Father God,

Today, I pray for the faithful but faint of heart or body. We live in wearying world, a world which feels relentless in eroding our faith or at least wearying our strength. For those who want to hold on, who want to persevere but ask themselves if they can hold on for more than one more breath, I pray that You fill them with the air, the strength they need to persevere.

You tell us that “they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (ESV Isaiah 40:31). Some days we find those words easier to rest in than others. For those who today are asking “How long, O Lord?” be their strong tower, their rock today.

Help me today to be Your voice in encouraging others to find peace in knowing that our Redeemer lives and will hold us up even when our strength appears too exhausted to continue.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pay that we would not get stuck on the period at the end of Psalm 88. In this Fallen World, we often find ourselves somewhere along the verses of Psalm 88, crying out for one reason or another. We literally come down to the only hope being that You will hear our prayers, hear our cries in the night.

Leading up to our echoing Psalm 88 in our own lives, we may try our own strength or our own wisdom. We may try this way and that way to overcome some situation. Ultimately, we have nothing left but to cry out to our Lord and Savior, holding on until You answer.

As we look forward to the answers found in Psalm 89, we are still reminded that even our ability to cry out in 88 comes from Your faithfulness to preserve us through whatever storm we face. The fact that we know to look to You for provision reminds us that You are still working in us.

And then we step over the period that closes out 88, and begin 89 with “I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever”. Your faithfulness explodes from our lips though we still wait in verse 46, “How long, O Lord?” We know the we are not done until Your faithfulness finishes its work.

Keep us both faithful as we wait and filled with joy knowing that Your faithfulness will never fail us.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray against the patterns of quick reflexive judgements prevalent in our society from bottom to top. We have been a society in which tempered and slow reflection before a calm and tempered response has disappeared, being replaced by soundbytes and emotional outbursts.

From the relationships between individuals to the discussions of doctrine to the policies of the nation, we rush through to finish and to win rather than to understand and agree and maintain fellowship.

The speed of the world has consumed us, has convinced us that we must rush, has hindered our ability to love one another. Teach us to slow down and listen. Teach us to slow down and dialogue. Teach us to slow down and love one another.

Then let that loving one another in calm, unrushed dialogue bring us to a deeper and stronger connection both with one another AND with You in truth that we find together rather than tightly held positions which we try to force upon one another.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for a reformation of community according to Your desires and purposes. I pray against the false views of community which have filled even our church, that look more like that of the world than of Your bride.
I pray that we as a people of God would once again learn what it means to love one another, to build one another up, to mourn together and to rejoice together. I pray that fellowship would extend far beyond the walls of a church building and fill the nooks and crannies of our lives.

I pray that our conversations would be filled with the realities of life as seen from the realities of a heavenly view. I pray that we would see and feel and think about life through Your Word and Spirit so that we would be knit together by eternal bonds rather than temporal bonds of this world’s distractions.

May Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for those who have been so ravaged by the world that they feel no security nor trust in anything including themselves. They feel as though not even sand supports their feet as they walk through life. They feel as though the world is pulling them into the abyss constantly.

I pray that You would be their Rock, the One who has already borne them from the womb though their eyes fall short in perceiving Your upholding hand in the midst of their ongoing storms.

I pray that You would be their Fortress, the One who has already protected them, the One who is protecting them, the One who will protect them as Your own children.

I pray that You would be their Shepherd, the One who has already tenderly cared for them, leading them to green pastures.

The burden of this world has stolen their sight to see how You have cared for them. They are blinded by the pain they have endured. I pray that You would restore their sight so they may see Your ever-present Hand. I pray that with sight, they would find the security for which they long and thirst. I pray that they would feel in their innermost spirit the security of their God.

Bind up the deep wounds of lives lived in pain and deliver them from their despair. Though the whole world may turn against them, let them know that they are safe in You on the Rock.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for a reformation of a Biblical worldview in health and in medicine so that the body and soul is cared for as the image of God in man. I pray that the influence of materialism, the influence of greed, the influence of hedonism, the influence of the new age, and the influence of excessive spiritualism would be silenced so that Your children could hear and receive truth.

Each of these contemporary influences distorts or perverts some aspects of a true view of the imago dei and how we are to care for it. I pray that You would restore a right view of man as body and soul so that we would then be able to care for others in a God-glorifying manner.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for the wounded in spirit, who have the scars of life’s flow rather than life’s events.

We can more easily recognize those who were scarred by an event such as a loss, an attack, an illness, a pain, or other occurrence which came and went in a short time. What we don’t recognize, even when we ourselves experienced it, are the flows of our days which eroded us, leaving not cracks in our spirits, but wore away the shape of our beings including the deepening of the cracks of those visible events.

These scars can even be invisible in a sense to those who experience them, though they feel the pain. The pain does not affect their spirit in the same way however. Rather than a recognizable pain that is clearly connected to a present and/or past event, the pain of life’s flow cannot be described or connected so easily. The present pain seems out of proportion to the present’s events, yet the intensity is as undeniable as it is indescribable.

I pray that You would give sight into the darkness for those experience such scar of life’s flow and for those who walk presently with them. I pray that with Your light, they could both see what is the real reason for present pain as well as discover security in You and in those around them. I pray that the present security in You and Your hands and feet of loved ones would press healing into the previously invisible wounds and scars so that they would overcome.

Lord, have mercy on those who are captive to these invisible yet painful scars.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray that You would remove our tastes for the pleasures of this world, even the simple ones, if they in any way interfere with pursuing holiness in Your sight. I pray not for the ascetic life, but for a life in which all the pleasures of this world are received as gifts which point to You and draw to You rather than distract from Your or attract to themselves.

Let us learn to enjoy this world in its fullness as children of the Living God who have been made stewards over it so that we might bear abundant fruit and enjoy Your blessings as they are determined by Your Providence. Let our daily bread overflow so that we might bless others around us and know that our God does not hold back sufficient blessings for His children.

Teach us to value all things according to Your Ways and Will rather than by our desires and ideas.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen

Father God,

Today, I pray for Your children to be able to rest in Your providence so that we may respond in fruitfulness to Your blessings that You rain down upon us. As we read in Isaiah 45:8, let us respond like the earth receiving rain and producing abounding fruit from the Lord’s rain. Let us not respond like Israel in the following verses, quibbling against their coming deliverance at the hand of a Gentile conqueror (Cyrus).

Let us receive from You, both in the ordinary and the extraordinary of our days, knowing that all rests in the hands of the one who created us, who forms us day by day, making us into the likeness of Christ as You provide our daily bread in sufficiency.

Show us where we are quibbling like Israel, speaking back to our Potter as an ungrateful and foolish potsherd.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,
Today, I pray for those who walk in invisibility, those whose darkness of body and/or soul is unrecognized by those around them. So many walk through their days feeling alone and without anyone to understand their struggles, their suffering. This often further leads to not even understanding their own pain or its source.
So many have given up on others to empathize or demonstrate caring through acts of mercy and service. So many have given up on receiving even kind words of comfort.
I pray that Your church would awaken to its deafness and blindness of the lonely in its midst. The church at large has lost sight of those in its midst who needs the cup of cold water, the words of encouragement, the silence of sitting with them through the storms they face. Remove the stony layer over the hearts of Your people that they might love one another as You command once again.

In Christ’s Name,
Amen.