My heart of hearts affirms You, O Lord; and all that is within me blesses
Your holy name.
My soul blesses You, O Lord, and I will not forget all Your benefits;
You forgive all my iniquities and heal all my diseases;
You redeem my life from the pit and crown me with love and compassion;
You satisfy my desires with good things, so that my youth is renewed like
the eagle’s.
—Psalm 103:1-5
I confess that I deserve nothing good from Thee.
My heart is given too much to worldly things, and too little to Thee.
O Lord! Give me grace to raise my affections above earthly pleasures, and to
fix them in heaven with Thee where alone true joys are to be found.
Make me feel how short and uncertain life is, and enable me to spend this
day, and every day I have to live, in the way I should wish to have done
when I come to die.
–JW, unknown author of Prayer Book, 1859 [SSP, 11 PD]
O Lord God, from whom we come, in whom we are enfolded, to whom we
shall return:
I thank You for bringing us in our pilgrimage through life;
with the power of the Father protecting,
with the love of Jesus indwelling,
and the light of the Spirit guiding,
until we come to our ending, in life and love eternal.
–Peter Nott, English bishop (20th century) [EOP, 136]
A Prayer for Today
Father God, today I thank You for the provisions of my life…
I thank You for the people in my life…
I thank You for the opportunities You have given to me in my life…
I thank You for the acceptance and forgiveness You have lavished upon me in
spite of my sinful actions and choices…
I thank You for the healing You have brought into my life—physical and
emotional…
I thank You for the way You have brought me back from the darkness that
lurks in my soul and the choices I could have made that would have landed
me in a pit—or the choices I have made that did land me in a pit…
I thank You for the desires of my heart that You have satisfied with good
things…
And the desires that I have not yet seen satisfied. Help me to be confident
because of the grace You have given to me in so many others ways, that even my
unmet desires would be something I could be grateful for…Amen.
Prayers excerpted with permission from Day 31 of Prayers for Today (Moody Publishers, 2011) by Pastor Kurt Bjorklund.
About the Book
Throughout the history of faith, believers have struggled between two realities: how we want to pray and how we actually pray. The history of faith also has been marked by individual prayers—some inspired, some inspiring—that express precisely the outpouring of our hearts and the longing of our souls. Prayers for Today features prayers from Scripture, from champions of faith and from contemporary leaders, compiled in daily doses that will add structure, substance and guidance to your conversation with God—and put the life back into your prayer life.
