P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
Today we remember that some of the most important spiritual formation happens not in extraordinary moments, but in the ordinary rhythms of everyday family life.
Together we will pray (P.R.A.Y.) each day – ‘P’: Pausing to be still as we come into the presence of the Lord. ‘R’: Rejoicing as we remember who our God is and what He has done, and Reflecting on His word. ‘A’: Asking God to help us and others. And ‘Y’: yielding to His will in accordance with His word.
As I come before you to pray, I still my thoughts and quiet my mind. I seek to make you the center of my focus.
Prayer of Approach
Lord, you are the God who created all things! You instituted the family, and sin often leads us into confusion about it. In this time, I ask that you speak to me through your Word by the power of your Holy Spirit. Quiet my heart so I can hear all that you have for me.
I choose to rejoice, with all God’s people, in the powerful promise that God gives us in Psalm 78…
He established a testimony in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers
to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God
and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments;
Psalm 78:5-7
As you read the passages below, ask the Lord to cause a word or phrase to stand out to you.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
As I reread the passage, I reflect on the questions, “How is my life touched by this word?” and “How does this passage connect with my life?”
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
God commanded Israel to love him wholeheartedly and then to teach his words diligently to the next generation. Notice where that formation happens: sitting at home, walking along the way, lying down, and rising up. Faith was never meant to be confined to a weekly religious gathering. Our conversations, meals, routines, priorities, reactions, and habits are constantly teaching the people around us what matters most. Every family is discipling toward something, and God invites us to intentionally shape our homes around love for him.
Lord, I ask that you take the everyday ordinary moments and make them extraordinary moments of your power in our homes.
Lord, revive our homes by making them places where your word is loved, discussed, obeyed, and remembered throughout everyday life.
As I read the passage for the final time, I listen to how the Lord is inviting me to respond to him. Where in my life do I need to yield in obedience to what he has for me?
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Yielding Prayer
Father, use my words, routines, priorities, and example to point others toward you. Help me faithfully disciple the people you have placed within my influence.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in Philippians 1…
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6
Closing Prayer
Lord, enable me, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love you today with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to serve you today, by loving and caring for others as I do my own self; and, to exalt you today, by telling the people in my world about the abundant and eternal life found only through faith in Jesus