Praying Together

Praying Together

Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10

In The Amish Way, author Donald Kraybill discusses Amish prayer practices:

The Amish rely primarily on written prayers in a book titled Die Ernsthafte Christenpflicht (“The Prayer Book for Earnest Christians”). First published in the early 1700s, the prayer book’s resources are only slightly more contemporary than the hymns of the Ausbund. The collection, written in German by both Anabaptist and non-Anabaptist authors and intended for private devotional reading, includes prayers for morning and evening, a prayer for “devout parents for their children,” a traveler’s prayer, a pre-sermon prayer, and “a reminder of several points for which we should rightly sigh and pray to God.” Christenpflicht is now used by the Amish in church services and for family devotions. For the Amish, these prayers are second in importance only to the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer that Jesus taught (Matthew 6:9-13).

The Lord’s Prayer is the most well-known prayer for all Christians, but there are many other written prayers in the Bible. The Psalms contain many of them. Colossians 1 is Paul’s prayer for the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colosse. In the book of Numbers God spoke to Moses, giving him a blessing to pray over the children of Israel. John 17 is Jesus’ intercessory prayer for His followers.

There are times in our lives when we cannot think of what to pray on our own. In those times we can turn to these Bible prayers for guidance. Connecting our hearts with the written words can be a great springboard to our own prayers. We can read the words of others written long ago and share their same thoughts, same emotions. With written prayers, hearts can be connected across miles and across history as the shared words glorify our same God.

Dear heavenly Father, I thank You for Your Kingdom on earth. I thank You for the prayers of the saints. May my words mingle with theirs before Your throne!