Prayers
- On This Day ...
- Let Go
- Slow Me Down
- Lightening the Load
- Your Peace
- I Want To Be Available
- Push My Buttons
- A Prayer for Inner Peace
- A Christian Prayer for Peace of Mind
- A Prayer to Heal Stress
- Prayer for Peace and Calm
- Within Our Reach: Joy
- A Prayer for Calmness
See Also
On This Day....
Mend a quarrel
Search out a forgotten friend
Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust
Write a love letter
Share some treasures
Give a soft answer
Encourage youth
Manifest your loyalty in a word or deed
Keep a promise
Find the time
Forego a grudge
Forgive an enemy
Listen
Apologize if you were wrong
Try to understand
Flout envy
Examine your demands on others
Think first of someone else
Appreciate, be kind, be gentle
Laugh a little more.
Deserve confidence
Take up arms against malice
Decry complacency
Express your gratitude
Worship your God
Gladden the heart of a child
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth
Speak your love
Speak it again
Speak it still again
Speak it still once again....
-Author Unknown
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Let Go
Dear God,
It’s difficult to fully let go of our anxiety, or the world around us when we can’t see evidence of all that you’re doing – when we can’t understand or see your purpose or plan. Today, we pause and remind ourselves of our dependency on you, for we know in our hearts that our circ*mstances and futures are touched by your hands.
Isaiah 55:8 reminds us that our thoughts are not your thoughts – and that our ways are not your ways. When we are struggling to see clearly and make decisions, we are not alone and that inner peace is something only you can supply.
So today Lord, we purposefully, even urgently, say again that we choose to believe in you. We know that it’s often in the most challenging times that you are most at work. Thank you for being the one who gives us the strength to help each other and to see distinctly the choices we face. As we scan our personal horizons, we know that we also must look to you alone for the power and possibility that is our future.
We ask for your guidance so that we might walk fully in your path – a path that you have blessed. We also ask for your face to shine on us – individually, and as a team of colleagues and partners.
Please bring to fulfillment all that you have given us to do in the weeks ahead. Give us a heart of wisdom to hear your voice; and then make our footsteps firm. Please make us strong through your favor and grace.
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Slow Me Down
Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me,
Amidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music
Of the singing streams
That live in my memory.
Help me to know
The magical power of sleep,
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations
Of slowing down
To look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend
Or make a new one;
To pet a dog;
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day
That the race is not always won by the swift;
That there is more to life
Than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
Into the soil of life's enduring values
That I may grow toward the stars
Of our greater destiny.
- Offered by Dave Johnson and Kyra Shahid; Written by Orin L. Crain
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Lightening the Load
The first thing we have to do
is to notice
that we’ve loaded down this camel
with so much baggage
we’ll never get through the desert alive.
Something has to go.
Then we can begin to dump
the thousand things
we’ve brought along
until even the camel has to go
and we’re walking barefoot
on the desert sand.
There’s no telling what will happen then.
But I’ve heard that someone,
walking in this way,
has seen a burning bush.
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Your Peace
God, who is more than we can ever comprehend,
help us to seek you,
and you alone.
Help us to stand before all that we could do
and seek what you would do,
and do that.
Lift from us our need to achieve all that we can be
and instead,
surrender to what you can be in us.
Give us ways to refrain from the busyness
that will put us on edge and off center,
give us today your peace.
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I Want To Be Available
Holy and perfect God,
you know I want to be available.
Help that desire sink deeply enough into my being
for me to actually change
and to say "no" to a least one worthy, but not urgent, task today.
Give me the ability to be open to the life I am leading;
not the one I am planning to lead.
- Author Unknown
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Push My Buttons Prayer
Lord, it's likely that sometime today
someone will push my buttons
challenge my good will
misread my intentions
tick me off
try my patience
rattle my cage
judge me in haste
test my kindness
or do all of the above...
Give me the grace I'll need at such times
to respond with patience
to trust and accept
to listen carefully
to reach out in peace
to be fair and just
to anticipate goodness
in all my words and deeds...
I know this is a lot to ask, Lord,
but I need your help
to do for others
as I'd have them do for me...
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A Prayer for Inner Peace
Lord, please put Your peace in my heart.
I'm worried and anxious.
My mind races and obsesses.
I can't help thinking about my problems.
And the more I think about them,
the more depressed I become.
I feel like I'm sinking down in quicksand
and can't get out.
Calm me, Lord.
Slow me down, put Your peace in my heart.
No matter what problem I have, Lord,
You are bigger,
You are more powerful than it is.
So I bring my problem to You.
I know what I want.
I know my will.
I do not know Yours.
I do not know how You will use this problem for my salvation.
I do not know what good You will workout from this evil.
But I trust You.
I trust Your goodness and Your wisdom.
So I place myself in Your hands.
Please fill my heart with peace.
- Author Unknown
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A Christian Prayer for Peace of Mind
Almighty God, We bless you for our lives, we give you praise for your abundant mercy and grace we receive. We thank you for your faithfulness even though we are not that faithful to you.
Lord Jesus, we ask you to give us all around peace in our mind, body, soul and spirit. We want you to heal and remove everything that is causing stress, grief, and sorrow in our lives.
Please guide our path through life and make our enemies be at peace with us. Let your peace reign in our family, at our place of work, businesses and everything we lay our hands on.
Let your angels of peace go ahead of us when we go out and stay by our side when we return.
In Jesus' name,
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A Prayer to Heal Stress
Loving God, please grant me peace of mind and calm my troubled heart. My soul is like a turbulent sea. I can't seem to find my balance so I stumble and worry constantly. Give me the strength and clarity of mind to find my purpose and walk the path you've laid out for me. I trust your Love God, and know that you will heal this stress. Just as the sun rises each day against the dark of night. Please bring me clarity with the light of God.
In your name I pray,
- Author Unknown
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Prayer for Peace and Calm
Dear Lord and Father of humankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.
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Within Our Reach: Joy
There is nothing I can give you which you have not;
But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give,
You can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.
Take heaven!
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant.
Take peace!
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our
Reach is joy.
Take joy!
There is a radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see,
And to see we have only to look.
I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering,
Cast them away as ugly, or heavy, or hard.
Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor,
Woven of love, by wisdom, with power.
Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand
That brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty
Believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there,
And the wonder of an overshadowing presence.
Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys.
They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose,
So full of beauty beneath its covering-
That you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.
And so, at this time, I greet you.
Not quite as the world sends greetings,
But with profound esteem
And with the prayer that for you, now and forever,
The day breaks, and all the shadows flee away.
- Fra Giovanni, Christmas Eve, 1513 A.D.
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Prayer for Calmness
As he sat by the river,
the eyes of his understanding began to be opened;
not that he saw any vision,
but he understood and learnt many things,
both spiritual matters and matters of faith and of scholarship,
and this with so great an enlightenment
that everything seemed new to him.
- Ignatius of Loyola, The Autobiography
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