The Prayer Habit That Could Change Your Life
Do you have a prayer that has shaped your life?
Of course we have the Lord’s Prayer. When the Disciples asked Jesus, “Lord teach us to pray,” they did us all a favour!
Or perhaps the Serenity Prayer has been a mainstay for you. God has used it to bless many people.
But, maybe it’s time for you to craft one for yourself with God.
What if you took time to consider the dream that God has given you for life with Him and turned it into three requests?
God can use three requests that you set before Him day after day, and week after week, even year after year to change your life.
When I was in Seminary at Southwestern, one of my professors, Dr. Leafblad, encouraged us to create a prayer that would capture some of the essential qualities we needed in the next season of life.
I chose three short phrases for the prayer:
- Lord, give me a passion for You.
- Lord, give me a discipler’s heart.
- Lord, enlarge my heart for loving people.
Those three prayers have stayed with me for years. The wisdom of that prayer was beyond my years. But God has used it to shape my life, character, and the ministries I have served in.
I have discovered that the prayer took on a different meaning for me in new seasons of life. When I felt spiritually dry, the cry for passion became heightened.
When I experienced the pain followers of Jesus struggling with Him, the discipleship request became desperate.
When I felt tired, alone, and disheartened from the constant movement of people through Vancouver, God reminded me I needed to remove the shrink-wrap from my own heart.
When I look back on how the Lord has guided me over the past thirty-four years I see how this simple prayer has been used by Him.
In fact, I don’t think I would have been prepared at all for life on campus at UBC without what became for me a regular but ordinary request to God.
A three-pronged prayer in Lectio 365
In the last five years I have been blessed to pray the following on most days through the Lectio 365 app.
- Father, help me to live this day to the full being true to you in every way.
- Jesus, help me to give myself away to others, being kind to everyone I meet.
- Spirit, help me to love the lost, proclaiming Christ in all I do and say.Amen.
This prayer reminds me that I have been drawn by Christ into the loving communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
These three requests remind me of three genuine commitments that I have made with Him.
These three requests remind me of my absolute dependency on Him as I cry out — “help me.”
These three requests remind me of the multi-dimensional nature of my life, living in relationship to God, self, people, and the stuff of earth.
What’s the regular prayer shaping your life?
If you don’t have one, give it a try. Reflect on your life and the season ahead and create a three-pronged request. Or, try out the Lectio 365 app.
(Note: this article was previously published on the Origin Church monthly update for May 2025.)