A Morning Prayer
Short enough to pray before anyone else is awake, or in the car before you go in.
Lamentations 3:22-23 is the morning’s own verse — God’s mercies “are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” — and Psalm 143:8 asks to hear of His loving devotion in the morning, before the day starts speaking.
Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!
Let me hear Your loving devotion in the morning, for I have put my trust in You. Teach me the way I should walk, for to You I lift up my soul.
In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation.
Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and slipped out to a solitary place to pray.
Satisfy us in the morning with Your loving devotion, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
This is the day that the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Morning, noon, and night, I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice.
O LORD, be gracious to us! We wait for You. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble.
But I will sing of Your strength and proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning. For You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
The prayer
Lord, before the day starts talking, You go first.
Thank You for mercy that is new this morning — I used all of yesterday’s.
Go ahead of me into the things I am dreading. Be in the conversation I do not want to have. Be in the hour I always get wrong.
Make me kind before I am efficient. Slow my mouth. Let someone be glad they crossed my path today.
And when the day gets away from me, bring me back. Amen.
Why the morning
Not because God listens better before nine. Mark 1:35 records Jesus getting up “very early, while it was still dark” to pray in a solitary place — and the reason is plain in the surrounding verses: the demands started early, and He got there first.
Psalm 143:8 is the same instinct. Hearing of God’s loving devotion in the morning is a way of letting the truest thing be said before everything else starts talking.
Mercies new every morning
Lamentations 3:22-23 is a strange place for that line to sit. The book is a funeral poem for a destroyed city, and it does not end happily. Right in the middle of it the writer says God’s compassions never fail and are new every morning.
That is not optimism. It is a resupply arriving at the rate of one day at a time, in a situation that has not improved. Which is exactly the promise you need on a morning when nothing has changed since yesterday.
If mornings are not yours
Some seasons make quiet mornings impossible — small children, night shifts, illness. The point was never the hour. Psalm 55:17 has evening, morning, and noon in one verse. Pray when you can, and let go of the guilt about when that is.
Brother Lawrence washed dishes and called it prayer. A sentence said at a sink counts.
Where these words come from
Lamentations 3:22-23 for the new mercies. Psalm 143:8 and Psalm 5:3 for the morning itself. Mark 1:35 for the example. Psalm 90:14 for what to ask: “satisfy us in the morning with Your loving devotion, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.”
Praying this for someone specific?
Light a candle for her — and come back to tend it tomorrow.