Category: October

A Prayer of Longing for an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit  

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezek. 37:1–6)

Gracious heavenly Father, I’ve always prayed that I’d get to experience one significant revival before you choose to take me to the revival of all revivals, heaven itself. I renew that prayer today, and I’m going to be quite specific. 

For the glory of Jesus alone, I ask you to demonstrate the truth, beauty, and power of the gospel by pouring out the Holy Spirit on our church family in a most tangible and transforming way. My hope is in knowing that you are a far more generous God than we are a desperate people, and we are desperate. We need what you alone can give, Father. Make yourself unmistakably known as the Lord in our midst. 

Prophesy the gospel to our dry, scattered bones. Drench our drought with the dew of heaven. Breathe your life-giving breath into our empty lungs. Reattach brothers and sisters to one another as one body, for we are in great relational distress. The only “skin” we need is the covering you’ve already given us— the righteousness of Jesus. May our glorious standing in grace humble us, quiet our racing hearts, bridle our wagging tongues, and send us to our faces before you, prostrate and repentant. 

You are a God who gives grace to the humble, but also one who resists and knows the proud from afar. Have mercy on us; have mercy on me. I cannot imagine a better story to be a part of than for our repentance and transformation to become far more notorious than our sin and brokenness. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. I pray in Jesus’ merciful and mighty name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Grace Allergies  

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:7–10)  

Dear Lord Jesus, you spoke these inviting words of hope to a broken woman trying her very best to keep her distance from you. She’d been on a quest to find life in the arms of men— many men— and it obviously wasn’t working for her very well. The more she tried to evade your gaze, the more you simply applied your grace. She ran; you pursued. She danced around; you stopped the music. How I praise you that you came to seek and save the lost, not just broadcast an offer from the distance. 

Though the details of my story are different from this nameless Samaritan an’s, the same foolish strategy is there: playing games with you, like hide-and-seek, only I do all the hiding and you do all the seeking. I wish this were just true of me a long, long time ago, but I still default to this insanity. 

Jesus, deliver us from grace allergies— living with an aversion to the gospel. Why we choose broken cisterns, dumb idols, and self-help over your love is sheer madness. Grace is for sinners, not for pretenders, posers, and performers. You mean to heal us, not harm us; embrace us, not embarrass us; succor us with compassion, not shame us with contempt. 

So, Jesus, once again I bring real thirst to you today. I bring my penchant to avoid you. I bring my allergic reactions to the gospel. I bring my excuse making, my unbelief, my pride, my self righteousness. I bring that part of me that would rather help others discover your grace than partake of it for myself. 

I ask you for a fresh imbibing of living water, sufficient for the needs of my heart and the demands of this day. May this be a twenty four hour period in which I spontaneously join the chorus of many others who are singing, “Come see the man who told me everything I ever did, and he still loves me and is bent on my freedom. Certainly this is the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord. . . . He is Jesus!” I pray in your pursuing and all satisfying name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Thick Skin and a Big Heart  

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but over- come evil with good. (Rom. 12:17–21)  

Lord Jesus, apart from your presence and your grace, the admonitions in this one passage mock our sensibilities. We cannot and we will not live this way without you, Jesus. Everything within us instinctively wants to get even when we are hurt by others. 

Whether it’s a “lighthearted” insult or an outright assault, whether it’s our for- gotten birthday or a remembered failure, whether we’re excluded from a party or included in someone’s madness, relationships hurt like nothing else. And so often, too often, the pain we feel gets recycled and redistributed to others. 

Jesus, we ask you for thick skin and a big heart. We want to love well— to love to your glory— when we experience everything from unintended slights to fully intended harm. Where evil has already deeply wounded us or is presently stalking, remind us that you will repay, you will avenge. Make this real to us and not just a vague spiritual maxim. 

Indeed, more clearly than we see the enemies of beauty, let us see the wonders of your cross. More than we desire to see burning coals heaped on their heads, let us see you, Jesus. The only way we can even imagine overcoming evil with good is by remembering you’ve already secured the utter annihilation of all evil and darkness. 

But we confess, Jesus, we’re clueless about feeding hungry, thirsty enemies. Take our hand and show us the way. No one does this better than you.

And Jesus, where we’re just too sensitive, too easily offended, too quick to keep a record of wrongs done to us, too slow to overlook what can and what should be overlooked, have mercy on us, but also be at work within us. Free us to do the right thing, the gospel thing. As far as we are able, as far as it depends on us, show us how to make peace, guard peace, nurture peace with everyone. All of this is simply impossible apart from you, Jesus. We pray in your holy and sufficient name.

Amen. 

A Prayer in Praise of God’s Care  

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Pet. 5:7)  

Loving Father, it’s incredibly comforting to begin this day remembering how much you care for your children. This is always good news to me, but especially this week. The combination of what I’ve taken on plus the burdens that have been laid at my feet are way too much for me to carry. I need your kind heart and broad shoulders. 

