Picking your favorite prayer is like picking your favorite child—they’re all favorites. But here are eight that I treasure. What about you? What is your favorite prayer?
Bless this food to our use, us to your service and bless the hands that prepared it.
—My dad’s grace at dinner
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
—Thomas Merton
Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. Make haste to help me. Rescue me and save me. Let thy will be done in my life.
—The Jesus Prayer
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there thy hand shall lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me fast.
—Psalm 139 (9-10)
Our Father, who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, forbid us to be satisfied with what we make of life. Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far-off goals. Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to thee for strength.
—A prayer Eleanor Roosevelt often said
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.
—From a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou forget me.
—Jacob Astley before going into battle, 1642
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
—Paul in his letter to the Philippians (4:8)
