perhaps most a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14) when he prayed. We see this especially in the long Psalm 119. This psalm became one of my favorites once I realized that the psalm’s many references to law, statutes, commands, and so forth, mean the whole biblical revelation of God’s will, covenant, and gracious promises. In this psalm, to rejoice in God’s law is to rejoice in all that God has revealed and all he promises to do—all his faithfulness to his covenant promises and his covenant people. So we rejoice and praise God’s goodness.

A few of the prayers included here are quoted from other sources, as noted in each case. Some are adapted or paraphrased from Daily Prayer (compiled by Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs). In their original form these prayers are in the public domain.

GOD’S REIGN: MAY YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH!

Jesus hears our prayers and prays through us by the Spirit. Jesus also showed us how to pray. His master model prayer was this: May your kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as in heaven (see Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2). Jesus says this is how his followers should pray. Here is the grand goal. Many of the prayers in this book aim at this—that God’s kingdom may come and his will be done fully on earth.

Behind the Lord’s Prayer, and surely in Jesus’ heart as he taught his disciples, was the full range of biblical promises of complete salvation, of creation healed, of the peaceable kingdom pictured so movingly in Isaiah 11 and similar passages. Passages such as these:

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. . . . They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:6, 9)

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom . . . Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert . . . And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isa. 35:1, 5–6, 10)

What the prophets foresaw; what Jesus began through his life, death, and resurrection; what the Bible still promises: this we pray for, intercede for, and seek to embody in our own lives and churches! To this end, the work of prayer and praise is indispensable.

Many prayer books don’t include the entire created order and God’s promises for its full healing in their scope of prayer. Often prayer books overlook the intimate biblical covenant relationship between God, humans, and the land or earth (see Genesis 9). The prayers I offer here aim to correct that oversight.

In my book Salvation Means Creation Healed, I show how the Bible is the story of God’s covenant relationship both with people and with the land—the earth the Lord created. God’s covenant is not solely with humans. This God–people–land covenant is basic for understanding the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments.¹ The prayers in this book reflect this biblical holism. They invoke God’s plan and promise to reconcile all creation; to bring all things in heaven and earth together, healed and restored, through Jesus Christ, as Scripture teaches (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:19–20; Acts 3:18–21, and many other passages).

PRAYING IN COMMUNITY

Most of these prayers focus on personal, often private concerns. They are for private devotions. But a caution! These prayers assume you also participate in a praying Christian community—a group where prayers are shared, where you focus on each other’s concerns and on God’s redemptive mission in the world. We all need a believing, faithful Christian community or congregation to safeguard us from self-focused, private faith. The Christian faith is not just me and God. It concerns God’s people throughout the earth and God’s heart for the redemption of the world and the coming of his kingdom in fullness.

In terms of discipleship, this is not a stand-alone book. Your prayer life will benefit from other resources. I suggest you consider what God may say to you, for example, through The Band Meeting: Rediscovering Relational Discipleship in Transformational Community by Kevin Watson and Scott Kisker (Seedbed Publishing, 2017).

So use this collection of prayers to supplement, not replace, praying together with others. The healthiest Christian life is one where we pray and read the Bible in three ways: privately by ourselves, together in a small group, and corporately in the larger congregation.

USING THIS BOOK

For most Christians, Sunday is the primary day of worship and the real beginning of the week. For that reason we have formatted Prayers for Ordinary Days to help individuals cultivate a Sunday through Saturday prayer and meditation pattern. This book offers fifty-two complete weeks of daily prayers. If you start using this book on a day other than Sunday you can easily synchronize to the Sunday through Saturday schedule by using the additional prayers that begin on page 219.

Prayers for special days of the Christian year such as Advent, Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost are also included. Use these prayers at the appropriate season of the year, if you wish, either in addition to or in place of the prayer for that particular day. Note that since the traditional Christian year begins with Advent, four weeks before Christmas, it starts several weeks before the calendar year.

I have also included a dozen additional prayers for special situations or circumstances, such as a birthday, a time of sorrow or depression, or a special time of thanksgiving.

Communing with God is very personal. We must all find our own daily pattern within the great tradition of the Christian faith. Here is what works for me: first I pray with Isaiah, Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory (Isa. 6:3). Then I read my own daily prayer. God often uses this to speak to my heart. Or maybe I’ll write a new prayer. I then go on to my other praises, prayers, and intercessions, following a weekly pattern I have developed over years. You will already have, or will develop, your own pattern that works for you, using such resources as you personally find helpful or are recommended by your church community.

SPECIAL NOTE ON GOD LANGUAGE

Words we use are symbols or signs pointing to something else. The word chair is not itself a chair; it’s the five-letter word we use to designate what we understand to be a chair.

This simple truth gets complicated when we talk about God! The Bible speaks of God as rock, fortress, shield, fire. Scripture is a vast storehouse of metaphors and word pictures. So also with many hymns. We are used to this, so usually we don’t think much about it.

In this book I use familiar metaphors or images of God. Sometimes, however, I find it helpful to use less traditional metaphors. For example, in a few prayers I refer to God as Mother. I do this partly because the Bible itself uses maternal images for God. For example,