Using Written Prayers
Prayers, Both Ancient and Contemporary, Can Aid and Strengthen You
You can come close to God by using prayers written by other people. Written prayers can help you to grow spiritually and deepen your life of prayer.
Prayers written by other people can lead to your own spontaneous way of interacting with God. You will find there are times when it's too difficult to pray your own words. It's then that the words of others can be a way of coming into the peace and presence of God.
Praying written Prayers
Using written prayers is often seen as inferior to impromptu prayer, and of course, you don't want to just repeat the words of others without thought. But you can make them your own. Begin by thinking about the words and what they mean. Ask how they relate to your life. Do they speak to a situation that is on your mind?
Stay with the prayer until you are ready to leave it behind, bringing your own heartfelt needs to the heart of God. Sometimes you will move beyond words altogether and become as one heart and mind with Christ the divine healer, entering into a time of listening, receiving and encountering the love which passes all understanding.
Praying in the Midst of Life
The writer, Richard J. Foster, in his book, Prayers from the Heart, talks about the value of developing prayer while struggling with the challenges of life. “My whole life, in one sense, has been an experiment in how to be a portable sanctuary – learning to practise the presence of God in the midst of the stresses and strains of contemporary life."
Here are Some Prayers to Help You Practise the Presence of God:
Enter my Small Life
Lord! Give me courage and love to open the door and constrain you to enter, whatever the disguise you come in, even before I fully recognise my guest.
Come in! Enter my small life!
Lay your sacred hands on all the common things and small interests of that life and bless and change them. Transfigure my small resources, make them sacred. And in them give me your very self.Amen (Written by Evelyn Underhill).
A Prayer for Light
Thank you Jesus for your light. A light that overcomes the darkness.
A Morning PrayerIf this day I should get lost amid the perplexities of life and the rush of many duties, do Thou search me out, gracious Lord, and bring me back into the quiet of thy presence. (Written by F.B. Meyer)
Affirmation of the Divine Presence
There is no place
Where God is not.
Wherever I go, there God is.
Now and always he upholds me with his power,
And keeps me safe in his love. (Source Unknown)
A Prayer for Renewed HopeOur loving father, we thank you for the yearly miracle of spring. Snowdrops and daffodils tell us that spring is coming, and the brave green spikes of other flowers sheer our hearts with their messages of promise. We thank you. May we never cease to wonder that your power is endless and your loving care never fails. And if our hearts are fast bound in a winter of depression or sin, unhappiness, or sorrow, may the signs of spring around us save us from despair.
You will speak again. You will speak the word of pardon and our burden will roll away; the word of healing and we shall be made whole; the work of joy and our hearts will sing; the word of peace and all our fretting and care and worry will pass away.
So grant us new faith in your promises and new courage to face each day.
For ourselves as well as for this beauteous world, we shall say this morning’
Lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone’
The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing birds is come. Amen
