SET PRAYERS FOR JOYFUL, ABUNDANT LIVING
(This chapter and all the daily prayers below were written by Rev. Dr. Norman Wong, who kindly gave me permission to put them online.)
This small book of prayers is written with the firm conviction that God, your Father in heaven, would like you to live a joyful, meaningful life. Our Lord Jesus said : “I have come in order that you might have life- life in all its abundance”(Jn 10:10). This does not mean a life free from troubles and difficulties. God did not promise to give us a care-free life. Rather, He promised to help us find a way through our difficulties. In a world where anxiety, confusion and strife are common, He promises to lead us to a place of inward peace and rest. I believe this can only happen when we learn to pray consistently. It is my prayer that this book will help you do just that. Here’s what you need to do.
ANYTIME, SPECIAL TIMES
First, adjust the pattern of your life to ensure that you have a special time of quiet prayer. Some may ask : “Is it necessary to have a special time set aside for prayer? Surely I can talk to God anytime, anywhere and in anyway I like.” There is a certain amount of truth in that. We certainly can talk to God anytime! As we walk down the road, as we ride in the bus, or drive along in our car, in the middle of a hectic day at home or at work, we can turn our thoughts toward God and utter a brief prayer. We can pray anytime. But we should also pray at special times. Let me try and illustrate this for you. I can talk to my dear wife anytime over the breakfast table, while we’re scrambling our son off to school, while we’re driving in the car, while we’re playing with our kids, while we’re watching TV, while reading the newspapers. Through the day we can have these snatches of conversation. But something more is required, if our understanding of each other is to keep growing. If we want to prevent the love we have for one another from going stale, we will need special times alone with each other, free from any distraction, where we can give one another our undivided attention. So it is with our Lord. He yearns that our love relationship with Him should grow deeper with each passing day. Thus in addition to talking to God anytime, we also need to adjust our lives in order to spend special times alone with Him, giving Him the best of ourselves, giving Him our undivided attention.
FORM OR FREEDOM
Second, you need to develop a definite pattern for prayer. That’s what the Lord’s Prayer is all about. This little book is a collection of “set” prayers patterned on the model of the Lord’s Prayer. You may object : “I agree we should have special quiet times alone with the Lord’ but I still don’t see why we need set prayers. Why should we be confined to a rigid form? Should we not rather have the freedom to allow the Holy Spirit to help us express spontaneous prayers to the Lord?”. It is true that we should always allow the Holy Spirit the freedom to help us pray more effectively and creatively. These set prayers are not intended to restrict that freedom. The reason I have found them so very helpful is simply this: my desire to serve the Lord and meet with Him daily is inconsistent at best. I wish I could tell you that I wake up every morning with a song in my heart and a prayer on my lips, that I feel full of the joy of the Lord, that I dance into His presence with thanksgiving and my heart full of his love. The honest truth is,“ I do not. There are days when I wake up and don’t feel like praying. My mind is blank. I cannot sense the Holy Spirit at all. I feel completely “blah”! It is on days like these that I fall back on my set prayers. I don’t feel like praying, but I begin. I read as earnestly as I can the set prayers. And do you know what happens? Gradually the Holy Spirit begins to lift my heart in worship. My heart, which only a few moments ago felt like a stone, becomes alive with renewed appreciation for our Lord. There are days, however, when I do wake up feeling full of joy and I ˜bounce” into the presence of the Lord. On those days my heart is overflowing with praise. My prayers are like a continuous stream. On such days I put aside my set prayers and enjoy the freedom of worshipping God in the fullness of his Holy Spirit. Set prayers function like a starter to get the engine going. Once the engine is running, the starter is no longer required. So the question is not “form or freedom?”, rather, the answer is form and freedom. Incidentally, what I’m suggesting is not a new idea. It has been practised for centuries by the church. The Psalms are the best example of set prayers. May the Lord use these set prayers to set our hearts on fire with prayer.
