Prayer Day

I spent this morning in Thousand Oaks. For the first part of the morning I was alone. Later, a good friend and colleague showed up, and we continued together until about 1:30 - through lunch.

I spent the day in prayer. I prayed for my congregation; I prayed for the other clergy I know, and many I don't know; I prayed for discernment; I prayed for an inner peace; I prayed through several hundred prayers I have collected over the past several years. 

A few years ago I was having some trouble praying. I could do community prayers, and mealtime prayers, but they began to fall into some ruts, and I began to think that maybe I ought to explore prayer a little more. I looked at several forms of prayer, and realized I was missing a great treasure right before me.

I read about 350 blogs a day. Well, not all 350 post on any given day, and many of them post a lot during the day. I don't even actually read all the posts, but I do try to skim most of them, and sort for relevant or interesting bits. I discovered that many of my blog friends were posting prayers on a regular basis. I could learn something from this.

I started picking them off as people posted their prayers, and adding them to a Google Document I keep online as well, just for prayers. This month I finally exceeded the amount of space allotted to any single document, so I had to start another page of prayers. 

Today in prayer, I read through many of them, and found some that really hit me right between the eyes. I am grateful to the original posters who found these and added them to my library and am linking to them. Here are three that really got to me.

A Prayer of Mother Theresa of Calcutta ht: Revmommy

The fruit of silence is prayer
the fruit of prayer is faith
the fruit of faith is love
the fruit of love is service
the fruit of service is peace.

Oh Lord, give me a backbone as big as a sawlog,

ribs like the sleepers under the church floor,

put iron shoes on me and galvanized breeches,

give me a rhinoceros hide for a skin,

and hang a wagonload of determination up in the gable-end of my soul,

and help me to sign the contract to fight the devil as long as I've got a fist

and bite him as long as I have a tooth,

then gum him till I die.

All this I ask for Christ's sake.

Amen.

-- Early 20th Century Nazarene Evangelist, Uncle Buddy Robinson

ht: Mark O. Wilson

Prayer for an Average Sunday

~ Kenneth G. Phifer

Eternal God, look now upon me as I wait,

stilled for a time,

subdued and quiet.

You know that it is hard for me to wait.

It is hard for me to be still.

I rush from one thing to another,

churning up my life

into hectic waves of accomplishment.

When night falls, I confess I feel a bit guilty

if I have done nothing except be myself.

I even come to prayer with the feeling

that it is apart from life,

that when it is over I had best do something.

Even in church I want to sing a hymn

or take up an offering.

And then when church is over,

I plunge back into my world where the action is.

O Lord, do I have it wrong,

twisted around?

Are there more occasions than I realize

when I would be a better person

if I didn't do anything but just stand there?

Do I fail to hear the real needs

of loved ones, friends, and neighbors,

because I am too busy figuring out

what next to do for them,

or maybe to them?

Am I so absorbed in running the world

that I am not aware of you

and of the things you have to say to me?

Calm me down, I pray.

Calm me down

to the place where I can remember

how many times you have managed to keep me going

when I thought I could not make it.

Calm me down

so that I can recall times of steadiness and fear

when a courage was infused in me

that enabled me to hold on.

Calm me down

so that I can accept my limitations without panic

and in the knowledge that I cannot do everything.

In many ways I do not do anything.

In some ways I do the wrong things.

In the silence before the mystery and the meaning,

I stand waiting,

still,

quieted by wonder.

For life is filled with mystery, meaning, and wonder.

The mystery of being itself.

The meaning that keeps breaking through to me,

meaning encompassed in words

like faith, hope, and love.

And I wonder why when I pray, I believe,

and why when I believe, I pray.

May I be assured that what I do matters

and what I say counts,

because you are in me and for me.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

-- Kenneth G. Phifer, A Book of Uncommon Prayer

Nashville: The Upper Room, 1981

ht: Allen Ewing-Merrill