When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and pleas before his God. Dan. 6:10-11

Dear heavenly Father, I am so drawn to the heart which beat in Daniel’s breast—a heart filled with praise for you, not a preoccupation with his life. He just learned of a decree that anybody praying to any other god or man but King Darius would become lions’ lunch. So what did he do? The same thing he’d been doing for decades inBabylon. The windows are open, his knees are bent, his gaze is set; and even before he asks you for help, he offers you thanks. He’s neither paranoid nor presumptuous, but he’s most definitely at peace.

What freedom, what beauty, what intimacy with you, this aging, beloved servant of yours enjoyed. But why am I surprised? Haven’t you promised, “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green”? (Ps. 92:12-14)

Father, you never demanded that Daniel get on his knees three times a day. You didn’t have to—it was his delight. No government decree could keep him from praying to you, loving you, seeking you, worshiping you. He was much more committed to your eternal glory than to his personal survival. Your grace radically reoriented his life.

Father, I long for much more of Daniel’s peace and praise mark my life—no matter how difficult my circumstances, intense the spiritual warfare, or out of control my world may feel. For even as “the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”(1 Pet. 5:8), he’s already a defeated foe.

We live in the victorious day Daniel anticipated from afar. Indeed, your beloved Son, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed” (Rev. 5:5). Jesus is the Lion with whom I want to be thoroughly preoccupied—without any ultimate concern for any other kind of “lion’s den” into which I might be thrown.

Father, as I get older, please keep me fresh and green and fruitful through the gospel. Fill my heart with your glory and grace, freedom and hope; and use me however you choose, all the remaining days you give me in this, your world. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ magnificent and merciful name.

     When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? Ps. 56:3-4

Heavenly Father, as the reach of the internet keeps getting bigger, our world keeps getting smaller and a whole lot closer. More so than ever, I’ve realized I’ve got brothers and sisters all around the world who are clinging to you and to this Scripture in ways that deepen my compassion and fuel my prayers. Because of Jesus’ burden-bearing love for us, we now gladly bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2); and prayer is one of the primary ways we shoulder up and love well.

When King David offered this honest prayer of trust, he’d been seized by Philistines in Gath. As we pray, Father, here are some difficult, fear-producing storylines that are playing out in our world:

We pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Somalia, Maldives, Bhutan, Yemen, Vietnam, Laos, and China—the ten places in the world where Christians are most likely to be singled out for persecution. Father of mercies and God of all comfort, grant courage and protection, grace and joy to our faith family.

To quote King David, “What can mortals do to me?” Plenty, but in view of who you are and what really matters, very little—for “we have died, and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). As these Christians live out your redeeming story—in nations destined to be covered with the knowledge of your glory one Day, give them an overwhelming sense of your presence. May they be assured that their labors in the Lord are not in vain.

Father, we also pray for friends who wake up today with fear-producing medical reports; families with dwindling financial resources and employment challenges; parents, whose children who are living foolishly and destructively; women facing domestic and other types of abuse; children who are growing up in a world of trauma and terror…

Oh, Father, how we long, more than ever, for the Day when Jesus will return to finish making all things new. Until that Day, may your perfect love drive out our fears, and may we live and love to your glory. Show us how we might be, even today, a means by which you will answer our prayers for some of our friends with real fears. So very Amen we pray, Jesus’ merciful and mighty name.

     Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Heb. 7:24-25

Dear Lord Jesus, this grace-saturated, heart-freeing Scripture reminds me of an experience I had recently driving into my home state. Driving along Interstate 40, I came upon a billboard that pushed some buttons before it raised my palms. Just through the mountains of North Carolina, there it was, in bold, big, red letters: Are You Saved?

My first response was, “What an un-cool, cost-ineffective, out-of-date, impersonal way to do evangelism. People who put up highway signs like that are clueless about the gospel. They’re usually legalists, pragmatists and moralists, and they’re clueless about a theology of divine sovereignty and imputed righteousness. They’re culturally disengaged, politically conservative, narrow-minded, and they don’t realize what a turn-off that kind of signage is.”

But then your Spirit gently disrupted my arrogant signage tirade with this thought: “You completely avoided the question. Are you saved? And if you think you are, on what basis do you make such a bold claim?”

