Pastoral Prayer

by Charles Killian,  Asbury Theological Seminary Professor 1970-2004

I remember the noted George Buttrick saying to us preachers, “If you are so busy that you have to make a choice between preparing your sermon or preparing your pastoral prayer, make sure you prepare your prayer.” When questioned about that response, he added, “Remember to Whom the prayer is addressed.” 

Over the years, I have attempted to make that my resolve. Here and there, with some help along the way, that has been my practice. So, I leave you with a prayer…

O God, it occurs to us, that our prayers are sometimes one-sided. So today our prayer is not only for the usual things we pray for, but also for the opposite things.

We pray today not only for the sick but for the well, lest pride rule happy hearts. We pray not only for the poor but also for the rich who find it so hard to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We pray not only for the troubled but also for the favored ones, lest peace with the world be confused with the peace of God. We pray not only for the dying but also for the living, since they face eternity as well.

We pray not only for the burdened but also for the casual, lest indolence rot the soul.  We pray for not only the President of our country but also the people—the people, yes—because it is they who pay for misrule when it comes.  We pray not only for missionaries on foreign shores, but also for the rest of us who still don’t know that in Christ there is no east or west, north or south, but one great human family in a house that grows smaller and smaller by the years.

We pray not only for ministers of the Gospel, but also for people of the gospel, since all who believe are called to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. We pray not only for fair weather, but also for bad weather, since nature is impartial and often prodigal, and human estimates of good  and bad do not count. We pray not only sinners to turn and be saved, but also for the rest of us who think we have no sin and are in greater need of penitence and healing. And finally, Lord, we pray not only for others, but also for ourselves, because salvation and righteousness begins at the household of God.  Amen