Prayer Column - September 2019

Circuit Prayer Letters

For the last seven years I have been preparing and distributing by email a weekly prayer letter for those who wish to pray for Bradford North Circuit. The letters offer brief thoughts on prayer, a short prayer, and a list of prayer points: a rota of ministers, office holders and churches; and Circuit events. Some congregations are well represented on my mailing list, but most have very few and one has no intercessors at all. So, to mark the seventh anniversary I’m having another go at publicising the letters in an attempt to strengthen our joint prayer efforts for the Circuit.

I think prayer matters. I think God wants us to pray. Indeed I think we actually need to engage with him in prayer if we are ever to reach our full maturity as Christians. Prayer is one of our main means of relating person-to-person with God as our Heavenly Father: in praise and thanks, as well as saying sorry for our slips, trips and flips – and of course asking him for things. Odd though it may sound, God seems to want and expect us to ask: for the help we need with whatever tasks he has given us; and even for things he has promised. We’re to pray them into being.

All of which is why I pray, on my own and at prayer meetings. It’s why I write about prayer, to encourage it, in this monthly column and these weekly letters. If you would like to join in, email me. Or request a sample letter before you make up your mind. If you’re not on email, could you perhaps get someone who is, perhaps at church, to print them for you.

Roy Lorrain-Smith 

A prayer for each week

Heavenly Father, Jesus taught his disciples to pray when they asked him. Please teach us to pray, and to go on praying, getting to know you better, and working better for you too. Amen.

Lord God Almighty, how can you, so majestic and holy, be bothered with the likes of us? And yet you are! You created and you keep us. Please help us to respond as we should. Amen.

Great Lord of all, from the wide sweep of the cosmos to the detail of our thought life, we praise you for your power and thank you for your mercy. Please deepen our true insights. Amen.

Merciful Lord, great beyond measure yet condescending without limit, please forgive my wrongs and mend my flaws. And help me pass on your blessing, as I too forgive others. Amen.

Eternal Father, knowing the end of things from before their beginning, please draw me closer into your plans, and empower me to keep in step with your Spirit, through Jesus. Amen.

Your own prayers