Humbled, I continued driving with both hands on the steering wheel, but my heart certainly reached heavenward in fresh thanksgiving; for, indeed, I am saved, Lord Jesus—unabashedly and unashamedly so. And there’s only one reason and there’s only one basis: I have come to God through you. You are the permanent priest who offered the perfect sacrifice for me, once and for all. You completed your work on the cross, and you will complete your work in me.

You live forever, and forever you live to thoroughly save me and your whole pan-national, trans-generational bride. Your life and death were given in substitution for me, and now I wear your righteousness and enjoy your advocacy before the Father. Am I saved? Most definitely and most delightfully!

I don’t have to like religious highway billboards, but may I never ever tire of responding to the question “Are you saved?”, for there’s no question more humbling to me and honoring of you. So very I pray, Lord Jesus, in your merciful and mighty-to-save name.

“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” John 4:29

Dear Lord Jesus, I wish I could’ve been present to hear this liberated woman recount the tale of her collision with the gospel—her story of meeting you and coming alive to the transforming power of grace (John 4:1-42). Her errand for water from Jacob’s well got hijacked by your provision of another kind of water—the living water that, alone, can slake the deepest thirst of our souls.

You exposed her as a woman who lived a life of sequential affairs. Yet instead of ridiculing her, you redeemed her; instead of condemning her, you cherished her; instead of shaming her, you saved her. There is no friend of sinners, like you Lord Jesus. No one is as welcoming of the broken; understanding of the weak; or liberating of the enslaved.

En route to the nations, you brought the gospel of the kingdom to the dark continent of her heart. As she stood vulnerably in the public square of her Samaritan community, she’d never been so free. No more need to pose or pretend. I wonder if some of the six men with whom she’d been heard her proclaim, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

Nothing but the gospel can free us for being thoroughly known without fear. Lord Jesus, your love is unlike anything else we can experience in this life. In fact, your love is better than life itself. We adore and praise you this day as the Christ—the Messiah, our Lenten Lord, the heart-knower, our holy lover, our righteousness from God, our only hope of glory!

You know every vain, foolish, and evil thought we’ve ever conceived; every lustful, greedy fantasy in which we’ve engaged. Only you hear every grace-robbing, grandstanding, gossipy word we speak. Only you know the broken cisterns of our choices—our idols, the many things to which we turn to find life somewhere else than in you. Yet you pursue us, welcome us, and love us, and you are changing us.

What a wonderful, merciful Savior you are, Jesus. Life, temporal and eternal, can only be found in you. So very Amen we pray, in your transcendent and transforming name.

     Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? . . . Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Rom. 7:21-24, 8:1-2

Dear Lord Jesus, we come before you today on behalf of our friends—men and women under enslaving and destructive influence of pornography. The gospel is the only power which is mighty and merciful enough to bring freedom and healing. This is why we come boldly to your throne of grace today, with great concern, but also with a great hope.

O Lord of resurrection and redemption, bring your kindness and strength to bear in clear and remarkable fashion. Things impossible for us are more than possible for you. You have come to set captives free and to heal the brokenhearted. Pornography is creating an overabundance of both. Sin has corrupted our godly desire for rich relationship and the beauty of intimacy, and we have become easy prey for destructive counterfeits.

Lord Jesus, for friends somewhere in the pornography continuum of titillation to addiction, we ask you to reveal yourself as a pursuing and redeeming Lord. We ask for the holy gift of godly sorrow, not the short-lived remorse of worldly sorrow. For your non-condemning love has great power to deliver those who cry, “Who will rescue me…?” (Rom. 7:24)

Lead them to that cry, Jesus. Where pornography has desensitized our friends, re-sensitize them by the life-giving and transforming power of your love. Your love humbles us without humiliating us; it delivers us without demonizing us; it gives us new life, and no mere second chance. How we praise you for your heart-compelling, fear-expelling, repentance-producing love.

For our friends who are married to someone in the talons of pornography, dear Jesus, theirs may be the greater pain and struggle. No one but you can help them with the anger and disgust, the shame and the broken trust that does with their heartache. Help us love our friends well. Show us how to validate their feelings without confirming hurt-driven conclusions. Grant them patience and perspective, forbearance and faith.

Only you can rebuild the trust. Only you, Jesus, can bring a willingness to hope again. Only you can heal the places in our hearts which have suffered the greatest violation and harm. Absolutely no one understands all this like you, Jesus, and absolutely no one redeem these messes but you. So very Amen we pray, in your great and glorious name.

