Little Prayers 4

Now if you aren’t into singing through Matins while you are on your way to church or just our running errands, here are some other short prayers you can pray and sing at the same time. 

One of my favorite hymns/ prayers is LSB 422, On My Heart Imprint Your Image.  It is just one verse but makes for a beautiful prayer to God every day of our lives as we ask for his heart to rule and reign in our heart and to sync our heart with his heart—"On my heart imprint Your image, Blessed Jesus, King of grace, That life’s riches, cares, and pleasures Never may Your work erase; Let the clear inscription be:  Jesus, crucified for me, Is my life, my hope’s foundation, And my glory and salvation!”

Another great hymn verse is from LSB 868, “Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun”.  In verse 5 we pray these words concerning our actions for the coming day—“Direct, control, suggest this day All I design or do or say That all my pow’rs with all their might In thy sole glory may unite.”  As we pray this prayer, we also have the added benefit of meditating on our request—we are asking God to have control over every aspect of our life!  Another similar prayer comes from the hymn, “Forth in Your Name,” in LSB 854:1—"Forth in Your name, O Lord, I go, My daily labor to pursue, You, only You, resolved to know In all I think or speak or do.” 

A hymn I remember from early on in my youth is LSB 783, “Take My Life and Let It Be”.  It is a most beautiful hymn in which each verse is a prayer to God to totally mold and shape our heart, mind, body, and soul into the desires and will of His heart and mind.  In verse one we pray that our entire life would be devoted to our heavenly Father and that our life lived would be one of praise and glory to Him! “Take my life and let it be Consecrated Lord, to Thee; Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in ceaseless praise.”  In verse 3 we pray that the words that come from heart and lips may always be His words and may they always be words that build up rather than tear down.  “Take my voice and let me sing Always, only for my King; Take my lips and let them be Filled with messages from Thee.”  And finally, in verse 5 we pray that God’s throne would be our very heart!  “Take my will and make it Thine, It shall be no longer mine; Take my heart, it is Thine own, It shall be Thy royal throne.” 

As Martin Luther would say, these hymn verses/ little prayers are “no child’s play”.  In fact, these prayer requests are pretty heavy duty, for we are asking the Lord in each one of them to turn our life around in a 180 degree turn and do with us as He will do with us; we are acknowledging that he owns us through the blood of His son, Jesus Christ.  But what we give up pales in comparison to what we gain!  The blessing of ceaseless prayer and praise keeps our heart and mind focused on our Lord and his will for us; and we will find the Lord doing for us “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us!”

Little Prayers 3

“If only there were more than 24 hours in a day.”  How many times have we said that or heard someone say that?  “I would love to do _________, but there just isn’t any time to do it!”  How many times have we said that?  We are busy people!  We have jobs that aren’t the traditional 9-5, eight-hour day anymore; meals to prepare and a house and laundry to clean; extra-curricular activities to run the kids back and forth as well as our own outside activities.  Even retired people are busy— “I’m busier now than when I was working! I don’t know how I got it all done before!”

And while it’s true we are busy, we do tend (if we are truly honest with ourselves) to make time for the things that are important to us. I find that there are times in the day when we are busy but not busy!  Such as when you are in the car and going somewhere.  Now it doesn’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes to get around to most places in the metro, so that is the perfect time to get off the cell phone or stop listening to the radio and pray.

On my way in to church during the week and especially on Sunday morning, I leave the radio off and use the time to sing and pray—because some wise person once said that those who sing pray twice!  There are beautiful little prayers that are parts of the liturgy or verses out of hymns that we can use to pray twice!  Talk about bang for your buck!

For example, on Sunday morning I have time to sing/ pray Matins.  I usually finish about the time I turn into the parking lot.  Matins opens with little prayers: “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”  That little prayer is followed by, “Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me O Lord.”  What a great way to start the day on your morning commute or your first errand run of the day.  We ask to open our lips and loose our tongue that we might praise him in all that we think, say, or do.  And we follow that with asking him to be at our side all day for the purpose of keeping us safe from all that would hurt or harm us.

The Te Deum is a great prayer of praise to God for all that he done for us in Christ.  But the last three verses are especially beautiful little prayers asking God to look down, not only on our own life, but the lives of all who are our neighbor.

