Impressive prayers
As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. It is evil to make mindless offerings to God. ~ Ecclesiastes 5:1 (NLT)
When you pray, using fewer words is often better than using more words. Some people actually think that God's response to our requests is tied to how long and how emotionally intense we can crank out the prayers. ~ Matthew 6:7 (ABP)
KEY THOUGHT:
Don't try to impress God with your prayers.
PRAYER:
Lord, thank you for welcoming us into your presence. I get uneasy around you and feel like I need to fill every second of silence with an endless string of words. Help me to learn how to shut up and listen.
I'm looking forward to simply being with you. Amen.
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2011 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul. The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase -- a freestyle biblical adaptation -- somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
