Daily Prayers

How do you begin your day?

Perhaps you reach for your phone to check the time, read your messages, or see what’s happening in the world. Maybe you head straight for the coffee maker or start getting the kids ready for school.

Whatever your routine, it probably doesn’t take long before your attention turns to everything that needs to get done.

Martin Luther, and indeed God’s Word, has a suggestion for how Christians should begin their day.

Pray.

Near the end of the Small Catechism, Luther includes prayers for the morning and evening, along with prayers to use before and after meals. They are simple prayers, intended to help Christians make prayer a regular part of everyday life.

Luther’s Morning Prayer begins with thanksgiving to God for keeping us through the night. Then it asks Him to protect us from sin and every evil throughout the coming day.

His Evening Prayer follows a similar pattern, thanking God for His protection during the day, asking forgiveness for our sins, and entrusting ourselves to His care through the night.

There’s something beautiful about that rhythm.

In the morning, we place the day ahead into God’s hands. In the evening, we acknowledge that the day has been in His hands all along. And throughout the day, we pause to thank Him for His provision.

These prayers reflect something we’ve been learning throughout this series: the Christian life is a life of receiving from God.

Think back over the past devotions in this series.

We began with the Ten Commandments, which showed us God’s holy will and revealed how far we fall short of it. We learned that sin isn’t limited to outward actions but reaches into our thoughts, desires, and motives.

Then we turned to the Apostles’ Creed and heard what God has done for us. The Father created and preserves us. The Son redeemed us through His death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit calls us to faith and keeps us in Christ.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we learned to approach God as our loving Father, bringing Him our needs and trusting in His promises. Those needs are of both body and soul and we remember that it was Jesus who taught us to pray for these things. If God asks us to pray for them, He wants to provide them.

Through Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and Confession and Absolution, we saw how God continues to deliver His forgiveness and strengthen our faith. God continues to come to us. His work sustains us.

Now, at the end of the catechism, we come back to something remarkably ordinary.

Getting up in the morning. Eating meals. Going to bed at night.

Because Christianity isn’t simply something we practice for an hour on Sunday or during a few minutes of devotion.

Our faith shapes our whole life.

Like everything else, we don’t do this perfectly. We don’t always remember to pray. Some mornings are rushed. Some evenings we fall asleep before we finish our prayers. There are days when our thoughts are so consumed by problems that we barely acknowledge God at all.

And even when we do pray, our minds wander and our words sometimes feel empty. I’ve had plenty of morning where I woke up, started to pray, and then five minutes later realized I thinking about something entirely different and had to bring my mind back to the prayer.

But our relationship with God doesn’t depend on how consistently we maintain our devotional routines.

It depends on Christ.

Jesus lived in perfect fellowship with His Father. He prayed throughout His earthly ministry, and even as He died on the cross, He entrusted His spirit into His Father’s hands.

Through His death and resurrection, He has reconciled us to God. Because of Him, we can approach our heavenly Father with confidence, knowing that He hears us and loves us.

So when you forget to pray, you can begin again. When your mind wanders, you can return to His promises. When you don’t know what to say, you can use the words Jesus taught us or the prayers Luther provided.

Prayer isn’t about impressing God with our devotion. It’s about living in the relationship He has graciously given us.

I think that’s the beauty of this. These simple prayers throughout the day are more than just the words that we are praying or the things we are praying for. They return us to our God and Father. They remind us that we need Him and rely on Him. They remind us that He loves and cares for us. This strengthens our relationship with God and teaches us to trust Him in the bigger things…in all things.

And that’s a fitting place to end our journey through the catechism.

We haven’t learned everything there is to know about the Christian faith. Far from it! The catechism is something we can return to throughout our lives, continually growing in our understanding of God’s Word and promises. And, of course, God’s Word continues to teach, transform, and strengthen us throughout our lives.

But everything we’ve studied brings us back to the same wonderful truth:

Our lives are in God’s hands.

The Father who created you, the Son who redeemed you, and the Holy Spirit who called you to faith will continue to care for you.

So tomorrow morning, when you wake up, take a moment to thank God for the new day.

Ask Him to guide and protect you.

And then go about your work, your responsibilities, and your relationships, trusting that the Lord is with you.

That’s a wonderful way to begin another day in Christ.

I thought today we would end with Luther’s morning prayer. I think many of you do these devotions in the morning. However, I’ll also put the evening prayer after the morning prayer. So, if you are finishing your day right now…or when you finish you day later, you can end with the evening prayer.

Let’s pray…

Morning Prayer:

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me.

Amen.

Evening Prayer:

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me.

Amen.

As part of your devotion time, I encourage you to also pray for at least some of the following:

• Your family
• Your local church
• Your pastor
• Some of your fellow church members
• The people on your B.L.E.S.S. list
• Your country and her leaders
• Your community

After praying for these people, you may want to finish your devotion time with the Lord’s Prayer…

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. They will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and every. Amen.