We therefore pray You to help Your servants,

Whom you have redeemed with Your precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with Your saints

In glory everlasting.

O Lord, save Your people and bless your heritage.

Govern then and lift them up forever.

Day by day we magnify You.

And we worship Your name,

And we worship You name forever and ever.

Grant, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.

O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let Your mercy be upon us, as our trust is in You.

O Lord, in You have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

In these three short verses we are asking God to help us and all believers to remain in the faith and be led safely to their heavenly home.  We are asking God to govern our lives and to rule and reign in our hearts that we might not sin against him and our neighbor.  We are asking that by his grace we might not be confounded—that is, confused, perplexed, filled with doubt—but that we always be sure and certain of his ever-present grace, mercy, strength, and power in our lives.

Matins concludes with a series of short prayers, beginning with the Kyrie—again, a call for mercy and grace.  We pray the Lord’s Prayer, that prayer that encompasses all that we should pray to God!  We then pray Psalm 102:1 in which we are asking God to hear our prayers, let us come into his presence and pour out our heart to him with all of our frustrations, fears and doubts, cares and concerns:  “O Lord, hear my prayer and let my cry come to You.”  We can pray whatever else we want and then pray the Collect for Grace which is the most beautiful prayer to pray at the beginning of each day.  We can even sing/ pray the New Testament benediction, asking God’s blessing and presence on our lives for the day: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us (not the usual “you” spoken by the pastor) all.”

I leave for church most Sundays around 7:45 at 19 & Ryan.  By the time I get to church at 12½ and Ryan it is just about 8:00 and I have time left over after having prayed and sung through Matins.  Now I’m not patting myself on the back and saying what a good boy am I; not by any means.  I could have used the time to listen to the radio or just let my mind wander to wherever it wanted to wander.  But I use it for prayer.  Now there are some other benefits than just that of prayer time.  As all but the Te Deum are right out of the Scriptures, not only have I prayed but I have meditated and pondered on God’s Word at the same time.  I have spoken to God in prayer and he has responded back by speaking to me through his Word!  My soul has been fed and nourished!  My voice has been warmed up and ready for preaching and teaching through prayer and song!  My attitude, my frame of mind has moved from the things of the world to the things of God!  Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Coming into the parking lot I am ready to meet with my people, lead them in worship, and serve the Lord with a joyful heart!

Little Prayers 2

It was just an hour or so away from dinner time when Teryl informed me I was making dinner.  I hadn’t thought about making dinner; I hadn’t planned on making dinner.  Like most husbands, I leave that chore up to my wife unless otherwise informed—and with plenty of advanced notice.  Fortunately for me, what I was supposed to make was about as easy as easy gets in making dinner.  That’s the beauty of the recipes out of this “Fast and Fabulous” cookbook we have.  So easy that you could make something at a given moment’s notice.

That’s also the great thing about little prayers—they can be drawn upon at any given moment’s notice (or need) as the saying goes.  And they work!  Troubles, circumstances, problems, and issues all arise out of nowhere, catching us off-guard; and then what do you do.  There may not be enough time to sit down, fold hands, and calmly pray what we might consider to be a “proper” prayer.  Sometimes there is not only no time to sit and pray, but not even enough time to gather your wits about yourself to pray.  Again, that is where little prayers come in handy.

In Service of Prayer and Preaching there are two wonderful little prayers in the opening versicles: “Make me to know Your ways, O Lord.  Teach me Your paths.” and “Sanctify us in Your truth.  Your Word is truth.”  Both of those are right out of John 17:17 and Psalm 25:4. In Responsive Prayer 1 are these short little prayers from the section on morning and from afternoon and evening: “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing Spirit (Psalm 51:12).”  From Psalm 102:1 you can pray, “Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to You.”  Psalm 85:7 has us crying out, “Show us Your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us Your salvation.”  You can even pray a quick prayer for our nation, “Lord, keep this nation under Your care, and guide us in the way of justice and truth.” 

Out of Responsive Prayer 2 we find these short little prayers: “Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.”  “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  Those are right out of Psalm 51, David’s prayer of sorrow over his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.  Out of Psalm 63:3, 7, “Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.” 