So by faith, right now, with palms up, I cast my cares upon you, gracious Father. Carry my burdens for the people I love— dear friends I so wish I could change. Sometimes I foolishly think if you’d only let me be the fourth member of the Trinity for fifteen minutes, I could do a lot of good in the lives of a lot of people. What arrogance! You haven’t called me to fix anyone but to love as Jesus loves me. You haven’t called me to live with indifference but to live with deference to you. You are God and I am so very not. 

Receive my anxieties about living in a world with a broken economy, the ongoing threat of terror, and the increase of diseases, even things like the swine flu. Father, I cannot add one minute to my life through worry. In fact, I can take a lot away from my life through trying to carry burdens you alone can carry. Turn my “What ifs?” into “Now that’s”—now that Jesus has risen from the dead, everything has changed. You’ve numbered my hairs and my days.

You have the hearts of every king in your hand. Nothing catches you off guard or by surprise. There are no wrinkles in your brow and there’s no second-guessing in your courts. You give and you take away— blessed be your name, O Lord. 

Whenever I am tempted to doubt your burden-bearing care, may Jesus’ cross loom large in my gaze. For it was there, Lord, where you bore the greatest of all my burdens— my sin— and demonstrated the incomparable extent of your care. I pray in Jesus’ matchless name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Jesus as a Mother Hen  

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not! (Luke 13:34) 

Dear Jesus, of all the pictures you painted and metaphors you used to help us understand who you are and how you love, I have to admit, “mother hen” never made its way into my top five. And yet as I ponder this image, it profoundly endears you to my heart. It makes me want to know and worship you all the more. 

That you chose such a metaphor says much about the depths of your affection and the intensity of your engagement in our lives. It also reveals how fragile, vulnerable, and foolish we are as your chicks. 

Jesus, I praise you today for your ongoing commitment to gather me, because I am “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” Keep running after me, Jesus, when I drift naively and when I roam wantonly to places I have no business exploring. 

Jesus, I praise you today that like a mother hen, you gather me and place me under your wings, next to your heart. You are such a compassionate, kind, tender Savior. How foolish I am to think otherwise. How foolish I am to think there’s any better place to be than under your “wings,” in the embrace of your grace. Though a nursing mother may even forget her suckling child (Isa. 49:15), you will never forget or forsake one of your chicks. Because the gospel is true and powerful, I am willing to be gathered today. I pray in your gracious name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about the Gift of Affliction  

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
(Ps. 119:71 NIV)  

Patient Father, only a humble certainty about your love could have moved King David to praise you for the “gift” of affliction. The same is just as true for me. I well remember all the years I spent trying to spiritually finagle my way out of harm’s way— believing that if I just claimed the right verses, prayed the right prayers, did the right things, then I’d have an “abundant life” filled with “blessings” and marked by a scarcity of difficulties. 

I wanted you to be a “sugar daddy” rather than “Abba, Father.” I wasn’t thinking about learning your decrees but about escaping discomfort. 

Lord Jesus, because you took all the afflictions I deserved as a sinful rebel, I’m now afflicted only as a beloved son. Because of you, Jesus, I’m not afraid of God as my judge, but I revere and love him as my Father. Only because of you, Jesus, I no longer despise or dread the decrees of God, but I delight in them. Indeed, Father, your decrees are not rules by which I earn anything from you; they are the wisdom by which I learn about everything from you. 

Holy Spirit, I gratefully and expectantly ask you to keep me in this journey and joy of gospel freedom, even this one day. I pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about God at Work in the Pain  

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jer. 29:11)  

Heavenly Father, there’s simply no other god as merciful, gracious, and engaged as you. Your forbearance is immeasurable; your kindness is inexhaustible; your plans are irrepressible. 

When your people received this letter of encouragement from Jeremiah, they were in exile in Babylon. How could they not feel bereft, bewildered, even betrayed by you? Yet we know by your own testimony, Father, that when you lead us into difficult seasons, it’s not to punish us but to prosper us. When you send hard- ships, it’s not to bring us harm but to give us hope. When you discipline us, it’s not to send us into the “doghouse” of your displeasure but to guarantee our good future. 

It’s so comforting to remember that you always know exactly what you are doing with your people and everything else in the world. You know the plans you have for us, individually and corporately. There’s no happenstance in heaven. You don’t make up things as you go along. You’re not a God who reacts out of irritation, but one who always acts out of great affection. There are no coincidences, just providences. “Stuff” doesn’t just happen; sovereignty is always happening. 

Father, this way of thinking would be utter madness if you never sent Jesus— a big-time spitting into the wind; the spin of all spins; delusional at best, demonic at worst. But Jesus is the “yes” to every promise you have made. His life, death, and resurrection are the guarantee of our gospel prosperity, living hope, and glorious future. Apart from Jesus there is only unimaginable hopelessness. Because of Jesus there is joy unspeakable. 