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Gal. 5:1

Dear Lord Jesus, I’m still not nearly as free as you intend me to be. Though you’ve already freed me from trying to earn my salvation by anything I do, or based on anything in me; though you’ve already liberated me from the illusion that I can earn more of God’s love by ramping up my obedience and decreasing my foolishness; though the chains of condemnation have already been broken and the fears of death, Judgment Day, and the future have been sent packing—I’m still not as free as you intend.

I’m still a babe, a neophyte, a raw rookie in so many gospel freedoms. Only the gospel helps me see and acknowledge these things. Only your grace keeps me from going to shame and self-contempt as I offer these prayers.

Jesus, please free me so I can be less irritated, and less often, with fewer people. Please turn my hair-trigger reactions into slower, wiser responses. Help me use fewer words and more listening when engaging others. Please unshackle me from the illusion of control and my commitment to a pain-free heart. Free me for extravagant adoration of you and sacrificial giving to others.

Jesus, please liberate me from thinking about the next thing, so I can be present in the current moment. Please help me make better eye contact and heart connection with others. Please help me to be more intrigued with people I don’t know and less timid around strangers.

Jesus, please break even more of the chains of my insecurities. Please free me from the grave-clothes of feeling incompetent about important things in life. Please unfetter me from thinking too much about what I’m not, by showing me more of you and who I am in you. Set me free to share the gospel more regularly and take up a towel of servanthood more quickly.

Jesus, please free me for greater spontaneity, louder laughter, saltier tears, and quicker repentances. I want to be free, by your grace and for your glory. So very Amen I pray, in your powerful and loving name.

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Ps. 46:10-11

Sovereign Father, whenever I hear the command to “Be still,” my default mode takes me back to several elementary school teachers who consistently told me to “Sit still!” They had to, because I was a squirmy, restless little person. I had a hard time staying in my seat. But you’re telling me to be still, not sit still—and there’s a world and gospel of difference.

You’re not impatient or frustrated by your children—never irritated or exasperated with us. I’m not disrupting your classroom, but I do have a disrupted heart, and you notice and you care. I don’t feel anxious or fearful—though I’d freely acknowledge it if I did, before such a loving God as you. I do want to slow down on the inside, however.

I know that you’re with me and for me. I know this because of everything you’ve done for me in Jesus. You’re a fortress of comfort, for broken people like Jacob and me; you’re a haven of rest, a strong tower of grace, a fountain of mercy.

When I’m still, I remember that you are God, and nothing and no one else is. That’s the best news of this or any day. You have no competition—counterfeits, but no competition. There are demigods, semi-gods, wannabe gods, but only you are God.

Kings and nations are not God, for one Day you will be exalted among all the nations. The nations are like droplets in your bucket. Storms and environmental disasters are not God, for you will be exalted in the earth. You send the earthquake and harness the hurricane for your purposes.

Neither are our circumstances God, nor the opinions of others; nor is getting older, nor the choices of people I love, the mistakes I make and the sins I commit. In fact, the second most comforting news of the day is that I’m not God, though at times my attitude, prayerlessness, and unbelief would indicate a measure of self-worship.

Father, be exalted in the daily-ness of my today. Let me see your hand and heart at work in everything. I don’t want to be a practical atheist about anything, not any little thing. You are working all things together after the counsel of your will. You are working in all things for the good of those who love you, and that means me, but only because you first loved me in Jesus.

I probably won’t sit still, but because the gospel is true, I will be still. With palms up in surrender and praise, I enter this day. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ excellent and exalted name.

Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Acts 1:24

Dear heavenly Father, there are so many things attributed to you in the Scriptures that are clearly not our domain, calling or business. Heart-knowing is one of them. We often speak of being drawn to someone’s heart, or of being offended, confused, or shut out from their heart; but only you really know what’s in each of our hearts.

That’s why we pray with humility and joy, “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Ps. 139:23), for we cannot and must not trust our own diagnosis. There’s nothing more deceitful on the face of the earth than the heart, including our hearts (Jer. 17:9). Only you understand the ways of the heart, Father. Only you can cure its great sickness.

Sometimes we think of ourselves much more highly than we ought—so wanting to believe we’re more like Jesus than reality affirms. Sometimes we fall into shame and contempt, and act like strangers to your mercy and grace—like orphans without a loving Father above or your consoling Spirit within. Sometimes we just think about ourselves too often, period. Way too often we arrogantly assume we know what’s in the hearts of others—playing judge and jury, warden and executioner. Forgive us and free us from such meanness and madness.

