The Greatness Of Christ: A Prayer by Ignatius of Antioch

Please pray for me,that I may have both spiritual and physical strength to perform my duties; that I may not only speak the truth but become the truth; that I may not only be called a Christian, but also live like a Christian.Yet I do not want people to look to me as an example,for at best I can only be a pale reflection of Christ Jesus; let people look away from the reflection and turn to the reality. Christianity is not a matter of persuading people of particular ideas, but of inviting them to share in the greatness of Christ. So pray that I may never fall into the trap of impressing people with clever speech, but instead I may learn to speak with humility, desiring only to impress people with Christ himself.

- Ignatius of Antioch, 35-108 A. D.

Give Us Your Spirit: A Prayer of Apollonius

O Lord Jesus Christ,
give us Your Spirit
that we may be enabled
to obey Your teaching:
to pacify anger,
to take part in pity,
to moderate desire,
to increase love,
to put away sorrow,
to cast away vain glory,
not to be vindictive,
not to fear death;
ever entrusting our spirit to the immortal God
who with You and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns
world without end.

- Apollonius, 170-245 A.D.

Saint Augustine on Prayer by Tim Keller

Saint Augustine on Prayer
March 2014
by Tim Keller

Anicia Faltonia Proba (died  AD 432) was a Christian Roman noblewoman. She had the distinction of knowing both St. Augustine, who was the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Christian history, as well as John Chrysostom, who was its greatest preacher. We have two letters of Augustine to Proba, and the first (Letter 130) is the only single, substantial treatment on the subject of prayer that St. Augustine ever wrote. 

I had the chance to read the letter over the Christmas holidays and was impressed with its common sense and some of its unusual insights. Proba wrote Augustine because she was afraid that she wasn’t praying as she should. Augustine responded with several principles or rules for prayer.

The first rule is completely counter-intuitive. St. Augustine wrote that before anyone can turn to the question of what to pray and how to pray it, they must first be a particular kind of person. What kind is that? He writes: “You must account yourself ‘desolate’ in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may be.” He argues that no matter how great your earthly circumstances they cannot bring us the peace, happiness, and consolation that are found in Christ. The scales must fall from our eyes and we must see that—if we don’t all our prayers will go wrong. 

Second, he says, you can begin to pray. And what should you pray for? With a bit of a smile (I think) Augustine answers you should pray for what everyone else prays for: “Pray for a happy life.” But of course, what will bring you a happy life? The Christian (if following Augustine’s first rule of prayer) has realized that comforts and rewards and pleasures in themselves give only fleeting excitement and, if you rest your heart in them, actually bring you less enduring happiness. He turns to Psalm 27 and points to the Psalmist’s great prayer: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, one thing will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord to behold the beauty of the Lord.” This is the fundamental prayer for happiness. Augustine writes: “We love God, therefore, for what He is in Himself, and [we love] ourselves and our neighbors for His sake.” That doesn’t mean, he quickly adds, that we shouldn’t pray for anything else other than to know, love, and please God. Not at all. The Lord’s Prayer shows us that we need many things. But if God is our greatest love, and if knowing and pleasing him is our highest pleasure, then it transforms both what and how we pray for a happy life. 

He quotes Proverbs 30 as an example: “Give me neither poverty nor riches: Feed me with food appropriate for me lest I be full and deny you…or lest I be poor, and steal and take the name of my God in vain.” Ask yourself this question. Are you seeking God in prayer in order to get adequate financial resources—or are you seeking the kind and amount of resources you need to adequately know and serve God? Those are two different sets of motivations. 

In both cases the external action is a prayer: “Oh, Lord—give me a job so I won’t be poor” but the internal reasons of the heart are completely different. If, as Augustine counseled, you first became a person “desolate without God regardless of external circumstances”—and then began to pray, your prayer will be like Proverbs 30. But if you just jump into prayer before the gospel re-orders your heart’s loves, then your prayer will be more like: “Make me as wealthy as possible.” As a result, you will not develop the spiritual discretion in prayer that enables you to discern selfish ambition and greed from a desire for excellence in work. And you will be far more crestfallen if you have financial reversals. A Proverbs 30 prayer includes the request that God not give you too much, not only that he not give you too little. 

