daily prayer

An Early Morning Prayer with Sunrise in the picture

morning prayer

This section of the website has several prayers for different times in the day. For those of us who are early risers, there's a page with two prayers suitable for reading at first light. The first prayer on this page is a poem reflecting on the beauty of the birdsong and the colours found at dawn, the second prayer is a short meditation for the day ahead. There's also a page with several short prayers for the morning, and prayers for committing your working day to the Lord.

Grace Before Meals Prayer

Lord, thank you for this day,
For work and play, family and friendship.
Thank you for this food, may you bless it to our bodies.
In Jesus name,

Amen.

daily meal prayers

Pausing for a moment before we eat is a good time in the day to remind ourselves of God's goodness and generosity. In doing this we model Christ's attitude to eating - for he stopped for a moment to give thanks for the bread before passing it around at the last supper (Luke 22:19). Click here for more short prayers and graces.

a night time prayer poem with sunset in background

afternoon and evening prayers

Read more inspiring afternoon and night time prayers. Some of these are short thanksgivings for day, others offer petitions to God for the night ahead - for his safe-keeping, care and protection.

prayers for events

prayers for church meetings

If you carry some kind of leadership responsibility in your church, then you may well want to incorporate times of prayer and reflection in them. A natural place to pray is right at the beginning of your time together, for this helps to remind us of the real reason we are getting together! This page has some suggested prayers for opening your meeting or church service. There is are also pages with some short closing prayers, and prayers suitable for opening a bible study group.

prayers through the year

If your meeting falls over Easter time, there is a page here devoted to celebrating this momentous and significant time in the church calendar. There are also resources for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day , and all these pages have prayers suitable for children and adults to say.

prayers for different types of occasions

Are you in the process of moving house? This can be an incredibly stressful time, especially if you are trying to both sell an existing propriety and buy a new one! When the day comes that you finally arrive in your new home, you may find this prayer useful for blessing it and welcoming the presence of God into your new dwelling.

The occasion of a birthday is a wonderful time to celebrate God's remarkable creativity and faithfulness. This page has several prayers for family relatives, with blessings for sons, daughters, moms and dads.

Exams and tests can be very stressful occasions and it is times like this that we can come to God and receive his peace and reassurance. This page offers suitable prayers, bible verses and a video on peace of mind.

The "Day by Day" Prayer

The prayer of St Richard, Bishop of Chichester (1244-1253). An uplifting reading of this prayer made famous by the hit musical "Godspell"

Prayer of St Richard

(a daily prayer)

Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits which you have given us,
for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us.

Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
may we know you more clearly,
love you more dearly,
and follow you more nearly,
day by day.

Amen.

The importance of daily prayer

American speaker, writer and sociologist Tony Campolo observers that we must seek daily renewal in God, otherwise we are likely to "burn out". He notes the words of the old testament prophet Isaiah, which begin by meditating on God ("those who hope in the Lord"). Here is where our strength is found. According to Isaiah, what follows is a gradual progression of events which require less and less agility - soaring, running and finally walking. Hence meeting with God in the morning is incredibly important, for this fuels our walk with Him for the rest of the day. Listen to his thoughts on this here on Youtube.

"Each morning you listen to my prayer,
as I bring my requests to you
and wait for your reply"

(Psalm 5:3, CEV)

how to pray daily

the ACTS model of prayer

The ACTS model of prayer is a very simple approach to learning how to pray. It stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. If you would like to find out more about what these words mean, then take a look at this page. Here there is also a sample prayer to get you started!

going deeper

This section of the website also has two pages which explore different elements of prayer. Christians often speak of the importance of "wearing" the full armor of God (written about by the apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians) and this page offers a prayer were we consciously become aware of these different elements that Paul refers to. Finally, you may also like to read and meditate on some popular and beautiful prayers from the Christian heritage, such as the "Serenity Prayer" and prayers from the Celtic era.