BE SPECIFIC IN PRAYER
Third, learn to be specific in prayer when you’re alone. As a rule when pastors lead the congregation in the Pastoral Prayer, they pray generally. We think of the needs of the congregation as a whole and we mention them in a broad and general way. For example I may say, “Father we ask that each member will sense Your love filling their lives in the week ahead.” This is a very general prayer and is very important and necessary when one is praying on behalf of a large congregation. However, this is not a good model for personal prayer. Personal prayer may begin in a broad general way but it should not stop there. It must go on to focus on specific items. For example, instead of just praying generally,“Lord, please fill my life with a sense of Your love today,” we should go further and identify a particular situation and pray specifically about it. You could pray something like this : “Lord, You know how easily I get irritated when Mr. Y speaks to me in the tone he does. I get a little bit edgy each time he’s in the room. Please, Lord, fill me with Your love, help me to accept him as he is. Help me to serve him, as if I were serving You. Take away my feelings of irritation and awkwardness.” I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. We need to be definite and specific in our personal prayers. This requires putting more thought into our prayers. Don’t just pray, “Lord, bless my family.” Think! In what specific way would you like the Lord to bless your family? If I were to ask you right now, “ What are your ˜top ten specific prayer requests?”, could you give me an answer? Jesus said : “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete.” (Jn 16:24). The prayers in this book are general prayers. I hope they will stimulate you to pray specifically for the different areas of your life.
FOUNDATIONS FOR JOYFUL LIVING
Fourth, you must develop the habit of regularly checking your foundations. Life is a balancing act. There are so many different responsibilities and pressures that come at us from different directions that it is easy to lose our balance. We become absorbed and preoccupied with one area of our life which seems to scream for our attention only to find that our neglect of other areas (which at first seem less demanding) has created more serious problems for us in the long run. For example, I well remember the time when I was so absorbed with the ministry that I neglected my health. I had to be hospitalized and was laid off for about a month. My life was out of balance! I think too of a friend who, on top of a heavy work schedule, pursued his hobby with great vigour. It was his way of avoiding what began as little tensions in his marriage. The couple has since separated. Perhaps you remember the words of our Lord Jesus, “What good will it be for a man, if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Mt 16:26) It is my hope that as you learn to pray consistently over the many different facets of your life, the Lord will establish His order, His balance, in your life.
These set prayers will help take you through each of the following areas
Friendship With God : Am I seeking Him first?
Personal Growth: Is my character becoming more like Christ’s?
Family : Am I taking them for granted?
Work : How am I coping? Am I too ambitious?
Friends : Am I building meaningful friendships?
Ministry : Do I know my place in His church? Am I functioning effectively?
Problems : Are my problems getting on top of me?
Just think: wouldn’t it be marvelous if the Lord helped us establish his order, his kingdom, in each area? Ask! And you will receive. But remember, the prayers here are general. They are reminders to stir you to think and pray specifically in each area.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Fifth, you will need to (if you haven’t already) memorize the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) and understand the beautiful pattern that He has set out for us. There are seven parts to this pattern. You may need to come back and re-read this section a number of times until you fully understand the pattern.
(i) Prepare yourself : Focus Your Attention On The Lord.
Do you remember what Jesus said before teaching His disciples the Lord’s Prayer? “When you pray, go in to your room, close the door”(Matthew 6:6) You need to prepare yourself for prayer. So find a quiet place. Sit comfortably. Take a few slow, deep breaths. You may like to turn the palms of your hands upwards in a gesture of openness and surrender. This is my usual posture. At times, though, I vary my position according to how I’m feeling. If I’m very tired and finding it difficult to concentrate, I stand up. Sometimes I kneel. Do whatever you feel will help you fix your attention on the Lord. You may think one minute is too short. Well, just try it. Sit still for one whole minute, breathing slowly. I usually find that more than enough. With each breath, mention the name of Jesus inwardly and anticipate a meaningful encounter with him. But the rule is this : don’t rush, if you feel like taking longer on any aspect of prayer, do it! Take your time and enjoy being with the Lord. This is only a guide; it’s not a rigid rule.
Have your diary or a piece of paper close at hand. I often find distracting thoughts and ideas coming into my head when I try to focus my mind on God. I might suddenly think, “Oh dear, I forgot to buy bread.” So what I do is jot down the things which are important and then re-focus my mind on the Lord. You may like to use one of the set prayers marked, “Focus On The Lord” to help you do that.
(ii) Begin with praise : “Our Father in heaven, You are holy!”
You may not feel like praising God. Use one of the set prayers of praise. If possible, read it aloud. If you’re feeling depressed and upset, tell yourself that in just a few moments you can pour out your sorrow to the Lord. But begin with praise. Even in difficult times, the Lord is good,“ He is with us,“ we can praise Him!
(iii) Then cry out for help (Intercession): “May Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven.”
