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January 1 - October 23, 2022
Lord, I confess that your promise to always hear prayer (verse 17) is of little comfort to me, and it’s my fault. I am so sure of exactly what a good and happy life must look like. Remind me that sometime your wise love “feeds us with hunger. . . . Lord, spoil my fool’s heaven on earth, that I may be saved forever.”100 Amen.
Lord, so many forces are hostile to our faith. Popular culture disdains it as narrow, many world leaders find it threatening, powerful institutions want it gone or only believed in secret. Remind my heart now that none of this opposition will prevail. I thank you that, because you yourself live within the church, even the gates of hell will not overcome it. Amen.
Lord, nothing here lasts. But I praise you that while all things perish, even the uttermost foundations of the earth, you are eternal, and if we cling to you and you embrace us with your love, then we will live forever in our true country, where finally our hearts may rest. I praise you for so great a comfort and salvation. Amen.
That is because while sin always blocks our relationship with God, suffering can deepen it.
Lord, I confess how much of my fear, anger, anxiety, and discouragement is wholly due to my forgetting your benefits, forgetting all you’ve given me and promised me in Christ. My mind knows but my heart forgets I’m forgiven, delighted in, guaranteed a crown, a feast. Forgive me, and help me speak to my soul until strength is renewed. Amen.
Lord, my anger is indeed unlike yours. May your Spirit purify me so my anger is not triggered by my hurt ego as much as by real injustice and evil, and so that it does not remain in me to harden and poison my joy but readily gives way to compassion. Amen.
Lord, I praise you for making yourself not just my King and my shepherd but my Father. To think of the omnipotent God as my Father—infinite power, gentled for me, loving me and working all things for my good! Transform my prayer life through a deeper grasp of your fatherly love to me. Amen.
Jonathan Edwards wrote: “How doth all the world congratulate, embrace, and sing to” a soul given to praising God.102
Lord, when I am not right with you, I feel alone in the world. But when I praise you the most, I can hear your joy in the birds in the morning and the rain on the water. Lord, I want to be part of this music; I want to sing my part, which both adds to and derives beauty from the whole. Amen.
“All praise we would render, O help us to see, ’tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.”103
Lord, I often find both your words and your ways hard to fathom. My self-justifying heart instinctively tends to put the blame on you. O help me to see that my real problem is the weakness of my spiritual eyes, which cannot take in your great light. Strengthen my spiritual sight, so I can take more in. Amen.
Lord, I take for granted so many commonplace things, so many scientific developments that have made my daily life safe and comfortable. I rob you of your glory and myself of satisfaction when I fail to stop, wonder at them, and praise you for them. Teach me that discipline. Amen.
Lord Jesus, I confess I am so concerned for comfort and convenience that I don’t want to think about the possible bad effects any of my daily life practices might have on the natural world. But this is your world, which you love. So give me the humility and patience to ask these questions for the first time. Amen.
Lord, I do not honor you merely by obeying you. The way to glorify you the most is to enjoy you. Help me (oh, please) to revel in all you are and have done for me until it awakens joy in my heart. Amen.
Lord, your Word says that your creatures tell us about your existence and greatness, if we don’t stop our ears to it. Open my ears! “In reason’s ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice. Forever singing as they shine, ‘The hand that made us is divine.’”
“A clam glorifies God better than we do, because the clam is being everything it was created to be, whereas we are not.”
Lord, disobeying you is easy in the short run but hard in the long run because I am violating my own nature. And so obedience to you can be excruciating to start but is wonderful in time, because by it I become my true self. Oh, help me to remember this when things get hard! Amen.
Lord, you made both souls and bodies and you are going to redeem both soul and body on the day of resurrection. Help me, then to serve people not just with words, even Gospel words, but also with practical help and sacrificial generosity. Amen.
Lord, I praise you that you have broken into my life and brought me up short and opened my eyes and ignited love in my heart for your name. Ah, but you did it in such wise, brilliant, and beautiful ways. Give me the humility and courage I need to begin to testify to others about your goodness toward me. Amen.
PRAISE THE LORD. As great as Israel’s salvation was, it was temporary and incomplete, for Israel did not keep his laws and precepts (verse 45). Something more was needed. In Jesus we get a greater Joseph who, taken captive and killed, was raised to the right hand of the throne to forgive and save those who betrayed him. We get a greater Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant. We get the greater rock of Moses, who, receiving the rod of God’s justice, gives us the water of eternal life in a desert of a world. Behind everything God does there
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Prayer: Lord, I thank you that your Word reveals that behind everything you do is something “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). Let me live life confident in the knowledge of this instead of with the vague sense of dread that I usually have. Amen.
Lord, I thank you for my routine mercies. I thank you for sustaining my life daily, for being endlessly patient with me, for shielding me from so many consequences of my foolish behavior, for the ways you have walked with me in trials, and for all my answered prayers. Amen.
In the movie Superman Returns, Lois Lane says, “The world doesn’t need a savior. And neither do I.”108 That expresses the deep language of the natural human heart, and it is utterly, fatally wrong.
Lord, I praise you that you opened my heart to you, because I would never have done it myself. “My heart owns none before thee, for thy rich grace I thirst; this knowing—if I love thee, thou must have loved me first.”109 Amen.
Lord, in Christ I have been forgiven, adopted into your family, made righteous in your sight, given the gift of the Spirit, and assured of my resurrection into glory unimaginable. Remind me that if you never did another thing for me, I should praise and serve you with my whole being for the rest of my life. Amen.
Lord, I grieve over the impurity and stubbornness of my heart. It is so both through the sin I inherited and through my life-long indulgence of it. How wretched I am! “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24–25). Amen.
