Woody's Prayer

For those who might be interested here is the prayer that Woody wrote early yesterday morning...and Woody wants it to be clear that he merely wrote the words down that God gave him. He prayed this prayer last night at FBC, Tullahoma's Monday night prayer meeting. He wanted me to share the prayer and give permission to anyone who might want to use parts or all of it.



O Lord Who Created the Stars,
The One who brings them out at night and knows exactly how many there are and calls them by name,
Because of the greatness of Your might and because You are strong in power
not one is lost or lacks anything. (My poor rendering of Isaiah 40:26)

O Lord Who Created Human Beings,
The One Who Knows how many hairs are on each of our heads and calls us by name to follow Him,
Because of the greatness of Your might and because You are strong in power
not one who follows You is lost or lacks anything.

O Lord, we praise You because (Repeat this with indented phrases below or not.)
You weren’t off doing Your own thing when it came time to knit us together in our mother’s womb,
You weren’t watching TV when it was time to draw salvation’s plan,
You weren’t taking a nap when it was time to send Jesus,
You didn’t conveniently forget to raise Him from the dead.
You omitted nothing that we that we needed.

O Lord, we confess that we are proud of the fact that we see very little sin in our lives,
but because of that fact we are sorry excuses for Your children because we are constantly committing the sin of omission and not even recognizing it.

O Lord, (Repeat this with indented phrases below or not.)
the people who would have been saved if we had but prayed for them,
the people who would still be coming to church if we’d but gone to visit them when they quit coming,
the people who would have been so much better off if we’d but ministered to them when we felt Your tug at our heart to help,
the spiritual growth we’d have experienced if we’d but spent the time poring over Your Word as often as Your Holy Spirit prompted us,
the Scripture we’d have stored in our memories if we’d just memorized all those memory verses You put in front of us,
the promises in Your Word we could have claimed if we’d but accepted Your challenges,
how close we could have been to You if we’d just confessed our sins as soon as Your Holy Spirit first convicted us,
the glory You would have received except we didn’t follow Your leading,
the people who should have gotten a personal witness from us whom we ignored,
the fruit that would have been produced in our lives except that we ignored what the Holy Spirit was telling us to do,
the light this world might have received except we were too concerned with ourselves,
the doors You opened that we could have gone through except we didn’t want to leave our comfort zone.

O Lord, we’re like the priest and the Levite (from the story of The Good Samaritan). We don’t help those who are in our path and are in obvious need—rather we roll up our car window, try not to look at them, make excuses, and think their sign is inappropriate.

O Lord, we’re like the Laodiceans who say they are rich and have need of nothing but, according to Jesus, are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked (list stolen from Amplified Bible, Rev 3:17).

O Lord Your Word says that whoever knows to do right and fails to do it, for him it is sin (James 4:17 the way I memorized it long ago). O Lord, we have sinned. Show us all we have left undone so we might rightly confess it and repent.

Then Lord, give us the strength of commitment to do everything Your Holy Spirit is telling us to do.

Amen