Father, here’s our sure and only hope: Through Jesus, you’ve already sprinkled clean water on us and have declared us to be clean. You’ve cleansed us from our impurities and are freeing us from our idols. You’ve already given us a new heart and placed your Spirit within us. You removed our stony hearts and gave us hearts of flesh—hearts that beat for you and your glory (Ezek. 36:24-27). What a generous and powerful God you are!

And you will complete this good work you’ve begun in each of us and in all of creation (Phil. 1:6). Justified sinners are destined to be your glorified children (Rom. 8:30). Oh, how we praise you for the peace and assurance we enjoy, all because the gospel is true. Help us to walk in greater humility before you and in observable kindness toward one another. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ loving and heart-transforming name.

     Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15

Dear heavenly Father, you haven’t made us for “fifteen minutes in the spotlight,” but for an eternity of glorifying you and enjoying you forever. As this day begins, I praise you for such a hope and future—a future that’s already begun for us in Jesus. Our eternal life began the day you “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 2:6), to the praise of your glorious grace (Eph. 1:6).

Yet, Father, these verses in James remind us that our lifespan in this body isn’t very long at all. We’re more like a brief mist than an aging oak. I feel this more than ever, and I’m both sobered and gladdened by the thought. Life in the new heaven and new earth has never looked so good; so equally true, the gospel of your grace has never seemed to precious and huge.

So how would you have me live the rest of my “misty moment”? Only you know when I’ll “vanish” from this body. Only you know what’ll happen tomorrow. I’ll keep on planning, but it’s you who orders my steps (Prov. 16:9); there’s so much peace in that affirmation, so much. Your sovereignty is my sanity…

Father, in light of the gospel, what should I spend more time doing and less time doing? What have I been putting off that really matters to you? With whom do I need to spend more face-to-face and heart-to-heart time? Who am I still holding hostage by the chains of my unforgiveness and bitterness? What am I allowing to bug me that isn’t all that “bug-worthy”? Where should I invest more of your money and less of my worries?

Father, I praise you that I’m not going to merit any more of your affection by doing a better job with any of these things. None of these questions has a scorecard attached to it. It’s Jesus’ performance and record I boast in, but your grace frees me to ask the right questions and live a freer, more intentional life. You make my “gospel bucket list” for me. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ matchless and magnificent name.

     But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Sam. 16:7

Dear heavenly Father, I’m thankful we live in an age that affords us all kinds of options for correcting faulty or failing vision. Yet there’s an ophthalmological corrective than can only take place as the gospel does its work on the eyes of our heart.

Even if we could see with 20/15 or 20/10 vision, if we’re only focusing on the “outward appearance” of people and things, we’re still not seeing as you intend. My plea? Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, so that I may see Jesus—and as I see Jesus more clearly, help me see everything else from his perspective. Enable me to see all things and people through the lens of grace.

     Help me to see people with gospel eyes. Father, help me to see people’s dignity, brokenness and your image in them—not just the things that irritate or inconvenience me. When I’m tempted to view people primarily in terms of how they might harm or help me, expand my vision beyond my experience to your larger story of redemption and restoration. Help me to see what you see in my spouse, children, friends, even in total strangers.

Help me to see world events with gospel eyes. Father, may the occupied throne of heaven always be in my vision, every time I hear or read world news. Don’t let me be so myopic as to see international events only in terms of my nation and tribe. You’re always working all things together according to the counsel of your will, period.

     Help me to see creation with gospel eyes. Father, don’t let me look at the ocean, mountains, stars, sunrises and sunsets, flora and fauna, or even weather patterns just in terms of me and my plans. As you heal the eyes of my heart, enable me to see your heart and handiwork everywhere. Free me to live more as a worshipful steward of your creation and less as a selfish consumer of the things you have made.

     Help me to see pain and suffering with gospel eyes. Father, sometimes looking at all the crucibles, crises, and cruel stories of life makes me want to run, hide, fix, or deny. Help me to see with the eyes of Jesus, when overwhelming need and one more heartbreaking story is staring me down. Free me to worship more and whine less—to trust and obey, and not just analyze and pontificate. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ healing and compassionate name.