Starting a devotional · Prayers
Six short prayers to open and close a devotional
The opening prayer of a devotional is one minute long and does not need to be impressive. If saying something on the spot is hard, borrow one of these until your own words come — praying borrowed words is an old and honest practice. Read them out loud, change the names, keep whatever fits.
Before you read
God, I am here. It is not much of an arrival, but it is a real one. Open my eyes to whatever is in this passage today, and let me see it plainly. I am not asking to be impressed. I am asking to be shown. Amen.
Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law.
Salmo 119:18, BSB
When your head is already full
Lord, I have not even started and I am already somewhere else — in the messages, in the list, in the conversation I am dreading. I am not going to pretend that is not true. Take the noise for these few minutes. Let me hear you first, before the rest of the day gets its turn. Amen.
In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation.
Salmo 5:3, BSB
When you have no words at all
God, I have nothing to say this morning. I am tired, or flat, or too far into something to find language for it. Your Word says the Spirit helps us when we do not know how to pray, so I am leaning on that and not on my own eloquence. Here is my silence. Please take it as prayer. Amen.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.
Romans 8:26, BSB
At a table with other people
Father, we are all here, more or less awake. Thank you for this table and for the people around it. Say something to each of us this morning — to the youngest as much as the oldest — and help us listen without hurrying each other. Amen.
As you stand up: carrying the day
Lord, let what I read this morning come with me. When I forget it by ten o'clock, bring it back. Show me the way to go today, in the small decisions as much as the large ones, and let the people I meet be a little better off for having met me. Amen.
Let me hear Your loving devotion in the morning, for I have put my trust in You. Teach me the way I should walk, for to You I lift up my soul.
Salmo 143:8, BSB
Coming back after time away
God, it has been a while. I am not going to explain myself, because you already know how the weeks went and you know exactly what I am made of. Thank you that the door was not locked. I am opening this again today, at whatever page I am on, and that is enough for today. Amen.
For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
Salmo 103:14, BSB
A prayer does not have to be well made to be heard. Say the honest one.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible. Public domain (CC0)
In this category: Starting a devotional