Morning prayer · 12 May

Help me listen

A single ear-shaped seashell sitting on a table beside a small sleeping figure's pillow, tilted toward the sky as if listening for something far off.

Lord, help me pray. Help me keep my regular times of prayer. But even more, breathe on my heart a love and longing for you. Make me feel how much I always need you. Lay the needs of this lost world on my heart, so that I pray all the time, and the quiet background to all my thinking, the place my soul comes back to whenever I have a moment, is you: God my good Father, Jesus who saves me and loves my soul, and the Holy Spirit my comforter. Help me not only to talk to you when I pray, but to expect you to talk to me. Help me listen. Even here on earth, Lord, give me the heaven of always being close to you. Amen.

Pray without ceasing.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 (BSB)

Adapted from Lucy Rider Meyer, Some Little Prayers (1907), in plain words. The verse is from the Berean Standard Bible (public domain). Drawing: Mutter.