After allowing our hearts and minds to rejoice in the wonder and majesty of God, allow the Holy Spirit to change your mood into one of sorrow and weeping. I know this may be difficult at first. If we’re feeling depressed it’s hard to praise. If we’re rejoicing, it’s hard to weep in intercession. But with daily practice, our hearts will become a little more responsive. Both joy and sorrow together are appropriate in his awesome presence (See 2 Cor 6:10)! The person who does not daily have a sense of the Lord’s sorrow has closed his or her heart and mind to the tragic situation in which we live. The prayers under this section will help you pray through the foundations of your personal life and also his church. Don’t forget to be specific!
(iv) Pray specifically for the day ahead : “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Spare a moment remembering the millions of fellow believers in Christ for whom this simple prayer is an earnest cry for their next meal. For good physical health we need to eat daily. The same is true of our spiritual well-being. We need to feed daily. We need to receive His strength, His word, His love daily! He renews His love to us daily! Yesterday’s blessings were good for yesterday. Don’t live in the past. Earnestly, daily, seek the Lord for fresh nourishment. I’m so glad the Lord in His wisdom inserted this simple line into this prayer. I sometimes refer to this section as the “5-minute panic prayer”. Maybe you know what I mean. It happens. We wake up late. We’re rushing. We don’t have time to be alone with the Lord for our usual 20 minutes. We can only squeeze in 5 minutes. Then go straight to one of the paragraphs entitled,”Pray Specifically for the Day Ahead’, which will help you focus on the day ahead. Ask the Lord what he would like you to do during the day (the main priorities) and briefly commit he different aspects of your day specifically to Him. Remember too that you can turn to Him anytime throughout the day. If I”m not rushing, I usually take time to meditate on one of my favourite portions of God’s word as our daily bread. Everyday I try to carry around in my mind just a few familiar sentences from the Bible.
(iv) Remember to have your daily shower (Confession): “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
Most of us shower everyday (some twice a day!). It’s really so important to be clean. So, too with our spiritual life. You are called to be holy, pure, clean. Water baptism is the great sign of the New Covenant, as you repented, your sins were washed away. But this is not just something to do once at your baptism. Repentance and confession should be a daily affair. We neglect this daily discipline to our own peril. Do not allow bitterness, unforgiveness and resentment to clutter your life. Don’t allow the impure thoughts, the unkind words, the careless deeds to go unchecked. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to you your sin, so that you may daily live in His righteousness.
(v) Stand for battle : “Help us not to give in to temptation, deliver us from the evil one.”
The Bible teaches us that in the spiritual realm there is a war on. One of the enemy’s favourite tactics is to lull God’s people to sleep. So often I have been blissfully unaware that I’m in the midst of a raging war. (In some ways, our very lives are the battlefield!). This line of the prayer helps me to be alert, on guard. Do you have any idea where your points of weakness or temptation are? Are you standing guard? Taking a few moments each day to specifically identify one or two areas of weakness is another important daily discipline.
(vi) End with thanksgiving: “The kingdom, and the power and the glory are Yours forever. Amen.”
We begin with praise, we move through weeping, confession and warfare and we also end with praise and thanksgiving. We teach our children to say “thank you”, even for little things. We should do this as well. Don’t take even God’s little blessings for granted. As we learn to pray consistently and specifically “we will be more aware of his goodness. We will then be able to thank him consistently and specifically. The Lord is building His wonderful kingdom by His power. You are a part of that kingdom. His goodness which you experience is an expression of His gracious kingly rule. Give Him the glory!
LET’S BEGIN
Enough has been written. It’s time to put theory into practice. I wish you many refreshing moments in the Lord’s presence. I’ve set out seven different sets of prayers each following the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer. I hope you find them helpful. May the Lord cause you to be faithful and consistent in prayer. May you be like a tree planted by the water’s side, bearing much fruit.
Here is the pattern once again……
FOCUS ON THE LORD
Go to your room and shut the door.
BEGIN WITH PRAISE
Our Father in heaven, You are Holy
THEN CRY OUT FOR HELP
May Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth,
just as it is in heaven.
PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR THE DAY AHEAD
Give us this day our daily bread.
REMEMBER TO HAVE YOUR DAILY SHOWER
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
STAND FOR BATTLE
Help us not to give in to temptation,
deliver us from the evil one.
END WITH THANKSGIVING
The kingdom, and the power and the glory are Yours forever. Amen
