![]() ![]() Don’t allow my affections to be tangled in inordinate desires for the things of this world, but let me set my heart on things above, where Christ, my life, is seated at your right hand. ![]() Now give me a joyful sense of your presence, and freedom from my charateristic sins of perfectionistic works-rightness, fear of criticism, and self-comfort. ![]() O Lord God, thank you for sustaining my physical life through food and shelter for giving me new life through the gospel for the assurance that my bad things will turn out for good, my good things cannot be taken from me, and for the certainty of the best and perfect life which is yet to come. Prayer at Mid-day: For presence and recollection Let me accept whatever degree of success or difficulty in my work you give me this day, and especially make me compassionate and ready to be interrupted to do good to others. Lord, all day may you give me an awareness of you and your presence, fruitfulness yet patience with your appointments, wisdom and compassion in my dealings, and your fatherly protection against dangers and adversities. And as I lay down in sleep and rose this morning only by your grace, keep me in a joyful, lively remembrance that whatever happens, I will someday know my final rising - the resurrection - because Jesus Christ lay down in death for me, and rose for my justification. And because it means nothing to begin well if one does not persevere, I ask that you would continue and increase your grace in me until you have led me into full communion with your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, that I may see his beautiful and great glory. Let your Spirit illumine my mind and enlarge my heart for that. Now give me enough love for this day - a sense of love from you (so I’m not scared or driven), a welling up of love for you (so I’m not proud or selfish), and a resulting love for others (so I am not cold or distracted). Again - use them as the basis for crafting your own.įather - Thank you for the grace that preserved my life to this moment. It ‘frames’ the entire day with God and the gospel.īelow are the prayers I use. ![]() I’ve found that having something written, which I can read and in my heart use as a basis for prayer to God - and taking only 1 minute for each of them - has been extremely helpful for remembering the presence of God and the truths I had learned that morning in Bible reading. I would encourage others to do the same thing I did with Calvin - take these as examples and use them to compose your own. This encouraged me to use his prayers as a foundation for composing my own. They were meant to be examples for individuals and families to use. I had known about this exhortation years ago, but only more recently I learned that Calvin prepared five prayers for these various times of day and they had been included in his 1542/45 Geneva Catechism. ( Institutes 3.20.50, See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. as if paying our debt to God” and forcing him to hear us. He immediately adds “this must not be any superstitious observance of hours. But, he adds, “since our weakness is such that it has to be supported by many aids, and our sluggishness such that it needs to be goaded, it is fitting each one of us should set apart certain hours for this exercise.”Ĭalvin taught that we should designate set times during the day that, though brief, “during them all the devotion of the heart should be completely engaged.” He proposed five times - when we wake in the morning, before we begin work, at mid-day meal, after the meal (or after the day’s work), and when we are getting ready for bed at night. Imagine my surprise when I came across a place in John Calvin’s Institutes where he argued that when it comes to daily prayer, once is not enough.Ĭalvin points to the exhortation to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and says that, of course, every Christian should aspire to pray to God constantly through the day. And like most other believers I have found it to be a struggle to be consistent. Like many other believers, I’ve always sought to have a time of devotion and prayer every morning. ![]()
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