Thank you, Lord, for always answering prayer, but not indulging my every petty, private give me. Thank you winnowing and refining, vetoing and delaying, refusing and revising. Thank you for being God and never less, for freeing me for wide horizons, for protecting me from my limited vision and wayward will. Thank you for foiling my every effort to unseat you and make myself king. Thank you for keeping it safe for me to pray.
--Gerhard E. Frost
From Seasons of a Lifetime: A Treasury of Meditations (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989, p. 118)
To pray means to open your hands before God. It means slowly relaxing the tension which squeezes your hands together and accepting your existence with an increasing readiness, not as a possession to defend, but as a gift to receive.--Henri J.M. Nouwen
From With Open Hands (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Marie Press, 1972, p.154)
Holy God – in this precious hour, we pause and gather to hear your word– to do so, we break from our work responsibilities and from our play fantasies; we move from our fears that overwhelm and from our ambitions that are too strong, Free us in these moments from every distraction, that we may focus to listen, that we may hear, that we may change. Amen--Walter Brueggemann
From Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003 p. 61)
O Lord our God, grant us grace to desire you with a whole heart, so that desiring you we may seek you with a whole heart, so that desiring you we may seek and find you; and so finding you, may love you; and loving you, may hate those sins which separate us from you, for the sake of Jesus Christ.--St. Anselm, 1033-1109
From The Doubleday Prayer Collection, compiled by Mary Batchelor ( New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. 11)
Our Father, you called us and saved us in order to make us like your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Change us, day by day, by the work of your Holy Spirit so that we may grow more like him in all that we think and say and do, to his glory. Amen.-- Soren Kirkegaard, 1813-1855
From The Doubleday Prayer Collection, compiled by Mary Batchelor ( New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. 11)
I am only a spark Make me a fire. I am only a string Make me a lyre. I am only a drop Make me a fountain. I am only an ant hill Make me a mountain. I am only a feather Make me a wing. I am only a rag Make me a king!--prayer from Mexico
From The Doubleday Prayer Collection, compiled by Mary Batchelor ( New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. 12)
You who are over us, You who are one of us, You who are also within us, May all see you in me also, May I prepare the way for you, May I thank you for all that shall fall to my lot, May I also not forget the needs of others... Give me a pure heart - that I may see you, A humble heart - that I may hear you, A heart of love - that I may serve you, A heart of faith - that I may abide in you.--Dag Hammarskjold, 1905-1961
From The Doubleday Prayer Collection, compiled by Mary Batchelor ( New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. 13)
God of your goodness, give me yourself, For you are sufficient for me… If I were to ask anything less I should always be in want, For in you alone do I have all.--Julian of Norwich, 1342-1413
From The Doubleday Prayer Collection, compiled by Mary Batchelor ( New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. 14)
Lord, if You have to break me to remake me, let Your will be done.--Marian Wright Edelman
From Guide My Feet by Marion Wright Edelman (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. p. 62)
Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.--Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274
From The Doubleday Prayer Collection, compiled by Mary Batchelor ( New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. 12)
Father, behold thy child; Creator, behold thy creature; Master, behold thy disciple; Saviour, behold thy redeemed one; Spirit, behold thy cleansed one; Comforter, behold one whom thou dost uphold; So I come to thee, O infinite and unimaginable, To worship thee.--Margaret Cropper, 1886-1980
From The Oxford Book of Prayer, Geo Appleton, general editor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 137)
Lord by thy grace, let the poor see me be drawn to Christ and invite him to enter their homes and their lives. Let the sick and the suffering find in me a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let the little ones of the streets cling to me because I remind them of him, the friend of all little ones.--Mother Teresa, 1910-1996
From The Harper Collins Book of Prayers, compiled by Robert Van de Weyer (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993, p. 352)
A Prayer to a Listening God
O God, we labor in the heat of the day,
and so often the labor feels hopeless, unproductive, useless ....
And yet, you hear our silent cries.
You give us one another
to speak that which we in our pain cannot speak.
You give us your Word
that utters those things we cannot find the words to say.
And not only do you give us the words to speak,
but you also turn your ear to us and hear us,
even when all we have strength to whisper is,
"Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer."
For you have promised to hear us.
You have promised to turn your face to shine upon us.
You have promised to be our shade
when the heat of the day saps our strength
and the well of hope runs dry.
And you have promised,
even in the silence,
to give us the sweet sound of peace.--John McCullough Bade
From "A Prayer to a Listening God," in Will I Sing Again? Listening for the Melody of Grace in the Silence of Illness and Loss by John McCullough Bade (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003, p. 46).