Lord Jesus, I confess that in my public life I am just not different enough from my neighbors to attract either hostility or interest in my faith. I am not visibly happier, kinder, humbler, or wiser than others. O Lord, help me to grow in grace so I can be a credit to you, to whom I owe everything. Amen.
Lord Jesus, I praise you for your indefatigable love! You were so committed to me that you were willing to lose your immortality, power, and glory for me and to be thrown into unimaginable depths for me. I cannot help but be lost in wonder, love, and praise. Amen.
Lord, save me from being so caught up in my own pursuits that I’m not a great neighbor to others in my city. But also save me from being seduced too much by the glitz and excitement of my earthly city. Let my heart rest in its citizenship of your heavenly one. Amen.
Lord, “Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.”113 I praise your name for your radical forgiveness. Amen.
Lord, I rejoice in forgiveness of sin, but I still limp along, half crippled by fears, self-pity, anger, self-consciousness, and discouragement. All could be healed so much further if I took the truths of the Gospel more to heart. Bring your Word in deep—let it dwell in me richly—that I can be more freed from the effects of sin. Amen.
Lord, I confess my overconfidence about my ability to manage life through planning, knowing the right people, reading the right books. But then “out of the blue” comes a storm and I am lost. Teach me how to depend on you and lean on you moment by moment. Without you I can do nothing. Amen.
Lord, there is only one password for getting into your infinite stores of grace and love. It is not “MyRighteousness” but “ChristsRighteousness.” I praise you that, because of his work for me on the cross, I need only come with my need, and you will hear me. Amen.
Lord, I praise you for strengthening me not just in spite of my weakness but through it. As enormous pressure turns coal into diamonds, and fire turns ore into gold; let my experiences of suffering make me like your Son. Amen.
Lord, give me such a sense of your living reality in my life that I live a more fearless life. Fear is just thinking of myself and my abilities instead of having my mind focused on you. Give me enough love for you to be brave. Amen.
Lord, my prayer is for my prayer. Help me change my heart toward those who trouble me. Through prayer drain away my ill will and desire to see them unhappy. I know those feelings harden and dehumanize me. Save me from them, please, Lord. Amen.
God of justice, I am thankful that you hear even our angry cries. Yet I need your strong help when I make them. Save me from letting my concern for justice devour my love and desire to see my opponents change and thrive. Let this be true in my politics as well as in my personal relationships. Amen.
Lord, I confess that so many of my sins are failures to serve and love people because I am too wrapped up in myself to think or notice their needs. O Lord, save me from sinful obliviousness. Amen.
BUT YOU, LORD. The phrase “But you, Sovereign Lord” here, as ever in the psalms, marks a great turning point. Hard prayers become softer, hopeless prayers more confident, sad prayers are filled with joy, and guilty prayers arrive in mercy. Our prayer may rightly begin with our own hurts, sins, enemies, surroundings, troubles. But it is only when you lay these things before God, see them in light of who he is, and say, “But you . . .”—that release, relief, growth, hope, and strength begin to come. The “But you . . .” of the psalms has its New Testament counterpart in Paul’s great “But
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Lord, I thank you that your reality changes everything. I am weak—O, but you . . . I deserve nothing—O, but you . . . I don’t see any way out of this—O, but you . . . My life seems to be derailed—O, but you . . . I don’t know how to pray. Ah, but you will help me. Amen.
Lord, I confess my grudges. I justify them because I am not seeking repayment, but I avoid some people and I hope for them to fail. Help me forgive fully, all the way down, and begin to pray for their repentance and good. “My sin, dear Savior, made thee bleed, yet thou didst pray for me!”116 Amen.
Lord, “for not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums; with deeds of love and mercy the heavenly kingdom comes.”117 With your Spirit overcome my lack of generosity and my obsession with my own needs and security, so that I can truly be part of your work in the world. Amen.
Lord, I may say my prayers and obey your commands, but it is true worship and adoration that will actually change me. Don’t let me settle for the shallows of mere religious compliance. Fill me with the joyful fear that comes as we seek your face. Amen.
Lord, I thank you that you give us the bread of life. All around me people are looking for meaning, satisfaction, freedom, connection. But these are all aspects of deep spiritual hunger, and only your grace and your face can satisfy that. Keep me from their cosmic wild goose chases. Let me taste and see that you are good. Amen.
Lord Jesus, I praise you that one infinitely greater than the universe with all its galaxies would become a tiny infant who needed to be fed and carried and changed. And you did it for me. That humbles my heart and yet lifts it to the stars as well. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
Lord, how easily I get shaken. Criticism, a sense of failure, changes and losses—all these things rattle me. Help me to live in the “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:28). Teach me how to build my life every day on your Word and your love, which will endure when all other things pass away. Amen.
Lord, I confess that I make an idol out of people’s approval. Let me be so satisfied with your love that I no longer respond to people out of fear of displeasing them but only in love, seeking what is best for them. Remove my idols of approval—which can never give me the approval I need. Amen.
Father, your Son Jesus Christ gives me the meaning, value, and security I look for in other things. I ask that you help me to rejoice in him more fully than I do. Break my schemes of earthly joy so I may find my all in Thee.119 Amen.
Lord, when I get into a tight place, my heart instinctively says, “I can fix this. I can handle this.” I think about people to call—but it is all futile. I can’t handle life, and the sooner I admit this deep in myself, the sooner I’ll know the peace of always calling on you. Amen.
Lord, you died that I might not die forever, and you rose so I might live forever. For this may I “sing your praise without delays.”121 Help me live my days in joyful hope, helping my soul to remember that as sin “consigned thee to dust, His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.”122 Amen.
