prayer practices

Petitioning Prayers

A Body Prayer for God’s Activity in the Lives of Others

Let my words be a blessing.

Let the energy of God be the energy within me.

Let God’s presence in my life define my life.

While you’re sitting or standing, extend your fingers and rub your palms together furiously for ten seconds or more. Then, holding your hands open with your fingers straight, separate your palms less than an inch apart and fee the warmth between your palms. Think as well about Gods’ creative activity in your life. Think as well about God’s energy at work in you and passing through you and passing through you to others. Think of those people who need God to act on their behalf.

Body Prayer by Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill

Prayer for the Day Ahead

Loving God: For any difficulties I may face today, I request wisdom to see the situation from a new perspective.

For any fear I may feel today, I request peace to touch the provocation with neutralizing faith.

For any depressions I may taste today, I request hope to hear your words of promise in the deep places of my being.

Draw me into silence through prayer and undo all in me that has been done to me outside the bounds of your perfect Love.

Amen.

Peter Traben Haas

God’s Mercy Prayer

For the peace of the world, that a spirit of respect and forbearance may grow among nations and peoples.

     GOD, HAVE MERCY.

For the holy church of God, that it may be filled with truth and love, and be found without fault at the day of your coming.                     

GOD, HAVE MERCY.

For those in positions of public trust, especially our president and congressional leaders, that they may serve justice and promote the dignity and freedom of all people.                      

GOD, HAVE MERCY.     

For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, those experiencing homelessness, orphans, and all who suffer; for refugees, prisoners and all who are in danger; that they may be relieved and protected, let us pray to the Lord.       

GOD, HAVE MERCY.

Spiritual Practice for Gratefulness and Intercession

Spend some time this week thinking about, remembering, and praying for the people your own provision serves — the people wo benefit from the gifts and strengths you are given. Consider making a written list of those closest to you and then wait to see what other names or faces come to mind. You may be surprised at whose face and names those are. In some cases, you may have a strong sense of what others need. At times, the people who come to mind are in situations well beyond your wisdom or reach. In those cases, it can be enough to simply remember those people and their situations. Consider praying something as simple  as “Lord, have mercy” or maybe not using any words at all. To remember others in silence as they face trials and difficulties is a form of intercession.

Prayers, Forty Days of Practice, Scott McRoberts & Scott Erickson

Prayer of Transformation

(consider praying several times throughout the day.. every time you sit at a red light, at meals etc.)

"My God, here I am all devoted to you;

God, make me according to you heart."

Contemplative Prayers

Body Prayer for Strength

Stand. Cross your arms high on your chest and let your hands encircle your upper arms. Cross your arms not as a posture of anger but as a reminder — by touching your arms — of your strength that already exist in your body. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, and if you like, bend your neck forward. Allow your crossed arms to be a posture not of defensiveness but a comforting reminder that the strength of God encircles you in all that you do.

Body Prayer by Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill

Body Prayer for Guidance

Sit on the floor with your legs crossed and pulled close to you. Rest your heels against the inside of your thighs. Place your hands on your knees or on the floor next to your legs, palms facing up. Feel free to engage your head and neck in this prayer posture either by bowing your head and neck in this prayer posture either by bowing your head and stretching your neck as you lean your head forward or by raising your face to heaven with your eyes open or closed. Meditate on God’s wisdom. Remember an seek that many ways that God extends vision, direction and a clear, open path when guidance is needed.

Body Prayer by Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill

In the Silence Prayer, Name Me

Holy One, untamed b the names I give you,

In the silence name me

That I may know who I am,

Hear the truth you have put into me,

Trust the love you have for me,

Which you call me to live out

With my sisters and brothers in your human family.

Guerrillas of Grace, Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder

Prayer of Calm into Quietness

Now, O Lord,

Calm me into a quietness

that heals

and listens,

And molds my longings

            And passions,

            My wounds

            My wonderings

Into a more holy and human shape

Guerrillas of Grace, Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder

Spiritual Practice of Fast Praying

This week, choose something you regularly consume and give it up. For instance, consider skipping a meal, beverage, television etc. and then doing two things with that sacrifice. First, use the time you’d normally spend preparing and consuming that favorite thing to reflect on your blessings and pray for those who lack the same. Second, keep track of the money you’d otherwise have spent on that favorite thing and at the end of your fast, commit that money to providing for folks living without basic needs.

Prayers, Forty Days of Practice, Scott McRoberts & Scott Erickson

Lords Prayer

(Consider praying this out loud and stopping at each line to consider, write down, draw, sculpt or create something that describes what that line means to you)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into a time of trials; but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.

Thankfulness Prayers

Body Prayer of Thankfulness

Stand. Begin this posture from either your head or your feet. Touch your head, eyes, hands, and feet (ordo so in reverse order). When touching your head, eyes, hands or feet, curl your whole hand around that part of you body. Let the warmth or coolness merge from your hands to the body part; hold the touch as long as necessary to feel the interaction between skin touching skin, muscles acting against muscles, cells interacting to make up your boy. If you traveled up your body as you prayed, now travel from the top down — or vice versa. Thank God for the gift of life and for the opportunities to participate in the continuing story of God.

Body Prayer by Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill

Prayer for What is Yet to Be

Wondrous Worker of Wonders,

I praise you, not alone for what has been or for what is,

But for what is yet to be, For you are gracious beyond all telling of it.

I praise you that our of the turbulence of my life a kingdom is coming

Is being shaped even now out of my silvers of loving

My bites of trusting, my sprigs of hoping, my tootles of laughing, my drips of crying, my smidgens of worshipping;

That out of my song and struggles, out of my griefs and triumphs

I am gathered up and saved, for you are gracious beyond all telling of it.

I praise you that you turn me loose to go with your to edge of now and maybe to welcome the new, to see my possibilities,

to accept my limits, and yet begin living to the limit of passion and compassion until, released by joy, I uncurl to other people and to your kingdom coming, for you are gracious beyond all telling of it.

Guerrillas of Grace, Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder

Prayers to Create Thankfulness Awareness

May love be stronger in me than the fear of the pain that comes with caring.

May I cease to be annoyed that others are not as I wish they were since I am not as I wish I was.

May I learn to make good out of what I’m given rather than only make sense of it.

May I find freedom in limitation to fully give myself to what I can do rather than worry about what I cannot.

May I have the eyes to see this as a good world in need of restoration, rather than a bad world and a obstacle to my personal peace and rest.

May love and forgiveness be less and less optional.

Prayers, Forty Days of Practice, Scott McRoberts & Scott Erickson

Prayer to Bless What Eludes My Grasp

God, so any things skitter through my mind

and I give chase to gather them.

            And hold them up in a bunch to you,

But they go this way and that while I go that way and this

So gather me up instead

And bless what eludes my grasp but not yours

Trees and bees, fireflies and butterflies, roses and barbecues, and people…God, the people… bless the people:

Birthday people, giving birth people, conformed people, dying people, hostage people, banged up people, leader people, lonely people, limping people, hungry people, indifferent people, first world, second world and third world people, one world people, your people, all people. Bless what eludes my grasp but not yours.

Guerrillas of Grace, Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder