Expand your prayer habits and vocabulary by praying the prayers of the Bible. Some of those prayers are for special occasions or significant moments. Some of those prayers provide daily direction. Psalm 143 is a good daily prayer, particularly verses 8-10. Pray with me.

How can we hear of God’s unfailing love each morning? We can immediately turn our thoughts to him when awake. Our first words strung together into sentences, silently or aloud, should be a prayer of gratitude and expectation. King David prayed in verse 8, “I am trusting you.” The Message paraphrases this verse beautifully:

If you wake me each morning with the sound of your loving voice, I’ll go to sleep each night trusting in you.

Trust God each evening for rest. Thank him each morning for making it happen.

As David does so many times across the Psalms, he declares how God is his hiding place:

Save me from my enemies, God— you’re my only hope! 
Verse 9, The Message

God has a plan and a purpose for our lives. David activated that plan each morning by asking for necessary instruction and clear direction.

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing.
Verse 8, NLT

Read and pray the rest of the psalm for additional clarity. 

It takes time to create habits like this. Make time to develop this life-giving, God-honoring, destiny-shaping prayer habit. It will enrich your walk with God. It will empower your productivity and maximize your effectiveness. 

These are not magic words. These are words prayed by men and women, boys and girls, across the arc of history, which God preserved to teach us to pray. When we pray like this, we join with those who have known and experienced God and walked with him in daily dependence and delight. We learn how to pray, yes, and even more, we learn how to live. 

The psalms are words of people like us God has preserved as his words for us to teach us how to pray, how to live, and how to express our love for God and the people he places in our lives. 

Let us pray.

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I will learn to pray, to live, and to praise and thank God using the prayers of those who have known and experienced him across the ages. 

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Our Father, thank you for preserving for us a whole book within the Bible to teach us to pray. Thank you for this gift. May our last thoughts be shaped by these thoughts as we lie down to rest. May our first thoughts upon awakening find expression in these words long treasured and our own in full allegiance and confidence in who you are. Amen.