So bring the truth, grace, and power of this gospel into our current situations, into our personal stories of pain, into the brokenness in our local churches, and into the needs of our communities.

Turn our sighs into songs, our cynicism into servant hood, and our grumblings into the rumblings of a coming visitation of the Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ triumphant and compassionate name.

Amen. 

A Prayer for Fresh Endurance and Encouragement  

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Rom. 15:5– 7)  

Heavenly Father, I’m like a hungry little bird with my mouth wide open this morning. I’m glad you’re the God who gives endurance and encouragement, for I’m starving for both. Bring an abundance of both, Father— “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over” (Luke 6:38)! 

I praise you for these twin sisters of grace. One without the other would simply not be enough. Endurance without encouragement can atrophy into heartless stoicism. Encouragement without endurance can wither into short-lived enthusiasm. Give us both, bunches of both. 

Father, I’m not just praying for me but for the whole family of believers with whom I’m so privileged to walk. Along with endurance and encouragement, I ask you to give us a fresh supersized order of unity. How else will we be able to glorify you with one heart and one mouth? How else will we even want your glory above our own preferences and priorities? 

Our church family is so much like the churches Paul was addressing in Rome. We come from many different backgrounds. We’ve been rescued from non religion and gospelless religion. We have different perspectives and varying passions. We are at different stages in knowing how to follow Jesus and knowing what following Jesus actually means. All in all, we are prime candidates for a fresh visitation of the Holy Spirit, for he is the true Spirit of Unity. 

Father, whether or not we actually get to experience a full bore revival, help us to accept one another just as Jesus has already accepted each of us. This brings you great praise. The gospel we already have is all the gospel we actually need. Our city and the nations of the world are desperate to see Christ followers who know how to love one another when it’s easy and when it’s not. Let us be just such a people. We pray expectantly, in Jesus’ mighty and merciful name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Brokenhearted Friends  

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. (Isa. 61:1)  

Dear Jesus, I’m numb with sadness for a few friends this morning. I’m not sure what to do for them, but I do know I haven’t done enough until I’ve prayed. The Father sent you to bind up the brokenhearted, and that’s why I come to you. You are meek and gentle of heart, and yet you have the power to keep the planets in orbit and the authority to command sea creatures to dance. Your mercy and your might are my great hope. 

I pray for my friend who just lost a job. She’s sixty four, a widow, and undone. The betrayal she feels is so deep. The uncertainty of where to go next is paralyzing. Her family offers no solace. She loves you so much, Jesus, yet this has rocked her world. By your Spirit, bring the peace you alone can give. Help us, as a community, to know how to come around her. Far more than I worry for her financial needs, I’m concerned about the pain of betrayal. Help us to know what to say and what not to say, Jesus. Bring your tear-wiping hand to bear through us. 

I pray for the couple who just miscarried for the third time. This story is one of the hard ones to accept in this broken world of ours, Jesus. It just doesn’t make sense. With all the abortions and abandoned children, it’s hard to understand this heart-crushing providence. Jesus, I cannot imagine a better home for children to grown up in— help me know how to pray and to love well in the confusion. I’ve got theological categories, but I don’t have much emotional currency right now. Help me love my friends with the kindness you alone can give. Help me resist trying to explain anything. 

In such heartbreaking situations, give freedom for tears, space for grief, room for anger. I praise you that the gospel alone offers such gifts when we walk through these things together. You give and you take away—blessed is your name, O Lord Jesus.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Feeling Scattered  

He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment— to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Eph. 1:9–10 NIV)  

Dear Jesus, there are times when I am, as one of my favorites hymns says, “prone to wander . . . prone to leave the God I love.” When I get lulled and dulled into that place, it’s usually because I haven’t been spending unrushed time with you— gazing upon your beauty and bounty, reflecting upon your glory and grace, listening for your singing and rejoicing over me in the gospel. That’s when I get enamored, then hammered, with the illusion that you’re not enough— that someone or something else might make my life more complete. What a maniacal myth. 

But that’s not at all what I’m feeling today. I see your beauty in the gospel, and I do not doubt your love for me one bit. Right now I’m just feeling scattered, splintered, discombobulated, pulled in a myriad of directions with a big school of little piranha nibbling away at my soul. I’m not feeling tempted to do something crazy; I’m just feeling a little crazed. 

I so long for the day when “all things in heaven and on earth” will be brought together in you— that is, “summed up,” integrated, reunited. No more discombobulation, just combobulation! In light of that day, please meet me in this day. Center and settle me, Jesus. Help me to take my thoughts captive; help me to reel in my fluctuating emotions; help me to still the clatter and remove some of the clutter from my spirit. 

You are my head and I am in your heart, and that is enough. I love being loved by you, Lord Jesus. I love you only because you first loved me and gave yourself as a sacrifice of atonement and propitiation for my sins. I am presently and eternally grateful. I pray in your name, and for your glory.

Amen.