Prayers I Pray (Almost) Every Day - Series Introduction
In today's post, I introduce my new multi-part series on prayer.
While on my morning walk in late September of last year (2022), I began to think about the various prayers I pray most days. Earlier that year, I published a review of Pray, Write, Grow by Ed Cyzewski. But it was written primarily for writers, and while what Cyzewski shared from his life story encourages readers TO pray, he didn't offer much on HOW to pray other than to suggest using the Examen — a simple way of reflecting on your day that guides you in prayer and drawing close to God.1
It had been over two months since publishing From Abuse to Addiction to Prison to Freedom: The Michael Molthan Story and I was asking the Lord to show me what I should blog about next. So it seemed reasonable to believe that these random thoughts about the prayers I pray were from Him.
As I typically do when initially inspired to write about a topic, I immediately rolled up my sleeves and went to work crafting a few sections. But I didn't get very far before a lot of other stuff got in the way and I had to set it aside.
A word of encouragement for someone: Don't be discouraged by divine delays. Sometimes roadblocks are God’s way of directing you onto a better path.
Now it’s April, almost seven months later — and finally, it's time. We've settled into our online publishing home here on Substack, I'm back on my feet after a recent bout with vertigo followed by a nasty skin rash from poison ivy, and the only thing I'm itching to do now is WRITE! 🤗
And write is precisely what I've been doing this past week, resulting in THIS: The introduction to what is going to be a series of blog posts on prayer.
Prayer is vitally important to me and has been ever since God radically invaded my life in the summer of 1970, a few weeks before my 13th birthday. I will share details of what happened in a future post, but for now, I'll just say that once you've had a life-changing encounter with Jesus and He fills you with His Spirit, prayer becomes as natural and necessary as breathing.
Even so, I don't want to leave you with the impression that after this experience, I came away knowing all there is to know about prayer. I assure you, THAT didn't happen.
My prayer life — why, when, and what I pray — has developed over decades of walking with Him. And I dare say it will continue to do so because I'm sure I will NEVER reach the apex of this most intimate, life-giving spiritual practice.
“When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, I will make myself available to you,” says the LORD… — Jeremiah 29:13-14a NET
So, where did I get the prayers? Did I get them from a book?
As a matter of fact, I did: the Book of Psalms, the Book of Jeremiah, Matthew's Gospel, Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, and his Letter to the Colossians mostly.
I first learned about praying the Word in the 80s and have been praying this way ever since. It's my favorite way to pray.
But it's not the ONLY way I pray. Some of my prayers are simple phrases, and some are from vernacular you won't find in the Bible.
All in all, my prayers are a combination of scriptures from multiple Bible translations mixed in with the context of our culture and expressed through my personality.
You see, more than anything, prayer is connecting with God from your heart. It's personal. So my goal isn't to teach you prayers that you can pray (although, you can if you want) as much as it is to show you HOW I came up with my prayers so that you can craft your own — especially regarding praying the Word.
Praying the Word means reading (or reciting) Scripture in a spirit of prayer and letting the meaning of the verses become our prayer and inspire our thoughts. — John Piper2
For more on praying the Word, check out this excellent article: Using the Bible to Pray: How to Turn Your Bible Reading Into a Conversation with God.
Why I’m Doing a Series
You may be wondering why I’m doing a series. Couldn't I have simply given you the prayers?
Yes, but doing a series will give me space to elaborate more fully on each prayer, including related scriptures, and share stories while keeping each post under 2000 words. (For reference, this one is 1277 words.)
A multi-part series will also allow me to delve into related topics such as:
The privilege of prayer
The purpose of prayer
The power of prayer
The will of God
True worship
God’s empowering grace
Living in peace
Forgiveness and inner healing.
I’m sure that by the time I’ve finished the series, I will have covered even more topics than those listed above. But this gives you an idea of where I’m going.
How many parts or individual posts will there be in the series?
I don’t know. I also don’t know how frequently I’ll publish them. What I DO know is that I’m going to take my time with each one.
Daily, I ask the Lord to help me with this project. The prayer I prayed from the outset is one I pray over each project I undertake. I crafted it from Proverbs 16:3 in the Amplified Classic version of the Bible.
Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. Prov 16:3 AMPC
This is the prayer:
Father, I roll this project over on You. I commit it entirely to You and ask that You please cause my thoughts to become agreeable to Your will so that my plans will be established and succeed.
That’s not ALL I pray. I have other scriptures I like to use for deciding on and producing the content I publish here on Substack. I’ll share more about getting the mind of God for something in one of these upcoming blog posts.
There you go — a little glimpse of the prayers I pray and how I craft them.
Finally
In closing, I’d like to ask you for two things:
Please pray for me — that I will hear from Him clearly and be able to communicate what I want to say creatively and effectively. I also ask for prayers of protection and strength. (I have struggled with insomnia for years. It’s much better now, but I still have a bad night or two each week.)
Please share this email or link to this post with your circle of influence. We currently have 24 subscribers — mostly our family and friends — and are asking the Lord to expand our borders.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
Donald S. Whitney, Praying the Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 79. Logos Research Edition e-book.
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Every task committed to God! I appreciate this reminder and appreciate your sober and humble approach to making use of this platform and your insights.
Great post Sharon!