The third rule was comprehensive and practical. You will be guided, he said, into the right way to pray for a happy life by studying the Lord’s Prayer. Think long and hard about this great model of prayer and be sure your own appeals fit it. For example, Augustine writes: “He who says in prayer… ‘Give me as much wealth as you have given to this or that man’ or ‘Increase my honors; make me eminent in power and fame in the world,’ and who asks merely from a desire for these things, and not in order through them to benefit men agreeably to God’s will, I do not think he will find any part of the Lord’s Prayer in connection with which he could fit in these requests. Therefore, let us be ashamed to ask these things.” 

The fourth rule is an admission. He admits that even after following the first three rules, still “we know not what to pray for as we ought in regard to tribulations.” This is a place of great perplexity. Even the most godly Christian can’t be sure what to ask for. “Tribulations…may do us good…and yet because they are hard and painful…we pray with a desire which is common to mankind that they may be removed from us.” 

Augustine gives wise pastoral advice here. He first points to Jesus own prayer in Gethsemane, which was perfectly balanced between honest desire “let this cup pass from me” and submission to God “nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” And he points to Romans 8:26, which promises that the Spirit will guide our hearts and prayers when we are groaning and confused—and God will hear them even in their imperfect state. 

Anicia Proba was a widow by her early 30s. She was present when Rome was sacked in 410 and had to flee for her life with her granddaughter Demetrias to Africa where they met Augustine. Augustine concludes the letter by asking his friend, “Now what makes this work [of prayer] specially suitable to widows but their bereaved and desolate condition?” Should a widow not “commit her widowhood, so to speak, to her God as her shield in continual and most fervent prayer?” There is every reason to believe she accepted his invitation.

See Augustine’s Letter 130 (AD 412) to Proba found in Philip Schaff, ed., “Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,” First series, vol. 1, 1887. Christian Classics Ethereal Library pp. 997-1015.

Wrestling For A Blessing Can I Really Say That To God? By James Banks

“I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Gen. 32:26).

In one of the boldest prayers in the Bible, Jacob cries out during a wrestling match with God. His words hardly sound like something anyone should say to God. But the context indicates he is talking with God here: “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared” (Gen. 32:30, NLT).

Throughout the Bible we find “wrestling prayers”—prayers made in those challenging moments when we don’t know what God is doing and may even disagree. These are prayers from the ragged edge, when we’re walking by faith but struggling with the next step:

David prayed, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1).
Isaiah inquired of the Lord, “Where is the passion and the might you used to show on our behalf? Where are your mercy and compassion now?” (Isa. 63:15, NLT).

Elijah, afraid that Jezebel would kill him after God had shown His power against the prophets of Baal, fled into the wilderness and prayed, “I have had enough, Lord. . . . Take my life” (1 Kings 19:4).
When Jonah was angry with God for His mercy on the repenting citizens of Nineveh, the prophet responded with an I told you so! He complained to the Lord: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish!” (Jonah 4:2, NLT).
Even Jeremiah “grappled with God.” Although he obeyed God and warned His people that Jerusalem would be invaded if they didn’t repent, he then lamented that instead of being blessed for his obedience, his only reward was rejection: “O Lord, you misled me, and I allowed myself to be misled. You are stronger than I am, and you overpowered me. Now I am mocked every day; everyone laughs at me” (Jer. 20:7, NLT).
All of these prayers are raw and rough, giving vent to the deepest emotions of the human heart. They combine belief and unrelenting candor, pushing the limits in a struggle to understand what God is doing. These are prayers that make us uncomfortable, pressing us with the question, “Can I really say that to God?”


God Can Take It

There’s more faith in these prayers than first meets the eye. Underlying these prayers is the firm conviction that God is strong enough to take it. He has allowed these prayers to be included in His Word for a reason. “Wrestling prayers” teach us that we can be absolutely honest with God and hold nothing back.

This is one of the most painful and rewarding lessons we learn as we grapple with what it means to have a personal relationship with a Heavenly Father who is sovereign over even the most intimate details of our lives. Painful because these are prayers wrested from the grip of life’s difficult circumstances, and rewarding because somehow, through it all, God has a way of showing Himself faithful. The result is the strengthening of our faith.

I prayed my first “wrestling prayer” before my final year as a philosophy major in college. I had resisted God’s call into ministry for years. Then, as soon as I became obedient, the circumstances of my life became more difficult. A financial crisis, a personality conflict with a professor, and a broken relationship with a girl I loved—all within a few months—left my emotions ragged and my head reeling.

