At the EPIC (Empower Prayer in Canada) event that I am involved with this weekend, today is a major training day. Attendees can choose from 4 topics every hour and learn about prayer in all kinds of ways. Tomorrow will be a day of prayer in which we get to work out some of this training.
I have 3 topics that I am teaching at different points today.
1. Building Effective City-wide Prayer Teams
2. Praying for National Issues (current Canadian themes)
3. Ancient Prayers
The idea of this last topic is to show people how rich a heritage we have over the last 2000 years in the Church. (And at least another 1000 years previous to that when you consider the Psalms) I will be giving them samples of written prayers that have been gleaned over the centuries. From time to time I post some of these great prayers on this blog.
What a lasting legacy! To think that a prayer uttered a thousand years ago can still express the deep longings of someone’s heart today. Not that it replaces our own words, but it can often “prime the pump”.
Here’s an example of a wonderful prayer by Ephrem the Syrian from the 4th Century.
O Lord and Master of my life,
take from me the spirit of sloth, despondency,
lust of power, and idle talk;But grant rather
the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.Yea, O Lord and King,
grant me to see my own transgressions,
and not to judge my brother;
for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages.
See more prayer topics at the Empower Prayer website.