I wound up getting dinner made.  It was as easy as draining two cans of black beans, juice from two limes, some salt, cumin, chili powder, cayenne, and cilantro and some green onion.  Put it on a bed of rice and—presto! Change-o!—dinner is served.  It was so easy, I could probably do it again without the book.  These short little prayers are the same way.  So short and easy to memorize and remember that you have them at your fingertips any time you may need or want them.

AE

Little Prayers, Part 1

Eating healthy and eating as few processed foods as possible is a laudable goal, but not always an easy one to achieve.  At our house we scramble to eat dinner at night because by the time Teryl gets done working and we get dinner on the table, its barely in time some nights before I head back to church for the evening.  Trying to chop, grate, blend, slice, peel, boil, fry, steam, bake, or nuke is just too time consuming.  So, one of our favorite “go to” cookbooks is Lisa Leake’s, “100 Days of Real Food:  Fast and Fabulous.”  She is all about cooking and eating as many foods as possible with the least amount of processing in them.  And her point in this book is that eating healthy and unprocessed foods doesn’t have to be time consuming and stressful.  Most of her meals can be accomplished in about 30 minutes.

I wonder if the same isn’t true sometimes in our devotional life—especially our prayer life.  Our busy schedules can sometimes put the kibosh on it and the next thing we know, we are weighed down with guilt; we don’t pray as much as we should, our prayer time is too short, we don’t seem to pray for people beyond ourselves and our families.  All we seem to get out is some little frustrated/ exasperated prayer such as, “Lord, help me!” or “Lord, have mercy!”  But don’t beat yourself up too much; don’t give up your intentions to spend more time in prayer and to pray for more people, cares, and concerns.  And keep in mind that those little prayers can be very powerful and ceaseless prayers—just as Paul encourages us to pray in I Thessalonians 5:17.

Some of my favorite daily prayers to pray are the little ones found within the various services and offices of the day found in Lutheran Service Book.  Take the little prayer of the disciples on the road to Emmaus found in Luke 24:29. Later, on the day of resurrection, two of the disciples decided to journey home from Jerusalem to Emmaus.  Along the way they were discussing all that had happened in Jerusalem that week and what the women had discovered at Jesus’ tomb that morning.  As they were talking, Jesus came upon them and joined in their discussion.  He began to open the Scriptures to them concerning all that had happened and their “hearts burned within them” (vs 32). 

They were sad to reach their destination of Emmaus.  They had begun to understand so much from Jesus, though they did not recognize him as Jesus.  They wanted to hear more, know more, grow more.  Their prayer was short, sweet, and to the point: “Stay with us, Lord, for it is evening, and the day is almost over.”  This very prayer is one of the versicles found in the Service of Light in Evening Prayer.  Jesus heard their request and honored it.  He stayed with them long enough to sit down at table and bless their evening meal.  And in so doing he opened their eyes and minds even farther and they recognized him, not just as Jesus, but as the risen Christ! 

And how fitting that the next set of versicles that follow in Evening Prayer is another little prayer: “Let your light scatter the darkness and illumine your Church” (I Cor.4:5 and 2 Cor. 4:6). In the Thanksgiving For Light, we sing these words as a little prayer:” Enlighten our darkness by the light of your Christ; may His Word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.”  Those words come directly from Psalm 119:105.  In the Scriptures darkness is always symbolic of sin, evil, and ignorance of the things of God.  But on the other hand, light is always symbolic of the new life in Christ and the robe of his righteousness that we wear. Out of Psalm 141 in Evening Prayer one prays these three little prayers:  “Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord, and guard the door of my lips’; “Let not my heart incline to any evil thing”; “Let me not be occupied in wickedness with evildoers”.

And here are two little prayers that I like to use at the close of evening meetings and when I go to bed at night.  The Office of Compline (Prayer at the Close of the Day) begins with this invocation: “The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and peace at the last.”  And then at the end (almost) of Compline the antiphon to the Nunc Dimittis (The Song of Simeon) is sung twice: “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace.”  Short, sweet, little prayers, but what better prayers could one pray at the close of the day?

Hmm.  I see a book in my future:  100 Days of Real Prayers:  Short, Sweet, & Powerful!

AE