One afternoon, angry and frustrated with God, I sat in my old Dodge behind my apartment building and wondered where the money was going to come from to finish my senior year. I prayed, “Father, I did what You called me to—and look what happened! Now I hardly know what to believe. If You’re really there and You want me to go into the ministry, do something! Do something so that I know it’s unmistakably the power of the living Lord Jesus Christ.”

I resolved to wait, thinking that if God really wanted me in the pastoral ministry, He would make it clear. And if an answer didn’t come I would be free to go in another direction.

Two days later I received a phone call from the college. The public relations department had just received word about a new scholarship offered locally. “All you have to do,” they told me, “is go to the First Baptist Church and sit down and have a talk with the pastor.” The next afternoon I was sitting in his office.

“This scholarship was given by a family who was nationally successful in the restaurant business,” he explained. “They were saved through the ministry of our church. But you need to know that it is given for one reason only: to show the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

One week later, a check arrived at the college in my name, covering all the remaining funds needed for my senior year. God had grappled with me, and He had a new hold on me, pinning me in a way I would never forget. My calling was set, and in the following years God provided for every need until my education was complete.


Not a Neat Package

As I’ve told that story over the years, some have responded: “You shouldn’t have prayed like that. It was almost like you were giving God an ultimatum.”

But wrestling prayers don’t always fit into neat theological packages. Gideon put his fleece out not once but twice (Judges 6:36–40). Hezekiah asked for the shadow on the sundial to go backward ten steps (2 Kings 20:8–11). Few theologians would argue these prayers are models for anyone’s daily practice, but they point to the rough beauty of wrestling prayer. God loves us. And, in His mercy, He meets us where we are—even with our limited vision, self-focus, and struggling hearts. Why? Because “he knows how weak we are” (Ps. 103:14, NLT).

Our Heavenly Father accepts our brutally honest prayers. He uses them to deepen our relationship with Him and give us new confidence in His wisdom, goodness, and strength.

Jesus once encountered a man who cried out to the Lord, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” The Master responded, not by rebuking the man for his lack of faith, but by healing his demon-possessed son (Mark 9:24).

We know God “looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7, ESV) and discerns even our “secret motives” (Jer. 17:10, NLT). He sees when we’re sincerely seeking Him. He understands that we may struggle to understand what He’s doing at any given moment. But the fact that we’re struggling doesn’t mean we are doubting Him or being “double-minded” (see James 1:5–8). We’re just being human.


A Limp and a Blessing

God uses our wrestling prayers to interact with us in ways that touch our hearts and lives more deeply. We are never the same. Jacob’s encounter with God left him with a limp but also a blessing. He wasn’t just Jacob anymore (he who grasps the heel—Gen. 25:26). He was Israel—one who has “struggled with God” and “overcome” (Gen. 32:28).

But what kind of a name is that?  How can anyone “overcome” God? The only way Jacob could have won was if God let him. And that’s just like a loving Father, isn’t it? Sometimes (not always), we let our kids win because it’s good for them, helping them gain new strength through the struggle.

We can wrestle in prayer because God allows us to—and because God loves it when we give ourselves passionately to Him with every fiber of our being: “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Heb. 4:16, NLT).

When we let ourselves be real with God, He makes Himself real to us.

JAMES BANKS is a pastor, speaker, and author on the topic of prayer (jamesbanks.org). His books Prayers for Prodigals and The Lost Art of Praying Together are available at prayershop.org.

(c) 2014 Prayer Connect magazine.

God Directs Our Path: A Prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"God of the day and of the night, in me there is darkness, but with you there is light. I am alone, but you will not leave me. I am weak, but you will come to my help. I am restless, but you are my peace. I am in haste, but you are the God of infinite patience. I am confused and lost, but you are eternal wisdom and you direct my path; now and forever. Amen."

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A Spiritual Warfare Prayer

Cast down, O Lord, all the forces of cruelty and wrong. Defeat all selfish and worldly-minded schemes, and prosper all that is conceived among us in the spirit of Christ and carried out to the honor of His blessed name. Amen.

 - A Renovare Prayer

O God Rule Our Hearts: A Prayer

"O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen."

-The Book of Common Prayer